In This Episode
Under the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon is in disarray. From a lack of transparency on extrajudicial strikes in the Caribbean, to the Signalgate scandal, to kicking out the Pentagon press corp – this administration has put a leader at the helm who is both embarrassing and a threat to national security. This week, Alex hears from The Atlantic’s Nancy Youssef about what it’s like covering the defense beat without access to the Pentagon. She also speaks to Senator Elissa Slotkin, who has told service members that they are not obligated to follow unconstitutional orders, and been targeted by President Trump for doing so. Then Alex and Pod Save the World host Ben Rhodes break down what kind of reputational damage Hegseth is doing to America’s image abroad, and what dangerous precedents are being set for authoritarian countries to follow.
TRANSCRIPT
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Hi everyone. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has had a brutal last few weeks. He reportedly ordered the military to kill survivors of a boat strike in the Caribbean, which is a potential war crime. He risked the safety of American troops, according to his own department’s inspector general. At least that was the conclusion of a report on Signalgate, the scandal Hegseth himself created when he shared classified details about military strikes in Yemen over an insecure private app. And Hegseth torched the First Amendment last month when he dictated new press rules at the Pentagon, ones that led to the majority of the actual press corps being forced out of the building and being replaced with right wing stenographers posing as journalists. Man, time flies when you are completely unqualified to lead the government’s largest employer, doesn’t it? Anyone could be forgiven for laughing at Pete Hegseth’s clownishness, but the reality here is pretty chilling. The Trump administration’s total disregard for the Constitution, as well as its brazen lawlessness in general, is extreme enough that some members of a co equal branch of government, the legislative branch, have begun reminding people serving in national security and defense that they can refuse illegal orders.
Elissa Slotkin: American’s trust their military. / That trust is at risk./ This administration is pitting our uniform military—/ And intelligence community professionals./ Against American citizens. / Like us. You all swore an oath— / To protect and defend this constitution. / Right now, the threats to our constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home. / Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. / You can refuse illegal orders. / You must refuse illegal orders. / No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution.
Alex Wagner: Those are the voices of Senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and Representatives Chrissy Houlahan, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Jason Crow, all of whom are former military or intelligence personnel. They know better than anyone. If the world’s most powerful military is being co-opted for unlawful ends, it could very well destroy the country from the inside out. [music plays] I’m Alex Wagner, and this week on Runaway Country, we’re talking about what in the hell is happening right now at the Pentagon, whether there is anything to be done about it, and what this means for America’s standing around the world. And we have three great conversations for you this week, including Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, who organized that video you just heard, which is called Don’t Give Up the Ship. Senator Slotkin is a former CIA analyst and assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon.
Elissa Slotkin: Frankly, when I was a CIA officer, I used to study other countries that would do these kinds of things.
Alex Wagner: She has spoken out about the [coughs] dysfunction at the Pentagon, and she has been a huge critic of both the boat strikes and Signalgate. This has, unsurprisingly, put her in the crosshairs of the president and his allies. We’re also talking to my friend Ben Rhodes, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor, and most importantly, a fellow crooked host over here at Pod Save the World.
Ben Rhodes: There’s no imminent threat on a speedboat like hundreds of miles from the United States. So if he can just say that these are terrorists that can blow up, who can’t he say that about?
Alex Wagner: Ben weighs in on the reputational damage the U.S. Is suffering with someone like Pete Hegseth at the helm and a Pentagon that’s kind of a Pentagoner. Sorry, Ben. My words, not yours. But first, I want to start off with someone who has experienced the Department of War’s dysfunction firsthand. Someone who is at the center of these headlines, or at least writing them. Nancy Youssef has covered national security for over two decades for a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal and now The Atlantic. In October, the Pentagon released 21 pages, 21, of new restrictions for journalists who report on their operations, including barring journalists from most of the building and limiting reporters’ inquiries to Pentagon sources. Nancy, along with hundreds of other reporters from credible publications, surrendered her press pass after the restrictions were enacted instead of bowing to the new authoritarian rules. Side note, the only quote-unquote “press” that has signed on to the restrictions are a group of pro-Trump outlets and quote-unquote “reporters” like Matt Gaetz and Laura Loomer. I know. So we asked Nancy to share what it’s like to try and report on all this lawlessness and controversy from outside the walls of the Pentagon and how journalists are holding our Secretary of War accountable as he pulls the strings on a department with a $2 trillion budget. Here’s our conversation. Thank you for doing this.
Nancy Youssef: Thanks for having me.
Alex Wagner: Yeah. I’ve been following your workplace dramas, to put it mildly [laughter] on The Atlantic. And I guess I just want to first start. We we were talking so much about what’s happening at I it’s very hard for me to call it the Department of War. Maybe you have to because this is officially your beat, but the Department of Defense seems like it’s in I don’t know, it’s a it’s in the middle of a it’s a kind of a shit show over there to be blunt. I wonder how it has been since you all effectively left the building under duress, basically. They were you were being asked to do things that very much violate core principles of journalism, to say nothing of the First Amendment. What’s it been like to do the work not inside the building, covering the Department of War at this critical juncture?
Nancy Youssef: So we call it the eviction among the press corps because that’s how we experienced it. And just to walk listeners through it real quickly, that what the Pentagon was asking us to do was to say that if we wanted to keep reporting inside the building, we had to sign an agreement that included two key stipulations. One, that we would agree to not publish anything outside of what the Pentagon approved to be released, and two, the release of information, even unclassified information, could potentially pose a security threat. And so for us, as you know, those were rules we couldn’t stipulate to. And so we left on October 15th. And then in the last few weeks, we’ve seen the Pentagon really be in the front lines of news coverage with pertaining to these strikes. I will say on the positive, I think there have been extraordinary stories by my colleagues throughout that period. I think everybody’s working a little harder to get those stories.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Nancy Youssef: Because you lose sort of the ability to talk to people face to face, to pick up the sort of granularity that happens when you’re walking the hallways of a building. You know, we people often ask us, for example, are strikes in Venezuela imminent? I could answer that question confidently before because you could feel it in the building when when strikes were happening.
Alex Wagner: Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean?
Nancy Youssef: So, like, for example, when the serious strikes happened in 2017. You know, you can look out at the parking lot, or car’s still there at six o’clock, or a few people still in the parking lot. Sometimes you’d see people running down the hallways, sometimes you’d see it on their faces or headed to a particular meeting. Sometimes you just kind of get a hint from someone walking by the hallways, don’t leave early tonight. Those kinds of things that told you something was imminent. And that’s the kind of view that we’ve lost. And so we can’t give you a solid sense in terms of something’s imminent or not, because we’re we’re we don’t we’ve lost that that sensory experience. You know, if if if you know, journalism is an experience of senses, we’ve we’ve in some ways lost our sense of sight, right? Because we can’t see it or feel it the way that we did before. I I think my colleagues are working harder because it is harder to get information because there’s less information coming out. And in that time we’ve also seen that they have named journalists to their sort of a new press corps as they’re referring to it, who have been allowed access to the building because they’ve agreed to these rules. And the thing that I see personally is that it’s leading to sort of a two-track approach to news that and I want to be clear, I think contradictory approaches to the Pentagon is a wonderful thing and different viewpoints. I think that’s important and necessary. But because only some people are getting information, any kinds of information, and some people aren’t, that we’re seeing the information presented to readers on two different you could two different planes. And so coverage of these strikes or or even more pointedly on on Signalgate, if you read one version of stories, the the secretary was totally exonerated. If you read another version, he released very dangerous information on Signal that could have put troops in harm’s way. So those are sort of the initial things that I’ve seen.
