Top Military Leaders Send Stark Warning to Trump and Hegseth

0:00Ben Meiselas:Some of the top military generals and admirals past and present in the United States military have been issuing a series of warnings over the past 24 hours about the incompetence, recklessness, and maliciousness of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, of Admiral Brad Cooper, who is the commander of CENCOM, as well as Donald Trump and the incompetent regime. the incompetent war plans, that they don't know what they are doing. So there's been a series of major, major leaks. This, as the Trump regime has apparently also raided the Secret Service offices, blaming the Secret Service for certain leaks regarding the old Air Force One.

0:50Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump humiliated that these stories have gotten out about him hiding in the catering container with Natalie Harp. I'll probably do another video on that today, though, as well. But here's some of the warnings that are coming out. First, you had the New York Times reporting in the past 24 hours how Pete Hegseth's purge of top military generals has left the United States Army completely rudderless. And this article goes on to talk about how the firing of the Army Chief of Staff, Randy George, the beloved top person in the United States Army, has led to a destruction of morale in the Army, that nobody has filled that position of Randy George.

1:38Ben Meiselas:It also goes on to talk about General Donahue, a beloved general who Christopher Donahue, the last man standing in Afghanistan, is what he was known for, who had a major role overseeing US ground troops in Europe, and who also brought some of those lessons of the war in Ukraine to the Middle East during critical time where the Trump regime was not prepared for the drone warfare by Iran. This article talks about an incompetent and inexperienced general by the name of Christopher Laniv, who nobody seems to like, including the Republican senators. And this guy is a Pete Hegseth loyalist, a bootlicker, who's a back-to-basics guy who's been working with Hegseth.

2:31Ben Meiselas:That's what they call it, back to basics. Let's get rid of the cutting edge drone programs and focus on testosterone-fueled World War II war ethos. I'm going to get into more of that leak in a moment. So that was New York Times. Then you had the Wall Street Journal. The warnings that came before a war now reaching the six-month mark. After military and diplomatic efforts, Trump pins his hope on economic warfare. But what the article really talks about is it cites top military officials, generals, admirals, present and former, who basically say Brad Cooper, who's the commander of CENTCOM, was telling Donald Trump just everything Trump wanted to hear.

3:18Ben Meiselas:And he would boast and brag about all of the killing of Iranian leadership, but not really talk about what was really happening on the ground. And talked about how Hegseth and others around Hegseth would tell Donald Trump, everything's going great. This is easy. We have the best plan. We're going to destroy Iran. And meanwhile, you had everybody in the intelligence community and you had J.D. Vance saying that this war should not be started. and that Donald Trump rejected the intelligence community for Hegseth and for Brad Cooper, who continue to provide false information about the war. Let's dig into that one a little more as well.

4:01Ben Meiselas:Then there was another leak that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told all of the Middle East nations around the world that for now the United States is not expected to initiate new strikes against Iran because the United States doesn't really even have the military capabilities to protect former allies in the Middle East, who you know have now formed the Mecca Pact, a lot of them, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey. And then there's just been regional coalitions forming that now that the United States security umbrella has utterly broken down. Then you had another leak, you following this. So there was the New York Times leak, top military officials.

4:43Ben Meiselas:The Wall Street Journal leaked top military officials. There was that leak right there to an Israeli channel about Rubio. Then there was a leak all in the past 24 hours, another one to ProPublica. After U.S. missile strikes killed hundreds of civilians in Iran and Yemen, the Defense Department is poised to reinstate a program meant to reduce civilian harm during military operations. Pete Hegseth gutted it over the objections of top commanders. So in this article, it talks about how top military commanders told Hegseth, do not cut off the civilian protection program. But he did it anyway. And the consequence of getting rid of the civilian protection program were things like the slaughtering of little girls in Manab, the slaughtering of the girl volleyball players in Le Maird, and other war crimes that need to get more attention where the United States just slaughtered little children in Iran.

