In short
Podcast Notes: 'If You Can Keep It': Trump’s New Vision For The Military
Podcast Information
- Title: 1A
- Description: A program that delves into the news beyond the headlines, focusing on the heart of the story.
- Episode Title: If You Can Keep It: Trump’s New Vision For The Military
- Episode Description: Discussion on President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth's proposed changes to military norms and policies, including standards for women in combat, military deployment in U.S. cities, and reporting abuse within the ranks.
Key Themes and Concepts Overview of Policy Changes
- Physical Standards for Combat:
- New standards that question women’s fitness for combat roles.
- Emphasis on meeting male-level physical standards for combat positions.
- Random polygraph tests proposed to deter personnel from speaking to the media.
- Deployment of Military in U.S. Cities:
- Trump authorized the deployment of National Guard troops to cities like Chicago.
- Federal judges have blocked some of these actions as unconstitutional.
- Reporting Abuse and Harassment:
- Channels for reporting abuse are being eliminated, raising concerns about accountability within the military.
Guest Insights
- Tara Kopp (Pentagon Reporter):
- Discussed the implications of physical standards, emphasizing the importance of combat roles being gender-neutral.
- Noted that existing fitness standards already accommodate different roles within the military.
- General Randy Manor (Retired Army Major General):
- Criticized the meeting as politically motivated and noted the experience of military leaders.
- Expressed concern over the impact of proposed changes on military morale and readiness.
- Cori Schalke (Former Defense Official):
- Highlighted the danger of using military forces as a domestic policing tool.
- Emphasized the importance of maintaining norms within civil-military relations to avoid dangerous precedents.
Major Takeaways
- Physical Standards and Gender:
- The new proposals have sparked outrage among female veterans and raise questions about the inclusivity of military standards.
- The focus on a "male standard" for combat roles is seen as regressive by many.
- Military in Domestic Affairs:
- Concerns are mounting regarding the militarization of domestic law enforcement, which could lead to violations of civil rights.
- The rhetoric used by the President regarding "enemies within" draws parallels to authoritarian regimes.
- Impact on Military Culture:
- New policies may discourage reporting of misconduct, leading to a toxic leadership culture.
- The firing of top legal advisors and JAGs raises alarms about the legal and ethical oversight of military actions.
Discussion Points The Role of Military Leadership
- Military leaders maintain a duty to act professionally despite political pressures.
- The integrity of military operations relies on upholding the rule of law and ethical standards.
Civil-Military Relations
- The ongoing tension between the civilian leadership and military norms highlights the importance of maintaining a separation of powers.
- The military's long-standing record of not engaging in power grabs is seen as crucial to American democracy.
Future Implications
- Recruitment may be affected as the military becomes less inclusive, potentially leading to a less diverse force.
- Retention of service members could decline if the leadership's direction is perceived as unsupportive.
Conclusion The episode highlighted significant changes proposed by the Trump administration regarding military standards and the implications of these changes on both service members and civilian populations. The discussions raised important questions about the future of military culture, the ethics of military engagement in domestic affairs, and the overall health of civil-military relations in the United States.
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Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Pete Hegseth:This message comes from the BBC with their podcast The Global Story. With Asma Khalid in D.C. and Tristan Redman in London, The Global Story brings you daily news from where the world and America meet. Search for The Global Story from BBC Podcasts. Hi, it's Jen. Just a quick heads up. News is rapidly changing. The story may have developed by the time you hear this episode. So stay up to date with all the latest by listening to your local NPR member station and visiting NPR.org.
0:38Pete Hegseth:You're listening to the 1A podcast. I'm Jen White.
0:41Donald Trump:And I'm Todd Zwilich. It's our weekly politics series on our democracy, if you can keep it. Today, the reshaping of our military.
0:49Pete Hegseth:President Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, outlined some stark changes to its policies and norms at Tuesday's gathering of the top brass.
0:57Donald Trump:Simply put, if you do not meet the male-level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test, or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession. That was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. While the president had his own ideas. Only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within.
