Why Hegseth ordering generals to meet is so unusual

9:32Donald Trump:And Dan, I heard that this event, it's going to be live streamed for the public. Is that true?

9:36Pete Hegseth:That's right. They're putting it up on the Defense Department's website, probably other spots. So, you know, like the initial cloak and dagger nature of this has given way to all of this will be put up. And you kind of wonder about the showbiz aspects to that, right? Like, you know, it's if no one's willing to acknowledge easily a week ago that this meeting is happening. And now here we are. And the whole thing is basically a major TV production. It's a significant shift.

10:06Donald Trump:I mean, Dan, the thing that I'm struck by is that these generals have like important jobs to do, right, back where they're based. I mean, what does it mean for national security, global security, that they've all been pulled to come here and that the world knows now that our military leadership will be absent all over the world?

10:29Pete Hegseth:In terms of who these people are, I mean, some of these generals and admirals are in command of thousands or tens of thousands of people. These are people with major responsibilities that oversee entire regions in some cases. You know, if you're the, for the sake of argument, the commander of European command, you oversee a continent worth of operations. Like these are major, major jobs.

10:51Donald Trump:Right, right. I mean, I know Quantico is an incredibly secure location and you're going to have the president there and you're going to have the secretary there. So I'm sure security is going to be just insane. But like, is it safe to have all of our generals and the president of the United States together at the same time in the same place?

11:10Pete Hegseth:That's a concern we've heard raised. I do think putting the president in a big auditorium indoors on an installation that's already secure.

11:21Donald Trump:Pretty safe.

11:21Pete Hegseth:I mean, and it's I suppose it's most, not all of our generals, but it's close. Yeah. You know, it's hundreds. But this is, you know, it's an installation that spans many miles. And, like, no doubt, Secret Service, the military itself, all of those people will be very much watching for all of the likely threats.

11:49Donald Trump:After the break, what Trump's presence at the meeting tells us about his relationship to the military. We'll be right back.

12:15Donald Trump:So, Dan, as we've mentioned, President Trump has now said he's going to attend this meeting and he's going to give a speech. What do we know about his involvement in this meeting?

12:24Pete Hegseth:Yeah, so the first thing that caught my ear was on Thursday after the host initially scooped the news of this meeting. President Trump was asked about it in the Oval Office in response to questions from reporters. First said, basically, I don't see what the big deal is. Well, I know. I love it.

12:43Donald Trump:I mean, I think it's great.

12:44Pete Hegseth:Let him be friendly. Let him be friendly with the generals and admirals from all over the world. Why is there something? No, but is there something wrong with him? He kind of made it sound like he wasn't clear on what exactly the meeting was. So, again, that made it to me sound like this wasn't necessarily shared widely across the government, at least in detail. And then he said all words to the effect of I'll go if they want me. Well, I'll be there if they want me. But why is that such a big deal? I mean, he's the fact that we're getting along with the generals and admirals. Well, remember, I'm the president of peace.

13:17Pete Hegseth:It's good to get along. It's good. You act like this is a bad thing. And at that point, I was like, this is going to be a presidential event. It's a matter of time. Because as soon as he says that, you would assume people at the Pentagon, particularly in the administration, are going to say, of course we want you, sir. Please come. So at that point, the event already big and unusual gets that much bigger.

13:39Donald Trump:Do we have a sense at all what the president's going to talk about?

13:43Pete Hegseth:Over the weekend, he was asked about this in a couple interviews. news, NBC News and Reuters come to mind and basically said that he wants to thank the generals, that he wants to talk about all of the good things that the U.S. military is doing. So at that point, I kind of wonder if it goes down the usual rabbit hole of the president talking about rebuilding the military and, you know, how we're tougher now than we used to be and words to those effect, which, again, we've heard that before. Do you need to call everybody back to D.C. to do it?

14:14Donald Trump:I mean, and related to what Trump's doing with the military, we also saw it for the weekend that he called for the Pentagon to send troops into war ravaged. I'm going to put that in quote because that's what he said. Portland, Oregon. So, you know, he's calling all these generals. We're talking about having a military that's focused on lethality. And now he's sending troops into another American city. What's what happened there?