Alex Wagner: Well, it’s generous of you to suggest that a robust set of viewpoints is I mean, and I generally I agree with that, but he basically has court stenographers that he’s brought in. And we’re talking about Matt Gaetz and Laura Loomer who now have Pentagon press passes. And it is propaganda. I mean, the inspector generals or the report that came out about Signalgate, which was the secretary’s sharing of classified information on unclassified channels, including with people who did not have the security clearance, the report found that he wasn’t exonerated. And to suggest otherwise is to just basically adopt a line that is was constructed by the secretary and the def— and the defense department to basically insulate him from criticism at at best. I so I I mean I I I am am curious about the way in which this sort of what is it? What the eviction? Has had a practical of you know, so you have it’s not only that you guys aren’t seeing, you know, and and able to report in that sort of granular level and in an almost an anticipatory way what could be happening next. I would w— it’s also that there’s this kind of like strange parallel Earth to universe where there’s an official Pentagon press corps and they’re just spitting out propaganda on behalf of the the secretary and his minions. That that seems double like increasingly problematic. It’s not just that you guys don’t have the access. It’s that the people who do are arguably doing maybe bad things in the name of journalism.
Nancy Youssef: So I am never the optimist. I’m a little optimistic. And I’ll tell you why. The the journalism that has been produced has been amazing. And so you’re look, it’s I I kept describing when I was watching the press conference. I don’t know if you remember there was an episode of Friends. The opening scene is they walk into the coffee shop and there are six people who look like them, but they’re not them sitting on the couch and they just sort of pause, stop and walk out. That’s how it felt to me. Like you’re watching this, you’re like, All right. So it’s weird. Don’t get me wrong.
Alex Wagner: Wait, so who’s playing you? I’m just kidding.
Nancy Youssef: I d on’t know. I don’t think it was just like you’re watching that’s what it that’s what it felt like. Like, all right. But I really admire the commitment of the press corps because we were there there this is such an important story. We’re talking about US strikes on on these boats off of the shores of Venezuela and we’re not getting information. But I’m seeing such determination to get information out, such resiliency. I think where the practical challenge comes in is when you can’t sort of talk to someone face to face, when you can’t even get them on the phone, when you can’t sort of knock on their door, it’s hard to sort of say, tell me why you know this, tell me what on the basis what you’re saying. This the other thing is that it’s created a climate where people don’t feel the need or responsibility to share things the way they once did, because we’re not there in their face, sort of pushing for it. And so it’s it’s it’s harder to get information. I cannot stress this enough. It is so much harder to get information. But but I think you’ve seen a press corps that has been doubling down on its commitment to get it to you. And so that’s what makes me hopeful. I I I keep comparing journalism to sort of being in a big room with a very small flashlight.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Nancy Youssef: And what happened is the aperture got smaller.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Nancy Youssef: And and that’s the best way I can describe it.
Alex Wagner: Yeah. You know, immediately after the eviction, there are some sort of mid level officers and people that work at the Pentagon who kind of reach out and in and they’re worried about sort of what this all portends for them, but also they they sound notes of solidarity with the work of journalism. How how is that you know, I would assume these are you know obviously off the record conversations, so I don’t want you to divulge anything that you’re not comfortable with. But how is the tenor of those conversations continued? I mean, the news out of the Pentagon is so bad on so many fronts, whether it’s the boat strikes, whether it’s Signalgate and the reports finding, whether it’s, you know, Hegseth’s and his ineptitude in general, the potential committing of war crimes. Have you seen people continue to, you know, reach out in solidarity? I know the job is difficult, but what’s been the sort of mood? What’s been the communique from inside to the outside world?
Nancy Youssef: It’s such a great question. There’s less of it, frankly. I think people are fearful. And what we hear, because we’re not there anymore, is that increasingly there are sort of two camps within the building. And I’m talking about the Pentagon specifically, because I think when you get out to bases and installations, this dynamic is there, but not as much. People who are on board with what’s happening and people who are fearful to say that they’re not. And so we’re hearing from fewer of those people. And when they do speak up, they I’m struck by how many times they’ll sort of volunteer those who are sort of in that latter camp to say, I I don’t know how much longer I can be here. So it’s become much more sort of personal in terms of their experience, whereas it was much more sort of neutral in the past. I I didn’t know people’s political positions before. And now, without asking, I do because it’s become part of the experience of the of the building in a way that didn’t exist a few years ago. And I want to be clear, I’m not saying that the Pentagon was some pristine apolitical place, but it just wasn’t as much of a part of how people thought about their jobs, I feel like a few years ago as they do now.
Alex Wagner: Well, ironically, the the weaponization of the federal government is occurring very much under President Trump for partisan ends. And perhaps that’s spurred people to suggest that they don’t want to be part of it. And that in and of itself is a political statement. Do you do you feel I know I I I I can I am with you in the both optimism and the sort of congratulations, the the flowers that are due, reporters like yourself and everybody else who’s doing the very hard and essential work of journalism in this climate. Are you at all concerned that the American public has not sort of understood the gravity of the situation as it concerns the freedom of the press and the war over information? Or are you, I don’t know, where does your optimism ex does your optimism optimism extend to the the reading public and their, you know, comprehension that what’s happening right now is not normal?
Nancy Youssef: I I have to be honest, I toggle back and forth. There are some days I’m so worried about it, and I don’t feel like people sort of understand how much less information we’re getting. But then I see the feedback we get on the boat strikes and the the desire for details, the expectations of accountability, and it leaves me a little bit more hopeful. But to your specific point, I don’t think people sort of fully understand the depth of it. I think it would how it manifests is people sort of making assessments based on less information. I think a lot of readers and listeners are confused about these strikes. Why are they happening? Why were these boats hit? What made it such that that that that second strike was so controversial? We’re not able to give them as many details as I would like so that they can decide for themselves and make their own assessment about whether this was a legitimate military strike or not, because we’re getting less information. And so I don’t know if readers are aware of it. Sometimes I feel like they are, and sometimes I I worry that they’re not, and that the way that they’re projecting it is to actually just have a distrust of information broadly because they don’t know how to trust it. And that’s where my worry comes in, that our inability to answer questions that they have the reasonable expectation to get leaves them more distrustful, both of government, but also those of us tasked with providing them information about what government is doing.