1:28Pete Hegseth:Over the weekend, Trump authorized the deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops to Chicago. At the same time, a federal judge blocked sending National Guard troops from any state into Portland. saying the move exceeded the president's constitutional authority and circumvented a prior order. From new standards that question the fitness of women in combat roles to deploying the military to U.S. cities, Trump and Hexeth are outlining a new vision of the armed forces.
1:55Donald Trump:The new policies eliminate channels to anonymously report abuse and harassment within the ranks and could include random polygraph tests to deter personnel from talking to the press.
2:06Pete Hegseth:After a quick break, we talk through all the changes, how it affects troops, and what it means for civilians in our democracy. Stay with us. We've got a lot to get to.
2:20Pete Hegseth:Let's get into President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth's overhauling of the military with our guests. Tara Kopp is with us. She's the Pentagon reporter at The Washington Post. Tara, welcome back to the program. Thank you for having me. Also with us is retired Army Major General Randy Manor. That's a two-star general. He's the former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau and was the deputy commanding general of all Army forces in the Middle East. General Manner, thanks for speaking with us.
2:46Donald Trump:Thank you as well. General, Secretary Hegseth ordered this meeting of the military's top leaders on Tuesday. Now, the president then decided he would be joining along sort of late in the game. From your experience, how unusual was this meeting of the top brass in person in Quantico? It's never happened before. This is a waste of, it was a waste of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. It put people at risk. It was absolutely foolhardy. And it's important to say that it was nothing more than a political, theatrical stunt where, of course, the press was invited, cameras were on, and, of course, it blew up in the eyes of the president, quite frankly.
3:30Pete Hegseth:Say a little bit more about that, General.
3:34Donald Trump:The president has always expected every audience that he addresses to be hooping and hollering, quite frankly, the same way that those young troopers did in the 82nd Airborne Division. As a past member of the 82nd, I understand the enthusiasm of those 18 to 20-year-olds, most of which were handpicked. The challenge is those generals, admirals, and senior enlisted leaders, they're all extremely experienced. They have 20 to 35 or more years of experience. They understand the way that you act in front of the president and in front of the secretary of defense. And, of course, they were very stoic and listening politely.
4:14Donald Trump:That is what they are trained to do. That set the president off. It was absolutely, I mean, it rattled him in the moment. And I will tell you, in my opinion, it also rattled him beyond that, that, quote, unquote, quote, these people must not be loyal to me because they're not enthusiastically accepting me. So I think that was a rather telling perspective of the president, even though all those military members acted as they should have.
4:39Pete Hegseth:Tara, let's talk through some of the biggest standards changes the defense secretary spoke about on Tuesday, starting with physical fitness. It's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops.
4:52Donald Trump:Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad. And it's not who we are. So whether you're an airborne ranger or a chairborne ranger, a brand new private or a four star general, you need to meet the height and weight standards and pass your PT test.
5:13Pete Hegseth:We got this email from Dorothy, who says the military does have high standards. My niece joined the Army and did really well in boot camp, but in the end, she couldn't meet the standards in the one area, so she didn't go on. If they were using DEI, they probably would have let her stay in. Hexeth and Trump do not know what they are talking about. How do new physical fitness standards, Tara, compare to what was previously in place? The feedback I got immediately after the speech, and you've seen this play out in the last couple days, is Hexas' choice of words male standard was infuriating to a lot of the female veterans who have passed these physical standards, these combat standards for years, and they are gender neutral.
5:55Pete Hegseth:It is to the role. There are other fitness levels. We have had this discussion over the last couple of years. As war has become more cyber focused, you need drone operators. And there's been a discussion in the building. Do you need those people to be able to do the same level of physical fitness that, say, an infantryman does? And part of it was common sense. Maybe you need someone who is just much more adept at the cyber warfare side of things. However, in these revised standards, there are going to be multiple tests. You have to pass different height-weight standards. They've always had to do this, and each service has kind of been able to go at it on their own and have tried to tweak it to make it more fair and actually a better assessment of how you would actually perform as a service member, not really to kind of bully the troops, but more to make sure that the actual physical tests they were putting these service members through was actually a good evaluation of how they would perform on the battlefield.