14:39Pete Hegseth:I think that's another example in the video and the audio not matching. Because, you know, you see that war ravage, we're going to use full force if necessary, was another phrase that he offered up there. And then within the span of 24 hours, the Post got its hand on a memo sent by the defense secretary to the Oregon National Guard saying that they were going to activate 200 members of the National Guard. That's not exactly what you would send to a war. So I feel like, you know, how the military is messaged here by the administration, I think they value the optics of people in uniforms in places they're not usually, to look tough, to be able to show some symbolism that they are cracking down on law and order issues.

15:25Pete Hegseth:And the idea that, I mean, they have long fixated on Portland.

15:30Donald Trump:Yeah. Why Portland?

15:31Pete Hegseth:I think a lot of this goes back to the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, where you had protests pop up in numerous places. Portland did have some of the most significant protests in that event. They've continued to have on and off other kinds of protests in the last five years. And it's, you know, the sanctuary city aspects. There's just a lot of things that people around President Trump are focused on there. And in our earlier reporting about the military potentially going to Chicago and some of these other major cities, I mean, it was Portland, it's Boston. It's a lot of places that have Democratic governors and liberal basis, basically.

16:10Donald Trump:So what is he sending these troops to Portland to do exactly?

16:14Pete Hegseth:The deployment in Portland and Los Angeles and I think likely other cities to come seem to be focused on protecting law enforcement personnel, federal law enforcement personnel, ICE being the most obvious one. there is a carve out within law where in certain circumstances, you can call in the Guard to protect federal property and federal buildings. So in Los Angeles, for instance, we did see National Guard kind of postured around the federal courthouse. But those are supposed to be rare, and certain circumstances must be met in law for that to occur. And that remains contested whether that was the case.

16:51Donald Trump:You know, Dan, I'm thinking about, you know, this meeting tomorrow and kind of what we're going to hear. And then you talk about Trump's order to send troops to Portland. What are the optics of this moment for the military in America?

17:05Pete Hegseth:So this would be referred to as a civil military affairs discussion. The military is supposed to have civilian control. President Trump especially loves to assert that, civilian control over the military. This is the civilian-run military, therefore they should do what I want. You know, is basically, I think, the viewpoint. that sometimes collides with best practices, long-established norms, and the law, depending on the issue. So the generals and admirals are often stuck between a rock and a hard place over what can we do, how can we meet presidential intent while still following the law. And I think those discussions are going to come up over and over again, not only with things like these domestic deployments, but also things like the strikes we've seen on drug boats in the Caribbean.

17:54Donald Trump:You know, also, some people have flagged this meeting as being potentially concerning for its optics. There was that interesting ex-exchange last week. A retired senior officer, a lieutenant general, he tweeted that German generals were called to a surprise assembly in Berlin in 1935, and they were required to swear a personal oath to Hitler. And Hegseth actually responded to that tweet. What did he say?

18:21Pete Hegseth:Cool story, General.

18:22Donald Trump:What do you make of that?

18:25Pete Hegseth:I read it as Hegseth sort of dismissing the General's concerns, basically kind of trying to bat it away, basically make fun of it. And I think that's sort of the broader discussion here. There are people who have devoted their entire careers to U.S. military affairs, civilians and people in uniform alike, who do have concerns over the direction things are going. Yeah. And there are a number of ways you could handle that. You could say, hey, business as usual is not working. We're going to do this. Here's why. And kind of try and to some degree build consensus. They've kind of leaned into the other idea, which is this is us.

19:04Pete Hegseth:We won. We're in control. We're going to do it our way. And, you know, there are a lot of people in uniform now. I mean, I'm having discussions with, you know, long-time friends and sources who are having to navigate whether they want to continue their careers or retire. And, you know, we're just in that moment now.

19:26Donald Trump:Well, Dan, thank you so much. We look forward to reading all your reporting on this meeting tomorrow. I know you and our colleagues will be covering it closely.

19:33Pete Hegseth:Yeah, it's going to be a big team effort.

19:34Donald Trump:Thanks for coming on.

19:40Donald Trump:Dan Lamothe covers the military and the Pentagon for The Post. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. If you're looking for the latest updates on the big news of the day, check out our morning news briefing, The Seven. We bring you the seven stories you need to know about every weekday morning by 7 a.m. You can listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts. Today's show was produced by Rennie Svarnovsky with help from Laura Benshoff. It was mixed by Sean Carter and edited by Ariel Plotnick. Thanks to editor Ben Pocker. I'm Kolbie Echowitz. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from The Washington Post.