Alex Wagner: I have to ask you because this clip sort of went viral. Kingsley Wilson is the press secretary for DoD. And when the new crop of Earth to core stenographers came into the building, Kingsley explained why these sort of new restrictions were necessary and went into some some detail about how much, you know, DoD stuff was being pestered and harassed by the old journalists. This is the clip wherein that was all explained. Let’s take a listen to that first.
[clip of Kingsley Wilson]: The Pentagon Press Corps, the former Pentagon Press Corps, I should say, basically had free reign of the building. They were able to go wherever they wanted. My first weeks here, they just waltzed in my office, rang my doorbell literally nonstop. My doorbell was going off probably every single second because they were just trying to come in, trying to hang out, would push their way in. If someone else came in for a meeting, would just follow them along and plop down and sit down. So they definitely had zero boundaries. And like you said, there were instances where they were hanging outside of the secretary’s office trying to see who he was meeting with, if they could eavesdrop and hear anything. They were doing the same thing to the chairman and to other officials, trying to do sort of congressional style stakeouts. This is not Congress, this isn’t the people’s house, this is the Pentagon.
Alex Wagner: What do you make of that argument. What do you make of her observations?
Nancy Youssef: I I I’m I guess this ages me. I don’t know, but ringing the doorbell of the press secretary, yeah, yeah, we did that. Asking questions, yes, we did that. She didn’t say we were rude, that we were unprofessional. She said that we were persistent. And that’s what we should be. That’s what we should be. That’s the job. If you get the awesome responsibility of putting American children in harm’s way, if you get the awesome power of deploying ships around the world, you would think questions for me is chump change. That’s a that’s a layup in the grand scheme of things. So I don’t understand why that speaks to bad journalism. I would hope that you would want us in there asking questions. If she had said we yell, we we’re we take cheap shots. She didn’t say that. She said that we rang the doorbell. We’re in the hallways, rang the doorbell. Yes, we did, but we did it professionally. And I personally have no apologies for that. You bet we did, because that is the job.
Alex Wagner: Welcome to the big leagues, Kingsley Wilson. [laughter]
Nancy Youssef: To me, when you get more than a trillion dollars, there are gonna be tough questions and uncomfortable questions. And and I just as an aside, I have found that the generals who or admirals who are objectively sort of deemed successful welcome our questions and scrutiny. They don’t shy away from it. I I don’t wanna call anyone out, but there have been generals and admirals who have urged us to push back at their assertions or challenge their assumptions. But I don’t even think her conversation got that far. It was that we’re annoying, guilty, yes, yes. I’m sorry. Yes, we are.
Alex Wagner: Yeah. In other worlds, it would be described as tenacious and inquisitive. The work is already so hard as it is. The stakes are so high. And the fact that you guys basically have to, for lack of a better term, reinvent the wheel, right? In a moment of just extraordinary developments and just a quickly changing environment. It’s like right on, sister. Go get it, go get it.
Nancy Youssef: Well, I it’s so kind of you to say. And I just want to know, it really is for our press corps a love of the subject matter and telling people about it and making it tangible. You know, less than one percent of Americans serve in the military. Very few know anything about it. And I think we all feel a responsibility to make it a tangible government agency. This is one that in total our defense is more than a trillion dollars. And so it’s it’s that I think the collective love among us for the reader, for the listener, that keeps us going. It’s and and I just I know I’ve said this before, but that that the the commitment of this press corps has been really, really wonderful to watch. And I I the days where I kind of get down, somebody comes through with a great story with great journalism that kind of gives you that boost to keep going. And so I feel really, really lucky to be a part of this press corps. It is harder. I miss being in the building, but I’m really proud of the group that has come out of this beat and how how we’re collectively sort of tackling this this problem set.
Alex Wagner: Well, we’re all so just eternally grateful. And we hope you find a backdoor entrance or a basement that’s unlocked sometime in the coming months. Because Lord knows there’s a lot to cover. Nancy, thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for taking time out of like the very difficult, challenging and and and really what’s being done in our name as Americans overseas, and domestically, it seems.
Nancy Youssef: Well, thank you.
Alex Wagner: It’s great to talk with you.
Nancy Youssef: And thank you for your show. I really appreciate it.
Alex Wagner: Of course. I mean, that’s I’m doing the easy lift. You’re doing the hard lift, Mama. When we come back, my conversation with Senator Elissa Slotkin.
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Senator Slotkin can you have matters of great import to be taken care of, so I’m deeply appreciative of you’re taking time to chat here. I first wanna start with the video that you made with some colleagues in Congress. And the aftermath of that was that you got death threats. The president called for you to be hanged. Pete Hegzeth, I think, threatened a military investigation, irony of ironies. In the days since you and your team have dug up old clips of the Secretary of War talking about the importance of refusing illegal orders. And I just wanna listen to those first before we get into the conversation. So so let’s just just hear Pete Hegseth from back in the vault.
[clip of Pete Hegseth]: Military’s not gonna follow illegal orders. And so the Trump campaign was forced to change their position and say, We’re gonna try to change the law so that the military can operate within the law. That’s a tall order also. If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and and and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander-in-chief. There there’s a standard, there’s an ethos, there’s a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do.
Alex Wagner: Okay, what? So he seems to understand the concept. How do you sort of explain the U-turn between understanding that the military should not obey unlawful orders and then asking the military to take out unlawful orders and then threatening death for those who who raise a criticism about it?
Elissa Slotkin: You know, I honestly, I mean, when we found the 2016 video, it’s like I I agree. I mean, the the the 2016 Pete Hegseth and I, Major Hegseth and I agree with each other, right? But 2025 obviously is a different story. And I think it’s just kind of part and parcel of this bigger thing that’s happened in Washington, for people who just see politics as zero sum. And so, you know, if my side’s doing it, it’s legal and right and I’m gonna defend it and punch and bully. But if I if if I do it, then it’s it you know, do you know what I mean? It’s just like it’s I, I I will I have no center of gravity on what I actually believe.
Alex Wagner: A moral compass. Yeah.
Elissa Slotkin: Yeah, it’s just about what I think is winning. And I think that’s, you know, I’ve I certainly know a lot of Republicans like that. I know some Democrats like that. And both are wrong, frankly, when it comes to that, because there has to be some standards, some common values. And we should be able to call a spade a spade when something is unlawful, right? Especially when it comes to the rule of law. So that’s how I I feel about it is is the 2016 Pete Hegseth Pete Hegseth would disagree vehemently with the 2025 Pete Hegseth, but they’re two different animals because one is in power now and and wasn’t in power then.
Alex Wagner: Well yeah, the corrupting influence of power and apparently Donald Trump. I have have service members been reaching out to you since you first started posting the video?