6:53Pete Hegseth:Well, they're also grooming standards, TechSeth noted. Tell us more about that and what it's about. Well, this is another hot button. And there were about 10 policies. We have all the paperwork on them that were rolled out kind of at once at this meeting. The shaving standard is very specifically targeted at black troops. The shaving, it's for a medical condition where you shave and then the hair comes back and it kind of grows back in. And it can be very painful or irritating. And so those standards were loosened, which primarily was a way to encourage people to stay in the military and to allow a greater net, a wider net of people to serve who wanted to but just couldn't meet the standard without some sort of medical assistance.
7:38Pete Hegseth:Under the new policy, they'll have a year to either get this medically cleaned up, or they have to be separated. And you might ask the question, is a beard or not beard or a stubble that makes a very physically fit, adept person have an easier time in the military, is that really readiness? And the condition you're describing affects roughly 60 percent of black men and it causes a great deal of pain. It can also cause permanent scarring. Important to note that.
8:05Donald Trump:Well, the defense secretary also says that combat troops must meet, quote, the highest male standard. When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. So General Manor, Elisa Cardinal is a Navy veteran and the president of SWAN. That's the Service Women's Action Network. She told Axios this, physical requirements for infantry school, special operations, or any other combat role are already gender neutral.
8:45Donald Trump:That's the end of the quote. So there are different standards for general fitness tests, though, which are based on age and gender. What can you tell us about standards already in place and how they're changing? Rather ironic that the Secretary of Defense, which is, by the way, he's a disgraced major kicked out of the D.C. National Guard. He failed ranger school. I am actually an airborne ranger, infantryman, jumpmaster. All the things that that secretary was talking about, maxed the PT tests all the years as a general officer, never fell one point short. I will tell you it's insulting to every woman and every individual to imply that just because you cannot be that special forces kind of airborne ranger person that you don't have an extremely valuable role based on what the requirements might be for a position.
9:38Donald Trump:It is absolutely true what she said about for those combat special ops roles, yes, those standards are gender neutral because that's what is required. On the other hand, becoming a pilot, becoming a military intelligence analyst, becoming a truck driver, quite frankly, probably 80 % of the roles in the military, that is not required, and it shouldn't be that way. We should be looking at what is required to serve in the positions that there are, not some Aryan 1939 standard of white males that, quite frankly, that is what the Secretary of Defense is driving toward. It's insulting to everyone.
10:20Pete Hegseth:Well, General Manor, Hexeth says he wants to restore warrior ethos. to the military. When you heard the use of that term, how did you interpret it?
10:30Donald Trump:It's a joke. We have the finest military in the world. Him saying that it's not, the president saying the military sucks, that it was all bad, and that he's going to make it better, that's not the case. We have the finest military in the world. We have the best trained soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. Yes, we always, of course, need to do better, but it is something that we're already there.
10:54Pete Hegseth:Jim emails, I am a Marine who was active duty from 86 to 90. I fear our military will be the last resort to save our democratic republic. My biggest fear is the midterms will somehow be canceled or nullified. I pray all service members will remember their oaths. Coming up, the president says the military should use U.S. cities for military training grounds. We get into that in a moment.
11:22Pete Hegseth:Let's get back to our conversation with a new voice. Cori Schalke is a former Defense Department official and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. She's also author of the upcoming book, The State and the Soldier, a history of civil-military relations in the United States. Cori, thanks for joining us. It's a pleasure.
11:44Donald Trump:Well, let's move to what President Trump had to say for himself at Tuesday's meeting. I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military, because we're going into Chicago. That's a big city with an incompetent governor, stupid governor, stupid. Well, since President Trump made these comments, he's deployed National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon and Chicago over the stark objections of governors in both places. A federal judge over the weekend blocked Trump from federalizing the Oregon National Guard. He then tried to circumvent that ruling by sending guard troops from other states, including Texas.
12:26Donald Trump:Now the judge has blocked that order as well. Tara, how are military officers interpreting these comments from the president about using U.S. cities as military training grounds, especially in light of the news from over the weekend?