5:43Ben Meiselas:And a lot of that took place in the early stages of the war. So you had that article as well. But by the way, the leaks continued. Then you had NBC, top military commanders and officials talking about how the Trump regime has understated the destruction of American military bases in the region. The article is, Iran inflicted billions in damage to U.S. intelligence sites. Sources say the attacks on buildings and surveillance equipment in the Middle East caused unprecedented damage for the CIA and other U.S. spy agencies. The NBC reporting is as such, Iranian missile and drone attacks have inflicted unprecedented damage on U.S.

6:29Ben Meiselas:intelligence posts and surveillance hardware in the Middle East that is more extensive than any destruction America's spy agencies have endured and will cost billions of dollars to repair, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. And it talks about how Iran had very precise intelligence regarding where the U.S. intelligence assets were in the region. The U.S. was unable to protect those assets. And one of the things that we know is that Hegseth had no plan. Hegseth is an idiot. Brad Cooper is a horrible CENTCOM commander. He's turned CENTCOM into a MAGA bootlicking propaganda social media operation.

7:10Ben Meiselas:Shame on Cooper. And it pains me to say that I thought he'd be a serious guy, but he's turned out to be a total clown. And we now know because a lot of what he saw, Donald Trump failed. So he dug deeper and deeper into failure, but he's kept his position because he's a Trump MAGA bootlicker. And then finally, we have yet another leak. This is all, again, in the past 24 hours. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who we've talked about before, as wanting to leave his position because he was an ally of Randy George, Army Chief of Staff, and Christopher Donahue, who had that top post in Europe, who was forced out by Hegseth.

7:50Ben Meiselas:and Driscoll believed in modernizing our troops, learning the lessons of drone warfare from Ukraine. But Hegseth wants to talk about injecting testosterone and war ethos and back to the basics, gutting these key programs and just projecting a kind of all white kind of military, whatever, you know. I mean, remember, Hegseth was in the military and he views the fact that he got pushed out of the military from the National Guard because of his tattoos. He views that he was wronged and he's out to get revenge and vengeance on all of the top military people who he thinks wronged him. Hegseth is nowhere near qualified to be anywhere near any position of medium leadership, yet alone to be the Secretary of Defense.

8:43Ben Meiselas:In any event, we reported how Driscoll wanted out over the weekend. Remember that report? Well, now what we're learning about from another NBC leak is that Driscoll wants out by Labor Day. Dude doesn't want to stay any longer. And even though he's being pushed out also by Hegseth, some people in the White House, particularly J.D. Vance, like, dude, we need him right now because he's the only kind of sane and rational person. So that's the sense of all of the leaks that have happened in a very short period of time. And then you have General Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star U.S. Army general who served in Vietnam and the Gulf War, commanded U.S.

9:25Ben Meiselas:Southern Command, and later served in President Clinton's cabinet as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Last night, he posted the following message. The U.S. Navy is an incredible fighting force. 20 warships and two carriers are deadly to the Iranians. The Navy has enormous offensive and defensive capabilities. They are well out to sea and difficult to find or attack. The problem is logistics. The Iranians have ended the utility of Army, Navy, and Air Force Persian Gulf logistics bases which have been hammered by ballistic missiles and drones. Now the fleet will be supported from Diego Garcia and the Philippines, not by our former bases in the Middle East.

10:18Ben Meiselas:We will disperse air power to Western Saudi Arabia and Southern Europe. The army will harden our dispersed missile forces. We are in the middle of a strategic disaster with no allies or support from the American people. In my judgment, he says, the U.S. armed forces have probably permanently lost access to 15 Persian Gulf bases. Iran now is poised to control access to the Gulf states. The U.S. will have to negotiate new access in Western Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Southern Europe. And you see what the U.S. is now doing with Saudi Arabia. Donald Trump announcing yet again that he will be giving Saudi Arabia access to civilian nuclear capabilities, which can always be upgraded to weapons-grade nuclear capabilities.