Elissa Slotkin: That’s why we did it. Yeah I mean, it was there was so much juju in the system of people in uniform coming to all six of us and saying, first and foremost, like, hey, I’m about to be sent with the guard into Chicago or LA or wherever, and I’m worried I’m gonna be asked to do something that is not lawful that I I shouldn’t be doing. And then this fall, it really, you know, bloomed into people from SOCOM people involved in the operations in the Caribbean and the the, you know, plus up around Venezuela, who were like, Hey, I’m being asked to do operations, but they won’t let me see like the legal justification for these and like, am I gonna be held personally liable if later on someone else says that these are illegal? Just a lot of stress in the system.
Alex Wagner: Wh— how do you think the treatment by the White House of Admiral Bradley, who is commanding the forces that actually carried out the strike? It seems pretty clear they want to throw him under the bus and exonerate the Secretary of Defense and say, Well, this is his call. I mean, it was a right call, but it was his call. I mean, how do you think that informs the service members that you’ve heard from and even those that you haven’t who are contemplating, okay, do I just do what they ask me to do and beg for a pardon or suffer the consequences, or do I actually stop knowing that like it very well may be lawful and they’ll try and hang it on me? I mean, I’m just how have you thought about those people in the context of the recent actions by the administration?
Elissa Slotkin: Yeah, I think again this is part of why we made the video because it’s putting people in an impossible situation.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Elissa Slotkin: Right. Military is a chain of command organization. You are literally trained, like your superior says, run up that hill, you run up that hill. And you don’t really ask why. And so it it’s really asking a lot of like a young, you know, 25-year-old to be making these decisions. And I think it’s what what has happened when yes, talking about, you know, well, this was Bradley’s call and that’s all him, but imagine all the other purges that we’ve seen go on. I think we’ve had 18 or 19 general officers, people that that in people in uniform really look up to, you know, myself included.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Elissa Slotkin: Who have just been summarily removed or early retired. And so it that sends a message like if you don’t agree with these guys, even when you’re very senior, you’re gonna be pushed out. Or in this case with Bradley, that if something goes wrong, they’re gonna be real quick to blame a uniform.
Alex Wagner: God. It’s just brutal.
Elissa Slotkin: Yeah. It’s very tough.
Alex Wagner: What is surprising to me, I mean, it’s I guess on some level it it shouldn’t be surprising because this administration and this president in particular never admits when he makes a mistake, never sort of suggests that there are, you know, alternate points of view that maybe should have been brought into focus around the decision-making process. But on the boat strikes in particular, they they seem to be doubling down, right? It’s like one boat strike happens and and instead of sort of trying to issue any kind of guidance about how and why it happened or evidence that these were actually narco-terrorists, they’re just like, oh yeah, and PS, we we lost we just destroyed a boat in the Pacific.
Elissa Slotkin: Mm-hmm.
Alex Wagner: What do you what do you think that behavior suggests in terms of their feelings of guilt or culpability or that they’re not representing American values? I mean, they just seem to be doubling down on all of this.
Elissa Slotkin: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a tactic. I actually think most Americans, you know, or certainly most adults, know someone in their life who like when they’ve done something wrong and they don’t want to take accountability, they double down the other one.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, my seven-year-old.
Elissa Slotkin: Right. Yeah. Like I I think, I think we all know people like that. And I think that’s Pete Hegseth’s go-to move, right? And I think whether it’s Signalgate, you know, which was a problem, you know, it he put people at risk by putting sensitive operational details out on the open internet. But honestly, if he had just come out and been like, that was a mistake, shouldn’t have done it. It’s against DoD policy, and I shouldn’t have put that out there. I would expect the same standards from myself that I would, you know, force upon any of those in uniform. And so I’m taking accountability. We would not be talking about it today. There wouldn’t have been an IG report, but the doubling down is the move that just boomerangs on them. And I think people have now seen that as a pattern of behavior, just a lack of accountability for for Pete Hegseth. And I’ve worked for a lot of secretaries of defense, you know, Democrat and Republican, very proudly. And the one thing they all have in common is they kind of own their their shit. You know, they they lots of bad things happen, complicated things happen, scandals happen under different secretaries of defense, and they they come out and they say, This was a mistake. And I’m the decision maker, I’m the boss, I’m gonna take accountability. Or leave.
Alex Wagner: In addition to what this sort of suggests about, you know, America and its values and the sort of indictment it is of I I don’t know, our our president and and those that serve him. I I kind of wonder what it is like to be a representative of the United States government who’s standing up against all of this. You I mean, you now are you are someone who has gone out there publicly and had the president of the United States suggest that you should be hanged, that this is treasonous behavior. I’m sure that did not come with you know, that wasn’t just a a tree falling in the forest that nobody heard. I what is what is it like to be trying to do what you’re doing in this moment when the stakes are so extraordinarily high and the president himself has put a target on your back?
Elissa Slotkin: I mean, look, it I think it’s unfortunate, but it is a sign of of how broken our politics are that the president can, you know, say these things from the White House, and then go the second step of weaponizing the federal government against us, right? An FBI inquiry and you know, potential military investigation for for Senator Kelly, like that’s the one to punch. That frankly, when I was a CIA officer, I used to study other countries that would do these kinds of things, right? And we would talk about how much stress these these democracies were under because of the behavior of leaders like this. And obviously I wouldn’t wish these security situations on on anybody. When the president says you should be killed, you should hear what the average citizen with mental health challenges does. I mean, so we have 24/7 security and and your family gets threatened. I think that one, you know, I I can handle quite a bit, but you come from my family and it is just a whole different situation. And then you know, I I think you know, and then the whole thing of like you gotta like get a lawyer and figure out how you’re gonna pay someone to defend you because the government that I worked for proudly. That I believe in to my core is now being weaponized against me. So I think for a lot of us, we don’t I don’t love talking about it because I’m thinking about the young people who were like, maybe one day I’ll run for office. You know, our country needs good leaders. We desperately need good people to run for office, right? You can’t turn chicken shit into chicken salad. I need good candidates who care about their country to run. And I just feel like, you know, I try to not talk about it as much because I think about that young 28 year old woman with small kids who thinks maybe one day I’ll run and says, Well, you know what? Who why do I need that probably?
Alex Wagner: God, that’s such a I mean, yeah, the generationally chilling effect all of this has on future leaders. Do you think anything changes? I have to ask you because we’re sort of in the middle of a new news cycle that’s developing, and there’s a lot of talk about the video of the second strike on the boat in outside in the waters of the Caribbean that killed the two survivors. There’s talk of that video being released, or there’s now calls for it to be released. And I wonder sort of where you sit on that issue and whether you think that’s something that reasonably could happen in the next few weeks.