12:42Pete Hegseth:one we have huge training ranges all over the u.s where they can actually conduct the operations that the military is supposed to conduct and that's combined arms that's with ground forces and air this policing capability that the administration thinks the military can do they're actually having to train up for it they're actually having to do reminders on crowd control and crowd engagement. And this weekend's developments were pretty dizzying, not only with the judge blocking, not on Saturday, but then Sunday, telling the Trump administration that they can't, not only can they not activate the Oregon National Guard, they can't get the already federalized troops from California and send them to Oregon.
13:26Pete Hegseth:Now they can't do it from any other state as well. And just, this is developing too. I've been speaking to officials in Illinois, and they were heartened by the ruling in Oregon. And they are either have already or will shortly be filing a temporary restraining order to block both the 300 troops that Trump seeks to federalize, Illinois National Guard that he seeks to federalize, and the recent announcement of Trump requesting 400 Texas National Guard to go to Illinois as well. So it's just, it's going to be, I think, a continued power struggle between the states and the administration as to what you can actually do with your National Guard across the country.
14:10Pete Hegseth:Cori, what are your biggest concerns hearing the president talk about using U.S. cities in the military this way?
14:17Joshua Johnson:Well, it's a very dangerous and unprecedented thing for the president of the United States to stand in front of the senior military leadership and encourage them to think of themselves as fighting a domestic insurrection. Enemies within was the language the president used, and he said, most of you in this room are going to be involved. That's a very dangerous incitement. Fortunately, as was said previously, I think the military comported themselves exactly as they should, which is they have a responsibility to be present. And just like the chairman of the chiefs of staff or the joint chiefs themselves at the State of the Union, they have a responsibility not to participate in this kind of political activity.
15:06Joshua Johnson:But it's genuinely dangerous, and the president is really pressing the constitutional and legal boundaries in ways that are novel and haven't been tried in over a century. So it's going to be very interesting to see how the courts come down. In my judgment, the law is quite clear that either the president has to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act in order to use troops over a governor's objection, or he has to have that governor's permission, which neither the governors of Oregon, California, or Illinois have provided him.
15:50Donald Trump:General, what did you hear when you heard the president tell the assembled senior staff of the U.S. military that, as Tara says, they would all be part of it and that U.S. cities should be their training ground for the enemy from within? What did you hear? It was shocking even to hear this president say those kind of words. Mixing the concept of law enforcement operations with military operations is only done by people who do not understand the purpose of the military and the purpose of law enforcement. These kind of statements, quite frankly, not only are they un-American, they are also those of desperate dictators who are using the military of their nation to be able to intimidate and to watch the American citizens to divide us even further.
16:36Donald Trump:The president said we have to be aware of the enemy within. I'm going to tell everybody, and I say it loudly, that the enemy within is not the American people. And it's not those of us in the military, active or retired. And therefore, the enemy within is what is left over. That is what we are facing about the enemy within.
17:00Pete Hegseth:We got this email from one of you. I am a U.S. Army veteran and a government contractor for over 20 years in the intelligence community. President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hexeth meeting to military leadership last week is a testament of a lack of coherent vision and more for the illusion of power to leadership without competence of any kind. I'd like the show to explain military general orders, lawful orders, and rules of engagement. We also heard from Elizabeth in Massachusetts, who says the most dangerous point of Hegs' talk is when he said, quote, we also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement.
17:34Pete Hegseth:We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country, end quote. Rules of engagement were developed over centuries long before politically correct existed. They work. Talk to retired military leaders who know war crimes affect individual soldiers and ultimately the worldwide reputation of the United States. Well, we are here with a retired member of the military. General Manor, I'd love to hear your comments there because people want to better understand what this speech means, what general orders the military is expected to follow what's lawful?
18:12Pete Hegseth:Because there's a lot of confusion right now for people who haven't served. Sure.
18:16Donald Trump:It's rather complicated, but simplifying it. Let me start off by saying the words of the president and secretary of defense are those of potential war criminals. They're basically telling their military, you know what? The rules don't apply to you. You just go ahead and just kill people on the battlefield. That is so shocking to hear. and by the way, history will hold them accountable for their words. The concept of rules for engagement. If you are a soldier on the battlefield in the middle of the night, you're tired, you're exhausted, you're basically trying to, and you hear something out in front of you.