11:13Ben Meiselas:And remember when Donald Trump was saying, but you have to join the Abraham Accords. Well, Donald Trump was just saying that. Donald Trump seems to be giving the nuclear capabilities to Saudi Arabia, and he wants Congress to bless that. Also, McCaffrey says, note to readers, my posts are never based on classified information. I do not solicit input from active military leadership. I work tirelessly hours a day to gain an objective grasp on national security issues. My 32 years of military service included years of direct involvement with global leaders. Okay, you've heard me talk about them as fast-growing trees, but now they're just trees.com.

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13:44Ben Meiselas:and you see just the amateur behavior of our military. I mean, this guy, Sean Parnell, who's at the defense department, I mean, posting memes like this, America maxing, America might was on full display at the freedom two 50 grand Prix. You see that then their new, uh, like marketing campaign is send me, send me, send me into war. Send me. I don't care what the mission is send me. What do you mean send me? It's actually the opposite. Our service members, and from all we've heard from their family members and from them, don't want to be sent into unlawful and catastrophic wars. They don't want to be told you have to follow Netanyahu into these war crimes in the region and slaughter little children.

14:30Ben Meiselas:They don't want to be sent into places where our military leadership doesn't even give them basic nutrition, doesn't give them food, doesn't give them showers, doesn't give them the basic necessities of life and treats their families like absolute crap and then defames their family members when their family members raise the alarm that their family members who are serving are being treated like absolute crap. I mean, you see this, again, amateur behavior on display when Sean Parnell posts the following, the Department of War was proud to celebrate the Grand Prix. Look at this Grand Prix event.

15:07Ben Meiselas:Okay, why is our military at the Grand Prix event? I mean, y 'all lost a war to Iran. You ran out of munitions. You ran out of weapons. And this is what you're posting here. Play this clip.

15:53Ben Meiselas:And then yesterday, Pete Hegseth was like, we're going to end America's dependence on foreign supply chains and our adversaries. And we're going to build the interceptors on our own. We're going to build patriots on our own. And he released this weird video. I'll show it to you. And it's just like, what are you doing, man? Like, what the hell are you doing? You ran out of the interceptors, okay? And we can have relationships with allies because parts come from different areas. Like, America doesn't make everything. And you can say, well, now we're going to. Well, we're not. You're not doing it.

16:29Ben Meiselas:You're just being performative. And you're attacking our allies. and you are a bunch of idiots who ran out of weapons in a war against Iran with a trillion dollar budget. You're a bunch of idiots, is who you are. And you've always been dumb your whole life. You've not been successful in your life. You should never have had these positions. You're bad people, and you're doing bad things now in leadership. Here play this clip. American battlefield readiness runs through our small businesses. It always has. The vehicles, the planes, and even rifles in our warfighters' hands rely on a supply chain of hundreds of specialty producers.

17:04A Patriot missile depends on hundreds more. These are the local factories, the shop floors, and the labs forging the arsenal of freedom. And that's why today, the Department of War and the Small Business Administration are establishing the Smaller War Plants Commission in the spirit of the historic Smaller War Plans Corporation.

17:29Ben Meiselas:You know, then you had this weirdo, Leffler, who's the Small Business Association. I mean, she looks like, and she speaks like, she's like an alien. Like, I don't even believe that she's a real person, but she's a real person, but she speaks like an alien. And she's like, Thank you, Mr. Hegseth. The Small Business Association is so grateful for all of the hard work of the Department of War. Dude, just don't run out of weapons in a war, okay? And then don't lie and say, we don't have a munitions problem. It's very freaking simple. Here, let's play this clip. Secretary Hegseth has established the mission.

18:08America must build what our military needs when it needs it right here at home. That's where our most innovative of agile businesses come in. The SBA is proud to join the Department of War in establishing the Smaller War Plants Commission. This name reflects the SBA's predecessor agencies formed during World War II and the Korean War that backed the mission-critical small defense manufacturers that armed American forces through victory.

18:35Ben Meiselas:Now, just going back to this article in the New York Times, just so you can see how significant it is. It's Hegsitt's purge of top generals leaves the Army rudderless. The Army has not had a chief of staff, the service's top officer, since Hegseth fired General Randy George. Hegseth forced out at least three senior officers who had been viewed as potential successors to General George. We know about Driscoll who is leaving. Beyond General George, Hegseth has fired or forced out half a dozen senior officers, a generation of the Army's most combat-hardened leaders, thinning the service's top ranks for the next several years, top military officials told the New York Times.