Elissa Slotkin: Yeah, I mean, I think again, if they had just come forward to the Armed Services Committee and said, look, you know, we’re starting this new effort. Here’s what it’s about. Here’s the legal justification. Here’s the list of groups. Here’s the intel behind that list. If they’d just been transparent, then I think, again, this wouldn’t maybe be the issue that it’s become, but they’ve done this to themselves. They’ve put out a video on pretty much every strike that they’ve done, including that September 2nd strike, just only part of the strike, right? So there’s no excuse that, like, uh oh, we can’t let someone see how the our military operates. You know, this isn’t about sources and methods or operational approach. You’ve released the videos. And and at this point, they should just release it. I mean, just put it out so that we can move on. And I think the the truth is now that there’s information about and we had been hearing this in the system, that there was a separate strike later on in October where there were also survivors, and those survivors were very quickly sent back to their home countries. Clearly, there’s been a change in guidance between September 2nd and October 28th or 29th when this second strike with survivors happened. And maybe there were more strikes with with survivors, we don’t know. But clearly the guidance was changed after September 2nd. And so then again, just say, like, look, this is what we did. We’re gonna follow all laws, we changed our policy, and and we’re not you know, now we’re gonna repatriate any survivors. Whatever the answer is. But they they double down, they punch, they say nothing to see here, and it’s like it it we’re not stupid. You know, we know that the more you protest about putting this video out, the more people think there’s something exciting in the video.
Alex Wagner: Epstein. [coughs] The protest itself is indicative of maybe potentially being compromised. Part of the reason we know about this stuff is because the Trump administration is putting it out there. I mean, they really Trump Truth Truth Socialed the first video, and that’s how we know about it. You worked inside the Pentagon for a long time, and now there’s no real press court inside that building, right? And I just wonder how much we should be concerned that the people tasked with getting the truth from an administration that has proved incredibly reluctant to be honest with the American public, that those people are no longer in the building. And at the beginning of the show, we’re interviewing Nancy Youssef from The Atlantic, who has decades of experience reporting from there. And she’s saying, look, we’re still doing our jobs, but it is infinitely harder. And I worry about our ability to really get granular and really understand what is specifically happening in our name. Are you how worried are you? I mean, as someone with experience interacting with the press and seeing kind of what that relationship is like, how diluted is the effort to get gain transparency for an administration that’s particularly opaque?
Elissa Slotkin: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously the press have a role. Freedom of speech has a role in a democracy. And that shouldn’t be like a unusual thing to say, right? That should be standard. And I think by kicking out the press corps, and you know, people don’t always know that there’s press who cover the State Department, there’s press who cover the White House, there’s press who cover the defense department. So this is just a standard thing that’s happened since long before the Department of Defense was created, right? There’s been folks who have focused focused on defense issues. I think it it I mean, again, it just sort of is like a symbol of the lack of transparency and the lack of ease that this administration has of just owning up to what they’re they’re doing. Now, I will say, when, you know, those that press corps was sort of frog marched outside out of the Pentagon in like a big line, they cherry picked who they wanted to stay. And there’s people like Laura Loomer and now Matt Gaetz, former congressman, is in there.
Alex Wagner: Like, yeah.
Elissa Slotkin: They’ve it’s not like the entire press corps isn’t there. Just if if you wanted to stay, you had to promise to all like you had to literally sign a pledge. A la, like crazy Soviet Union stuff, where you know, you’re gonna let us approve everything you write or something crazy. So the people who are in there are not objective journalists. They’re they’re people who are gonna help get the story out that Pete Hegseth wants. But I will say that press corps is breaking some in abstention, like outside the building, is breaking some pretty interesting stories. And you can only break stories like that if people are coming to talk to you.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Elissa Slotkin: And just like people were seeking us out in weird ways as members of the Senate and members of the House, people are clearly seeking out the press from inside that building and inside the operations. And again, that’s taking a lot of risk for those people. I mean, the the operators who are are are talking to the press, like, you know, there’s guidance about not doing that. And so I just think that that they obviously it’s not right that they were kicked out. But I’ve been pretty impressed that they are still doing their job, even though they’re not sitting physically in the building.
Alex Wagner: Testament to how bad it is inside, maybe. I just I mean, Pete Hegseth, you know, these these things happen, whether it’s the inspector general’s report that says that he absolutely maybe compromise the safety of American troops and his reaction is total exoneration to what’s happening here with the boat strikes, to just Signalgate in general. Do you think he makes it? Should he resign? I mean, what do you think? What the fu— what’s the future here?
Elissa Slotkin: Yeah, I mean, look, in the first term, President Trump had no problem firing people. And it feels like, you know, different in the second term. I we haven’t seen him fire people. We haven’t seen him dismiss folks. But I gotta imagine that Donald Trump does not like being asked about Pete Hegseth at every single press conference for better part of a month, right? And at a certain point, I think he gets tired of that. And I think that there’s some people inside the Trump White House who are not thrilled with Pete Hegseth, right? We’re hearing whispers of that up here on the hill. So look, the president should just be decisive. Like just put in someone who’s going to run and kind of be responsible as an adult in charge of the Department of Defense. We had Jim Mattis, even Esper, right? Under the first Trump administration, would be better than someone who is kind of like cosplaying a secretary of defense. So yeah, just just I think he should move on.
Alex Wagner: Let the man just go work out. That’s all he really wants to do. Senator Elissa Slotkin is doing the heavy lifting of democracy. Thank you for taking the time. Please stay safe out there. Keep us posted when you hear good stuff. We certainly we’re not getting the tips that you are. But I really appreciate your time.
Elissa Slotkin: You bet. Thank you.
Alex Wagner: Up next, my conversation with the great Ben Rhodes, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor, and of course, the host of Pod Save the World.
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Ben Rhodes, one of my favorite people who I never actually see in the flesh, and actually maybe proof that AI has already taken over because—
Ben Rhodes: No, this is me. Yeah.
Alex Wagner: Is it?
Ben Rhodes: Yeah.
Alex Wagner: I think AI could touch its own flesh and pretend to be real, but I we’ll we’ll go with we’ll go with the fact that you’re real for now, because it makes me feel better about wor the world. There’s so many reasons to feel bad about the world, and I’m about to launch into some of them right now. I know that you and your your our friend and your co-host Tommy Vietor are always talking about the just insane murderers row of idiots and assholes that are populating the Trump administration.
Ben Rhodes: Yes.
Alex Wagner: And who had national security. But just I mean, after the last couple of weeks, how bad is it that Pete Hegseth is our secretary of war? I mean, just give me your overall on that one.
Ben Rhodes: I think that in the you know parade of assholes, like it’s neck and neck right now between Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, the director of the FBI. For who is the the greater danger. And actually I think Hegseth like surges ahead for two reasons. One, because the United States States military is the most powerful institution in the entire world, if not the history of the world, with the capacity to destroy the world. And those are in Pete Hegseth’s hands. So just you know think about that for a second. And two, because they’re doing some particularly odious shit.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Ben Rhodes: You know, the FBI may be a mess, but they’re not extrajudicially killing people like Pete Hegseth is doing in the Caribbean or potentially preparing for a regime change war in Venezuela. So I I think we have to give the nod. An RFK person could come make the case there but I give the nod to Pete Hegseth for single movst dangerous Trump official right now.