18:49Donald Trump:Well, is it a family that is trying to find food or to move from one area to another? Or is it someone who's trying to kill you? Or what? You just don't, quote unquote, start killing people on the battlefield. And what about if someone is coming in that perhaps wants to help you or to surrender to you? Does that mean that you should, quite frankly, just kill them? It's the same concept of why the Germans at the end of World War II literally fought their way to the Western Front to surrender to the Americans and to the British instead of to the Soviets. Because they knew that if they surrendered to the Soviets, they were going to, quite frankly, not survive.
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19:28Donald Trump:and in fact 80 % of those prisoners that were in the Soviets' hands did die. Whereas the Americans, we followed the Geneva Convention, we followed the rules of war, we safeguarded the prisoners and moved them to the rear out of harm's way, and we fed them and housed them to the extent that we could, equal to our own soldiers. That is the American way. We treat people with dignity and respect. We're not lawless. We follow the rule of law. And I say again, what the president and secretary of defense were saying, those are the words literally of potential war criminals. I think it's worth remembering also that President Trump pardoned a Navy SEAL who was convicted of war crimes at the urging of Pete Hegseth, a special operator who was convicted of war crimes.
20:16Donald Trump:Pete Hegseth actually got close to Trump by lobbying for that person's pardon, and he got it. Um, Corey, while all of this is going on, while the president is mobilizing National Guard troops and trying to circumvent court orders on the side is his chief domestic advisor, Stephen Miller, who's been all over social media during the weekend, um, describing anyone who opposes the National Guard or this enforcement as domestic terror networks, uh, including political leaders, protesters, um, ostensibly judges. What about this rhetoric? Who do you, who do you think the administration is describing now as the enemy from within?
20:54Donald Trump:And what is this rhetoric also coming from the White House about domestic terror networks mean?
21:00Joshua Johnson:I do think it is an effort by the president and the people around him to use violence and the threat of violence to impede Americans' constitutional rights. And we should be really nervous about that and we should be acting in support of the authorities of governors to prevent it. It's genuinely dangerous what the president and the people around him are doing. And, you know, this fictitiousness that one of the things the president said at the meeting on Tuesday at Quantico was he looked around at these 400 Americans who have been fighting since September 11, 2001, and told them that American cities were more violent than anything they had fought in Afghanistan, which is just lunacy.
21:55Joshua Johnson:And so it's very dangerous what the president's doing. And it's unprecedented that an American president, in invoking that kind of thing, wouldn't make any effort to go to the places he's saying are so dangerous and see for himself what's happening. The president appears surprised when confronted with a reality that's very different from what he's saying. I want to note that in February, Hexeth fired the top lawyers for the
22:26Pete Hegseth:Army, Navy, and Air Force. The judge, advocate generals, or JAGs, provide legal advice so the U.S. does not break laws of armed conflict. And this came during a purge of the Pentagon, which also saw the firing of top military officials, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General C.Q. Brown, Jr. General Manor, I want to come to you here because there are two things happening. There is sort of the public rhetoric by the president and the secretary of defense. There is the reshaping of rules for the military, but there's also a reshaping of leadership. And there was another firing that happened over the weekend.
23:06Pete Hegseth:So when you look at all of those things together. What do you think about the state of our military right now and our ability to rely on our military leadership to continue to follow the rule of law?
23:24Donald Trump:Right now, the American public have to firmly believe that their American military are on the side of the people, absolutely positively. Now, I will tell you, it's doubtful that the president can erase literally 30 years of experience for these senior leaders to find only those people that will agree with him. Stalin did it, but he had to, quite frankly, not only fire them, had to kill most of them. The reality is right now, I don't believe between now and the next couple of years that he is going to turn the military upside down against the American people. I will tell you, this is a race to the finish line.
24:07It is possible that the president could ask Southern governors to put National Guardsmen
24:15Donald Trump:in polling places to ensure the safeguarding of the voting process. Translation, we're going to be there to intimidate anybody that we don't want. I truly believe that could the president turn the military into his personal army? Yes. Can he do it in the next couple of years? No, he cannot. The president is already weakening our military at every turn because of all this crap about putting all these guardsmen and active duty military in our cities. That reduces our readiness. He's doing it on the backs of the families because with the National Guardsmen, many of these young men and women, they earn more money in their civilian jobs than they do on active duty.