19:20Ben Meiselas:It goes on to talk about one measure of the vacuum at the top of the Army is the number of four-star generals serving in its ranks. As recently as January 2025, when Hegseth took office, there were 10 four-star generals on active duty. The service currently has five, the fewest in decades. Some of those positions are command-focused on regions of the world, like the Middle East or Asia, and are being filled by senior officers from other services. Some have been eliminated. Others, like the job overseeing the Army's Transformation and Training Command, have been empty for months. Last summer, Hegseth selected General David Hodney to lead the command and then fired him eight months later without explanation.

20:05Ben Meiselas:The command is responsible for training and equipping the Army's ground units, including its Patriot anti-missile crews. The Patriots are the main defense against Iranian ballistic missiles fired at U.S. bases in the Middle East. So why did we run out of Patriot interceptors? Well, because we didn't have the person there who was in charge to even know how you're supposed to use them in the first place. And so what Iran would do, recognizing that the U.S. purged its top military, is it knew where to shoot its Shahid drones and where to shoot its ballistic and cruise missiles and how to attract a huge amount of patriots and THAADs, which caused on the Patriot side,$4 .5 to$5 million per Patriot.

20:53Ben Meiselas:On the THAADs, it's like$8 to$10 million per THAADs. Each shoots two to try to shoot down like a$50 ,000 drone or at most a few$100 ,000 cruise missile or ballistic from Iran. Some are more expensive. And so Iran, every time it would launch a strike on a U.S. military base, could draw out$30 ,000,$50 ,000,$100 million worth of U.S. interceptors, and they still wouldn't do the job of stopping the Iranian missiles from striking the bases. The article talks about, again, getting rid of General Donoghue, whose command overseeing U.S. ground troops in Europe was changed to a three-star position, and that was a critical vacancy.

21:38Ben Meiselas:On the opening day of the war, Iran launched all of these Shahid drones, and General Donoghue's command, building off the lessons of the war in Ukraine, had trained and equipped teams of drone defenders who were quickly dispatched to the Middle East. But then we fired Donahue and got rid of him. And then, of course, there's Randy George. And then they brought in this Lenev guy who is viewed as just a sycophant, a bootlicker of Hegseth. We talked about what the Wall Street Journal's report was. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard cautioned that killing Supreme Leader Komen A could bring a more hardline regime open to acquiring nuclear weapons.

22:25Ben Meiselas:J.D. Vance urged diplomacy, but at the same time, you had Netanyahu, Hegseth, Cooper, and others close to that group pushing Trump for war, and Trump took their advice over the intelligence communities advice. And so the short of it is you've got all of those warnings in a very short period of time. Oh, and now we've also learned that Donald Trump is submitting officially now the plan to give Saudi Arabia a civilian nuclear weapons program, which we know is really the precursor to a weapons-grade nuclear program in Saudi Arabia, because now as Donald Trump destroyed the U.S. security umbrella in the region, and all of these nations are looking for Trump to pay up on the quid pro quos that Trump was giving them when they gave Donald Trump personally a lot of money and his family a lot of money.

23:22Ben Meiselas:It's like, all right, UAE, we'll give you our classified semiconductor chips. You want our black wells. Saudi Arabia, what do you want? All right, you want nuclear capabilities from the United States? We'll give you that. Now, we'll see what happens if our Congress actually allows the nuclear deal to go through. It's an election season. I don't think they will, but it's still controlled by Republicans in the Senate and the House. So we will see. Anyway, I know that was comprehensive. We covered a lot of topics. I'm appreciative of you. I'm grateful for you. Get a copy. Where did they put the book?

24:00Ben Meiselas:WTF America somewhere over there, get a copy of the book I wrote with my brothers. Thanks everybody for watching. Hey, if you want the full story, how democracy got here and how we take it back, pre-order our new book, WTF America today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.

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