Alex Wagner: Are you surprised? I mean, so he’s doing terrible things, extrajudicial things, potentially committing war crimes. All of it seems to be largely on purpose. And yet there’s still scandal that surrounds him that you can’t deny. And I I am surprised, given how quickly Trump fired so many people who became scandalous in his first administration, that he’s holding on to Heg Seth. Does that surprise you? Or do you think really the name of the game in the second Trump administration is loyalty above all else, and that that’s gonna prove an insurance policy for Hegseth in the medium term?
Ben Rhodes: I I think that’s insurance policy. I think Trump either fired people because he had less tolerance of scandal or because there were some more conventional normies around him who are like, oh, it’s time to fire this person. And now you have neither of those things. So it’s not just the loyalty piece. It’s the fact there’s nobody in Trump’s ear that he actually listens to who’s like, it might be time to dump this guy. And I think part of what he’s doing that’s just as scary, that doesn’t get as as much attention, is he’s also trying to kind of transform the military to be this vehicle for Trump’s interest. So what people are not seeing is that there’s basically been a kind of purge of senior general officers, senior people at the Pentagon who might in any way, shape or form challenge Trump. And sometimes just being Black or a woman is enough to get you fired because they just presume those people are not on board.
Alex Wagner: Well, because they’re distinctly not on board with them. [laughter]
Ben Rhodes: Yes, that that that too. And and and I think he’s promoting like MAGA generals. And so he’s engaged in this effort to kind of make the military more pliant. Trump didn’t like the fact that at the end of his first term, you know, Mark Milley essentially said no to him after, you know, clearing Lafayette Square of those BLM protests. Milley kind of backtracked. Trump wants a military that will do what he wants, whether it’s invading U.S. Cities, whether it’s invading Venezuela, or whether it’s blowing people up in the Caribbean. He wants an institution of the US military that is responsive to him. And he knows Pete Hegseth will do anything to deliver that to him. And that’s why I think his job is secure.
Alex Wagner: As you say that, we need to reframe the way that the videos we’ve been shown play inside the Oval Office, right? Like this is why they keep releasing these videos or even news of these strikes, is because they like the brutality. I mean, they like the carnage. They like the fact that they’re blowing up brown people on boats like completely asymmetrically. I th that that seems part of like I while they know it could be a war crime and seem to have tailored their response to how the US deals with survivors from some of these boat strikes, at least according to Senator Slotkin. I bet Trump enjoys the videos and thinks they’re thinks they’re great evidence of America’s might. So maybe.
Ben Rhodes: Yeah.
Alex Wagner: To that end, it’s like, well, Pete, keep it up.
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, I think this scratches a lot of itches for Trump, right? He’s he’s killing extraditionally brown people. By the way, sometimes you look at what other leaders did and Trump is copying that. This is a strategy that the former president of the Philippines, who’s now in The Hague, by the way, Duterte.
Alex Wagner: Not ’cause he’s visiting. Not because he likes it this time of year either.
Ben Rhodes: He’s not missing The Hague. There’s not much to see there other than a court where people like him are prosecuted. But he killed thousands of people who he said were drug dealers, right? You know, this is part of an authoritarian playbook and we’ve seen Trump draw from all these playbooks. But I think just as importantly, Trump also sees himself as kind of the emperor of the Western Hemisphere.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Ben Rhodes: And and this is it, the National Security Strategy, which is a nerdy document, but it’s an important one that was released this week, basically says that. We have the ability to, you know, pick who we want to run countries. You know, they they they’ve in they’ve gotten involved in Argentina by giving a $40 billion bailout to a right wing nut there, President Milei. They’ve threatened to invade not just Venezuela, but bomb Colombia. You know, they they they kind of you know like this capacity to control things in this hemisphere. The one sign of hope here and gravity applying to Trump and Hegseth is they were freaked out by that video of the second strike, right? Of the the the first boat that was hit and then the strike that killed the two survivors, because they know I mean they’re these are all crimes, we should say. I mean, they’re committing murder because there’s no legal basis. We’re not at war with drug traffickers. So in some respects, it’s even a misnomer to call it a war crime, because it’s actually just a crime, you know.
Alex Wagner: Right. It’s murder.
Ben Rhodes: There’s no there’s no actual happening. But they knew that that was so glaring, like people holding on to a sinking boat getting blown up, that they distanced themselves from that. Trump said, I don’t know, I I don’t know, wouldn’t have taken that second strike, and then Hegseth said, Oh, it was up to the commander, but I backed the commander. Well, that does tell you that for all their impunity, there, you know, Pete Hegseth is gonna be around for a while, you know, after Donald Trump is president. And he knows, you know, just like Duterte’s at The Hague, you know, he could he could end up facing some serious accountability for what he’s doing right now.
Alex Wagner: Right which is trying to he’s trying to throw Admiral Bradley under the bus and say, I wasn’t in the room which is the portrait of great leadership, isn’t it?
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, yeah. Buck stops with Admiral Bradley. [laughter]
Alex Wagner: The buck stops with Admiral Bradley, because I was I was just like flexing my biceps in the mirror and just seeing how big I gotten since my last workout. You bring up the narco terrorist aspect of all of this and how that’s part of the authoritarian’s playbook. And I just have to highlight, because I feel like it really does get lost. Like Trump is literally letting actual narco terrorists out of the out of jail, out of American jails, and doing nothing to stop the actual drug trade. This is about something totally different, whether it’s flexing America’s might, targeting brown people, or just sort of like stoking fear in the hearts of other leaders elsewhere in the world. What do you think the implications are for sort of putting the terrorism label on the drug trade? And what does that portend for other countries who are trying to justify similar actions elsewhere in the world?
Ben Rhodes: I think it’s terrible because essentially when you introduce the word terrorist, it kind of militarizes things, right?
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Ben Rhodes: Because people have been conditioned to think, okay, terrorists are people that we fight wars with. We’ve been in a war on terror for you know 25 years now. And just calling people narco traffickers is a law enforcement issue, right? And so they’re trying to militarize this whole, you know, issue. Now, it’s bullshit to begin with, because blowing up boats is not going to do anything to slow the flow of drugs in the United States. They come from Mexico, they come from Col— Colombia, the fentanyl that Trump always talks about are precursors that come from China into Mexico. Venezuela is a drop in the bucket, you know, really, when you look at the drug problem in the United States. Trump likes to say, like, there are no more boats in the water. Well, there’s still drugs here. Like it’s not like these boats are doing anything. But I think what he’s conditioning people for is his ability to kind of designate anybody. I mean, he’s designated Antifa, terrorist organization. You know, like if you start calling people terrorists, you can use the military against them. And I think part of what’s so scary here is if you take there’s no act of Congress authorizing these boat strikes. There’s no international legal justification, because under national law, you can only kind of do this if you’re facing an imminent threat. And there’s no imminent threat on a speed boat like hundreds of miles from the United States. So if he can just say that these are terrorists that can blow up, who can’t he say that about?