25:03Donald Trump:And likewise, all the employers were losing the support of many employers who are saying, hey, it's okay to defend our country overseas. It's okay in times of crisis such as earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, forest fires to help save our fellow Americans. But all this crap that's going on, I don't support you anymore. That's going to increase.
25:26Pete Hegseth:The president is the commander in chief. And we got this email from Pam who says, if the Trump administration tries to send the U.S. military into U.S. cities, what are the chances that the military leadership would refuse to comply? Or more generally, would they refuse to comply with any order that is clearly unconstitutional?
25:44Donald Trump:So it's important to understand that the idea of going into an American city, if the president does so, has legal reviews and process, and as we're seeing in the courts as well. And again, the military will follow legal orders. That does not mean they have to agree with it. I would like to turn something really on its head, which I've been talking to a lot of retired senior officers about, which is, quite frankly, what are the red lines? For example, the president's already said, hey, law enforcement should fire on protesters. I think a red line will be if he ever, ever, ever orders the American military to follow the fire on American citizens, I think all hell is going to break loose because that would be an illegal order and we will hopefully never get there.
26:30Donald Trump:But I'm giving you an extreme case, which I hope we never get to, which would be clearly black and white illegal. Corey, what's your perspective briefly on following orders, disobeying illegal orders in the position that puts the U.S. military in?
26:47Joshua Johnson:So soldiers don't get to decide for themselves what is legal and what is not. They rely on the judge advocates general, which is why Hegseth firing the senior judge advocates general was such an ominous sign. But there's also a large category of what's called lawful but awful. The American public thinks the military can choose not to obey orders they're worried about, and that's just not true.
27:18Pete Hegseth:We have to take another quick break, but still to come, why troops may no longer be able to file complaints about toxic leadership or discrimination in the military. That's just ahead.
27:32Pete Hegseth:Let's get back into it with this message from one of you.
27:35Donald Trump:When I was in basic training in the 90s, we were taught that when you are in uniform, you do not represent your unit or your service branch or the government or a political party. You represent the United States of America. So anything that we did in uniform, it was as if the country did it. Part of that, we were told that when you wear a uniform, you could not attend political rallies or speak it up, function, anything like that. Now, either those lessons are not being taught anymore or they're just being ignored. Either way, it is not a good thing. Thank you so much for that message. Corey, before we took a break, we were talking about orders, lawful orders, and the ability of either enlisted people or officers in the military to contravene orders.
28:26Donald Trump:I want to pull on that thread a little bit more with you. What options do troops have if they meet with unlawful orders? And before you answer, just to remind us, you said they have to rely on Judge Advocates General, JAGS. They fired the top JAGS. So where does that leave troops and officers now in terms of their decisions and their legal standing? So units have access to a lot of legal resources.
28:56Joshua Johnson:So the fact that the top judge advocates general was fired doesn't mean there are no lawyers available to battalion commanders to help adjudicate what is legal and what is not. So there is legal advice. that you don't want a military that is determining for itself what is the appropriate policy choice, right? I mean, that's the dilemma. The American system is built on an expectation that the leadership will behave in principled and legal ways. And what we are seeing is what the ethicist Pauline Shanks-Kurin calls the unprincipled principle. A lot of what Trump and the people around him are doing is norm-shattering.
29:42Joshua Johnson:And a lot of how we think about the relationship, the subordination of the military to civilian authorities is actually normative. It's not legal. It's not constitutional. The president should never be giving these kind of bare-knuckled political speeches in front of troops. But there's no law that says he can't. and so the norms really matter as well as the legal stuff matters and part of the reason the system is under so much stress is the president and the people around him are shattering norms and navigating you know things that haven't been legally tested in 200 years in American civil military relations.
30:30Joshua Johnson:So I agree with General Manor that the military is holding up incredibly well under this political onslaught. But Americans who don't spend all their time thinking about this subject should really appreciate how dangerous this moment is, not because of the behavior of the military, but because of the behavior of the elected and appointed civilians.
30:58Pete Hegseth:Tara, I want to run through some other changes being made to the military. Secretary Hex had this loosening rules about how senior officers can treat their troops. He's also overhauling the internal channels that allow troops to file complaints about leadership or discrimination. Just explain what's happening with some of these changes. Sure. And all of this taken together is a loosening of the rules for the military at a time when it might be very dangerous for that to happen. And bottom line, as you said, these changes will allow both military and defense civilian leaders to be tougher on troops, to potentially cross lines that wouldn't have been allowed before without facing the career repercussions they would have.
31:43Pete Hegseth:And also with less oversight and less accountability. It's all in a package. So one of the first things he introduced is that they're going, Hegseth, is that they're going to redefine what hazing and bullying and harassment are, saying that those definitions have been overly broad and abused. and coupled with that we'll be refining how the equal opportunity office and the IGs will operate and how what their jurisdictions can be and how long they can take to process a claim before they have to basically clear it and also very much emphasizing that for those who dare to file a claim, they could face prosecution under the UCMJ if it's found that their claim is inaccurate.
32:31Pete Hegseth:So this, you know, all taken combined has a real chilling effect on soldiers or whistleblowers having trust to come forward if they see something wrong.
32:42Donald Trump:We got this email from David who says, the Army said that they reached their annual goal of 61 ,000 recruits four months early after falling short by 10 ,000 soldiers the two years prior. So army recruiting is the best in 12 to 15 years under Trump. Get the whole story. Well, thanks for that message, David. Corey, what about that? How do you see the direction and the orders and the changes and the norm breaking that we're talking about actually affecting recruitment? it?
33:15Joshua Johnson:I think it's too soon to tell. What the recruiters for the military services have said is that concerns about the economy are always a major factor in recruiting. And second, part of the reason recruiting had been challenging in the last couple of years was that because of the COVID shutdowns, that recruiters hadn't been able to meet with potential recruits in person. And that's no longer the case. So those two factors are likely affecting recruiting. I don't think there's ever been a Secretary of Defense who favored low standards for the military. So mostly what Secretary Hegseth is doing is performance art.
34:05Joshua Johnson:It's not policy. So I don't think it's likely to have much effect on recruiting. General Manor, I'd like your thoughts as well.
34:14Donald Trump:So it's important to understand that last summer, all the services understood that they've been performing very poorly. They all significantly increased and invested in their budgets for fiscal year 25 money for recruiting. Also in the National Guard, which I happen to know the colonel who was in charge of that program, Each of the services put their best officers and their best NCOs in charge of recruiting, and they were relentless on the process. They, again, invested in this very heavily. And as you can imagine, because this is all done a year ahead of time, then we're seeing the fruits of the labors of the investments that were done last summer and then starting in September of a year ago.
34:57Donald Trump:As is in any political situation, the present administration takes credit for anything that goes well and, of course, blames the previous administration on anything that goes bad. Absolutely, positively, it is incorrect to assume that the president or the secretary of defense's policies are increasing recruiting. I'm going to state bluntly, and I hope I'm proved wrong, that we are going to see a cooling of recruiting for the rest of the fiscal year in 2026. And the reason is, is because women and people of color, they're hearing it loud and clear. There is no need for you to join our military.
35:37Donald Trump:And that's being stated by the very top people. So again, while there have absolutely been a record year of recruiting in almost all the services, it's not to any credit of the present administration.
35:50Pete Hegseth:What predictions do you have in general about retention?
35:56Donald Trump:retention is going i talked to dozens of military uh people as a as a matter of course and what i do with my volunteer work and particularly women and people and people of color and people who are thinking wait is it time for me to hang up my boots or whatever and move on retention is going to decrease. In other words, people are going to get out at earlier opportunities because they are not feeling that the senior leadership of the government are really encouraging them in any way to stay. So I believe retention will take a hit for the rest of the fiscal year as well. So briefly, General, if we see fewer women signing up, if we see fewer people of color,
36:46Pete Hegseth:What does that mean for our military fitness if our military bodies don't reflect the diversity of this country?