Alex Wagner: Right.
Ben Rhodes: You know? And actually I would like to see the media and others, let’s not, these are not let’s not call them narco terrorists. They’re they’re not. Like some dudes on a speedboat, even if there’s cocaine on that boat. I’m not saying they’re good guys, but they’re they’re not like terrorists.
Alex Wagner: They’re traffickers.
Ben Rhodes: Terrorists are people who engage in violence for political means. Like people driving boats from like, you know, Venezuela to Trinidad are not terrorists by definition. So it’s a the whole thing is bogus. But it’s about his ability to use the military for his purposes.
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: What do you think like a as as I think about other sort of authoritarian regimes looking down on America like some sort of sad, ugly step sibling, what do you think they make of all of this? Is it like, oh, welcome to the club. You’re starting to really like go for it.
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, well—
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Ben Rhodes: You will remember, Alex, I wrote a book about like the authoritarian playbook called After the Fall.
Alex Wagner: It’s a great book. It’s still very much on sale and it’s still the holiday season if you wanna pick up a couple copies.
Ben Rhodes: Oh my God, just the stocking stuffer people need. But, one of the things I learned is was the degree to which, and I knew this in government but it’s very clear to me in looking at how authoritarians have acted in the last decade or so. Is they use the language of the War on Terror. The American language of the War on Terror to justify authoritarian crackdown. Just one example, Putin, after terroris attack, horrific attack at a school in Beslan in Russia in which actually the Russian raid rescuing children had been taken hostage they ended up killing more people than the terrorists did. But basically, used terrorism as the pretext for literally canceling elections of governors in Russia right. And you saw across the board around the world, people would just call their enemies terrorists and then use that to justify authoritarian climb downs. And they would, the Chinese did this. The Chinese when they set up, if people remember, the network of prison camps for the Uyghurs in Western China—
Alex Wagner: Yep.
Ben Rhodes: They literally copied American language about, they called it a War on Terror, they said it was in response to China’s 9/11, which was like an incident where a Uyghur stab some people. And so what I expect to see is actually other authoritarians calling people narco terrorists, you know, just just because people we copy other autocrats, but autocrats also copy our authoritarianism. So what I worry about is this kind of like, you know, in the same way that in the recently was, you know, terrorists from Muslim majority countries. Now it’s gonna be anybody that we don’t like is just a narco terrorist or a narcotrafficker or a drug problem or a crime problem, right, using Trump’s language. And and it’s just further justification for autocracy.
Alex Wagner: Do you feel like does it give you insight? I mean, we’re talking largely internationally, right? These are international waters, these are foreign countries. Like, do you feel like it gives you any insight into the lengths Trump and his and Hegseth might be willing to go to turn the American military on its own citizens?
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, what worries me, Alex, and has since the beginning, is I think Trump wants to turn the military an instrument of his own power. And I think some of the things he’s done in the first year are kind of conditioning, you know. Hey, we want you, the US military or the National Guard, to get used to the fact that you’re gonna be deployed in American cities. Hey, we want you, like special forces community, to get used to the fact that you might just be killing people in boats because they ordered. And and you know, that where does that lead? Does that lead to a regime change war in Venezuela? Does that lead to seizing the Panama Canal? Does that lead to like the invasion of Greenland that he talked about you know, at the beginning of the year?
Alex Wagner: Oh my god, please like I thought we were past that.
Ben Rhodes: No, well, I think we realized on January 21st of this year, the US military, I don’t think would have done any of those things, right?
Alex Wagner: Right.
Ben Rhodes: But by the time Hegseth has kind of, you know, shuffled out a bunch of generals and promoted a bunch of other people, they’ve conditioned the military to do these kind of ever more extreme things. That I think what he’s doing is he’s building a ramp up to more dramatic action that he and he may not even know what it is right now, but the the these boat strikes are part of like this conditioning process. We’re gonna get you comfortable taking our orders. This is why they freaked out so much when Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly and Jason Crow and others did that video. Because they they actually know that’s the that’s what they’re trying to prevent.
Alex Wagner: Right.
Ben Rhodes: They know that the military on January 21st would have been like, I’m sorry, I won’t follow an illegal order. Well, he’s already got, you know, Admiral Bradley and some people down the chain to follow illegal orders in these boat strikes. That’s kind of like conditioning, you know, the instrument to serve your interests.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, it’s it’s like it’s not quite as subtle as the frog slowly boiling in the water. [laughter] It’s more like microwaving a pigeon or something, you know? I don’t know. It’s bad, bad metaphor.
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, not it is.
Alex Wagner: Nothing becomes of either either one of those things.
Ben Rhodes: We are microwaving. Wa I wanna get to like how what Democrats need to do. And one of the ways I want to get to that conversation is by reminding everybody of the very provocative and very well argued piece that you wrote for the New York Times about what Democrats got wrong in Gaza, which I know has been a subject of much discussion and hand wringing in certain circles. And and you basically argue that Democrats ignored our own principles when it came to Gaza. And and like, you know, we supported military units that had been credibly accused of war crimes, and there were a host of other moral lapses. And I wonder the degree to which Gaza hangs like a specter over the sort of extrajudicial killings of the Trump administration and how much you think that’s eroded Democrat’s ability to respond. If or maybe it hasn’t. I don’t know. But I I wonder how you see the intersection between the sort of moral and ethical lapses over those war crimes and the potential war crimes that are being committed by this administration and how Democrats mount a fulsome response to that.
Ben Rhodes: That’s a great question. And I think there are two ways this goes like a negative and a potentially positive, right? On the negative side, I do believe that after 20 years of the war on terror, and after people watched routinely war crimes, and I believe they’re war crimes being committed by the Israeli government with US weapons, right? The 2,000 pound bombs dropped on refugee camps full of children were US made bombs provided to Israel, right? That that kind of numbs people. It normalizes a degree of violence and dehumanization that what’s a boat strike? You know, or these people that are bitching about these boat strikes that killed two people, you know, well, 20,000 kids just got killed in Gaza. And Joe Biden didn’t seem to have a problem with that when he was president. And and so there is, I think we’re collectively are living through, you know, even the war in Ukraine contributes to this. We’ve gotten too accustomed to a certain degree of violence, and it gives us less credibility to therefore be horrified about two people being killed. You know. Now, break break. Part of the argument I was making in that piece, though, is if you start to be consistent and just opposing certain things consistent with your principles, like committing war crimes in Gaza.
Alex Wagner: Great one. Great one to start with.
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, like war crimes in Gaza. Like I make the argument that actually, you know, Zohran Mamdani, not everybody will agree with him on Israel. But maybe, hey, maybe one of the reasons why people believed he would actually try to lower prices is that they believed that he actually had principles.