36:54Donald Trump:This is one of the things where, again, the president and the secretary of defense and Stephen Miller don't understand that the military has got to reflect the people of our country. And that's what I've always been very proud of is that, hey, the military led our country on, quite frankly, treating people with dignity and respect of women, of minorities. When President Truman integrated by law the military, I think it was 1947, but certainly after World War II, that was the beginning of changing our military to be the way that it should be, which is the American people are well represented in our military.
37:37Donald Trump:And our military reflects our American people. I think it's very dangerous if we start to turn our military into, again, a white, Aryan, nationalist, conservative military the way it was in Germany in 1939. It's extremely dangerous, and we cannot go there. We got this email from Chris who says, as a 20-year Navy veteran, I'm very concerned about the use of military troops in American cities. It's unconstitutional. It certainly signifies the end of American democracy and civil rights. It's also preparation for future use of troops to address his real or imagined grievances and solidify his position as a dictator.
38:19Donald Trump:Chris, thanks for that message. Corey, let's do a draw out from this a little bit from the streets and talk about power. How concerned are you that these moves are part of an overall effort to consolidate power by the president?
38:35Joshua Johnson:Well, I do think that's what the president's saying and that's what the people around him are saying. And so the question becomes, are the courts, are civil society strong enough counterweights to impose political costs on the president that stay his hand? And so far, I think both the courts and civil society are doing their jobs well. but they're under an enormous amount of pressure. And the novel legal theories that the president's rolling out, things like using National Guard from one state over the objections of the leadership of another, the courts are going to take time to catch up to that.
39:22Joshua Johnson:And a lot of damage can be done in the meantime. And that's what the president's doing. It's a blitzkrieg of activity to try and get out ahead of opposition. and it's very dangerous.
39:35Pete Hegseth:Corey, you have a new book coming out next week about the history of civil-military relations in the U.S. After being steeped in that context, briefly, how are you thinking about this moment and why civilian control of the military is so foundational to the U.S.?
39:51Joshua Johnson:Yeah, thank you very much for asking. You know, I started with George Washington and worked forward to February of 2025. And the thing that comes through most strongly is how much the professional restraint of the American military is the ethos of the institution. And it is what is preventing a major breakdown of civil-military relations, as the United States has known it. It really matters that the American military has a 250-year record of never being a threat to democracy, never attempting state capture in their power. And that's thanks to George Washington. That's thanks to Ulysses Grant. That's thanks to lots of good examples along the way.
40:45Joshua Johnson:But the president and many Republicans in Congress, like Senator Tuberville, are putting unprecedented pressure on the subordination of our military and politicizing them in a way that is dangerous for the system. Yeah.
41:06Pete Hegseth:General, as we wrap here, I'm just curious to hear your final thoughts and what you'd say to the American people and to service members who are currently on active duty.
41:17Donald Trump:The most important thing that any leader can do, whether it is political, military, religious, whatever it might be, is to provide hope and inspiration for you. And that's something that You have to have trust in the American military that we are there for you and we have your back. And remember, maintain hope and be inspired by that.
41:40Pete Hegseth:Tara, briefly, just a quick sentence. What are you watching for next? I'll be continuing to watch the National Guard deployments and to see how this settles out in Chicago and whether this program is expanded into other cities. Well, we'll be with you as those stories unfold. That's Tara Kopp, a Pentagon reporter at The Washington Post. Also with us, retired Army Major General Randy Manor. He's the former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. He was the deputy commanding general of all Army forces in the Middle East. And Corey Schalke, a former Defense Department official and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
42:18Pete Hegseth:Her forthcoming book is The State and the Soldier. And of course, Wenae's Todd Zwillick. Today's producer was Michelle Harvin. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Jen White. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk again tomorrow. This is 1A.
42:54Thank you.
From the publisher
From new standards that question the fitness of women in combat roles, to deploying the military to U.S. cities, the White House is outlining a new vision for the armed forces.
It’s also looking to eliminate existing channels to report abuse and harassment within the ranks and implement random polygraph tests.
We talk through all these changes, how they affect our troops, and what they mean for civilians.
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