Alex Wagner: Right. The courage of his conviction.
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, he took unpopular stands in some quarters on Israel, certainly positions that politicians usually take. And he didn’t bend to all the criticism. And it’s like, well, this guy might be a fighter. This guy might actually believe in something. On this issue, I think Democrats are a little slow on this. And it’s like, well, maybe the boat strikes [?] or no, no, no. This is wrong, right? And just come out full throated. The United States military should not be killing people with no legal justification in the Caribbean. Full stop. There should not be a war in Venezuela. Sometimes Democrats feel the need to like throw clear, well, Maduro’s a bad guy, and and look, he is, but like that we the Americans don’t want regime change wars. By the way, Trump’s voters, and you know, if you want to find an entry into MAGA, ending forever wars, he’s breaking that promise. He’s starting new forever wars in this hemisphere, right? And so I think if Democrats are consistent, vocal, unafraid, they’re not hedging either by saying, like, well, Maduro’s really bad. And by the time you’re done throat clearing about how terrible Maduro’s, the person who’s listening to you is probably like, well, why don’t we take that guy out? You know, like, no, we shouldn’t do regime change wars. We shouldn’t kill people illegally. That applies everywhere around the world, you know. We’re sick of forever wars. We’re sick of this stuff, right? I actually think that’s not only the morally right thing, I actually think that’s incredibly politically salient message because it reaches parts of the MAGA coalition.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Ben Rhodes: Maybe with there’s some like, you know, never Trump hawks, you know, who won the regime change, you know, Liz Cheney probably wants to take out Maduro. I don’t care. Like, I’d actually rather speak to the MAGA voters. Then Democrats are always worried about these elite opinion people that are tend to be hawkish on this stuff. No, like stop listening to those fucking people. Those are the same people that were shoveling weapons out the door to Bibi Netanyahu while Bibi Netanyahu was humiliating Joe Biden, even though he was getting everything he wanted, right? And so that’s my core point. Be consistent, be clear, be unafraid.
Alex Wagner: I would argue, I mean, I’m never one to shower praise on Donald Trump, but Mamdani also learned from Trump too that—
Ben Rhodes: Yeah.
Alex Wagner: Having convictions, however po popular or unpopular they are, and following through on them, however legitimately or not in the case of Trump, is actually a a recipe a recipe for political success. I believe so Zohran Mamdani’s grounded actually in like an ethical understanding that I agree with. But that is the thing of Trumpism. Like he didn’t give a fuck. Yeah, no, and you continues not to give a fuck. [both speaking]
Ben Rhodes: Well, you don’t have to follow the like the the the the look, and I’ll just go back into the Gaza point. I mean, a lot of the reasons why Democrats continue to vote to provide military assistance to a government that they knew was committing war crimes, led by a person, Bibi Netanyahu, who they know hates them. Bibi Netanyahu consistently tries to help Republicans in this country. Is just that, well, that’s what we do. Like I know it’s too scary to say that the we just shouldn’t give military assistance to Israel. Like but what Trump showed is that all these old, you know, self censoring you know, voices in the heads of politicians don’t apply anymore.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, well, and that Israel has changed. Like the politics around Israel and you lay this out very, very sharply in your piece. The landscape around Israel has changed. Israel has changed. And and also Israel isn’t monolithic. There are plenty of Jews in Israel who are against this and Jews in America who are against this.
Ben Rhodes: And by the way, on Israel, like how are we providing solidarity to those Jews, Jewish Israelis who don’t like Netanyahu by giving Netanyahu everything he wants? You know, like like if if we actually truly want to be a source of support to Israelis who do not like and by the way, a majority of Israelis relatively early in that war said that they wanted to end the war in exchange for the hostages coming back. That war went on a long time after a majority of the Israeli public was against it, right? And and and yet we’re still giving a blank check to the government that is perpetuating the war and causing horrific carnage in Gaza, right? And and look, it it applies in what we were talking about too, because again, I think Democrats are like, well, I I want to stand up against Trump, but I don’t want to sound weak on drug trafficking, you know? No, we need to let go of these like self-imposed constraints, like that because you know what? It it is a dumb fucking way to fight drug trafficking to bomb speedboats in the Caribbean.
Alex Wagner: Yes, as Trump is releasing drug kingpins for the—
Ben Rhodes: As he’s releasing I mean, Trump makes this easy for us. He’s released a guy who is the president of Honduras who is responsible for flooding the streets of American cities with cocaine. This guy’s brother was such a fucking narco trafficker, I didn’t call him a terrorist, that he stamped the cocaine with his initials.
Alex Wagner: Who does that remind you of, Ben? [laughter] Who does that remind you of? Trump signs the checks, this guy stamps the cocaine.
Ben Rhodes: Yeah, maybe in the ballroom they’ll have, you know, the branded coke. I don’t know, but like.
Alex Wagner: Maybe there’s no way they won’t.
Ben Rhodes: This is not hard argument to make. Like that that this is not this is not about drug trafficking. If it was about drug trafficking, we wouldn’t be releasing the drug kingpin and then bombing speedboats, you know.
Alex Wagner: Ben Rhodes always out there with the most salient observations about our broken fucking world. Thank you, my friend, for putting it into perspective and also letting us dip into the the choppy waters of Gaza and Israel and the context of all this. People may not may think that they’re separate things, but they really aren’t. And I think you do a really important job of connecting sort of just like moral integrity across the board is a good thing. Helps strengthen us you know, around the world, but also politically, it’s like a better place to be.
Ben Rhodes: It’s a better place to be. It’s it it’s not like we’re winning the other way. Like let’s try moral clarity.
Alex Wagner: Exactly. Better place to be would be you and me in the same room recording this podcast, but—
Ben Rhodes: I know. I know. Not happening. Not happening.
Alex Wagner: Thanks for your time, buddy. You are the absolute best. I adore you. You’re brilliant. Thanks for your for your—
Ben Rhodes: I love your pod. I’m loving it. I’m loving the vibes. And they’re immaculate.
Alex Wagner: Before we go, I want to give you a quick update about one of our guests from Runaway Country. You may remember we spoke with a man named Richard von Glahn from the organization People Not Politicians in the state of Missouri. They were fighting back against a new congressional map that was drawn by Republicans in that state, and they were opposing redistricting with a citizen-led referendum. Well, this week, Richard and his organization turned in a petition with more than 300,000 signatures. That is literally three times more than what they needed, and it is a resounding no from the voters of the state. They are rejecting the attempts to gerrymander the state of Missouri. Now, there are almost certainly lawsuits to come, but this is a real strike against Trump’s anti-democratic gerrymandering efforts and the red states that do his bidding. So stay tuned for more, but a big win for people who are on this pro-democracy side of the aisle. Last but not least, please do not forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. Thank you in advance. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.
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