Trump Blindsided as Top Aide Quits Ahead of Midterms

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2:26Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump got blindsided as another senior regime official will be quitting. The rats are fleeing the sinking ship we've been covering here now. Day after day, it seems another senior regime official is quitting. They see the writing on the wall. They know there will be massive investigations into Donald Trump's criminality and the disaster Donald Trump has unleashed here at home in the United States and abroad. destroying the United States Alliances and Security umbrella. The individual who will be quitting is Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who holds the top senior civilian position at the United States Army.

3:09Ben Meiselas:He was closely allied with J.D. Vance. They went to Yale Law School together. Driscoll was Senate confirmed. He was working with Randy George, the former Army Chief of Staff, who was forced out by Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. George and Driscoll were focused on modernization within the United States Army, learning lessons from Ukraine to build the United States drone and anti-drone capability, including embedding a first -of-its-type unit in the United States Army, a cutting-edge unit to focus on drone warfare, really learning all of those lessons from Ukraine. That pissed off Pete Hegseth. Also, apparently, Driscoll was very angry that Pete Hegseth would not promote women and black people and minorities within the United States military.

4:02Ben Meiselas:Driscoll apparently had called out that Hegseth was behaving in a way that Driscoll believed was racist. And Driscoll's like, we can't be racist like this in the Trump regime. And Hegseth was like, watch me hold my bag and watch what I do. They continue to fight. And there would be lots of leaks from the Pentagon. And Hegseth would be saying, you know, Driscoll's leading the resistance within the Trump regime against Donald Trump. He's resistance 2.0 or 3.0. And so there would be all of these leaks. And I think Driscoll just had enough. And he was like, goodbye. I'm not going to be here anymore.

4:37Ben Meiselas:more. So here's the reporting from The Hill and The Wall Street Journal. The Hill reported Army Secretary eyes exit around end of year amid Hegseth tensions. And then The Wall Street Journal reports that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is expected to leave his post by the end of the year or possibly sooner. My sources say he's likely to go before November. After months of reported tension with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Driscoll served about 18 months. He developed a close working relationship with former Army Chief of Staff Randy George. The two pushed the Army toward greater use of commercial technology and lessons from Ukraine, including integrating commercially available systems more rapidly into military operations.

5:20Ben Meiselas:George was abruptly fired by Hegseth in April and has not been replaced by a Senate-confirmed successor. Also, there was General Donoghue, the last soldier in Afghanistan, also a beloved general, was very close to Driscoll. Donahue was forced out by Hegseth as well. You have General Christopher Lanev currently serving as Army Chief of Staff, and Lanev and Hegseth got rid of the drone program that Driscoll and George were working on. That seemed to be the last straw. And just to remind you, there have been numerous other senior officials who have been quitting lately. You had half of the Treasury Department over recent weeks and months were leaving.

6:04Ben Meiselas:The top Trump aide, Emily Underwood, leaving the White House. She's the top deputy to Stephen Miller. Of course, you know, Caroline Leavitt was leaving. You had Andy Baker, the White House Deputy National Security Advisor. He announced that he was leaving. You had James Braid, the main liaison to Congress within the White House. He announced that he was leaving. So it's been person after person who have said, all right, enough. We're going to go into the private sector. We are not going to be on the sinking ship come the post midterm investigation period. We're going to bail before that season takes place.

6:43Ben Meiselas:So a reminder, U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll testifying in Congress. Here he was at the House Appropriations Committee saying Ukrainians have fundamentally altered how humans engage in conflict and the United States should learn from the Ukrainians. Here's what he said over here. Under my Title 10 authorities, I can't speak to the sanctions, but I can speak to the United States Army has stood by and stood with the Ukrainians from the very first day of the war. I've been to Kiev. I've spent a lot of time with a lot of the Ukrainian leadership. They have fundamentally altered how humans engage in conflict.

7:19They have done an absolutely amazing job of innovating. And I am publicly on record saying we are learning a lot from them and we are changing to a lot of the lessons that they have taught us. And so I cannot answer your specific question, but I can say we, the United States Army, have served with Ukraine from the beginning.

7:36Ben Meiselas:And then Army Secretary Dan Driscoll over here talked about how he almost described the United States as like an old grandpa learning about the Internet from a kid from their grandkid in Ukraine who actually knows how to do all of this stuff. And what's interesting about Driscoll is that when Driscoll took the job, he was actually had the reputation as being someone who was not in favor of Ukraine. And so he grew over time actually to appreciate the Ukrainian war tactics and the Ukrainian resolve. Also, just a background on Driscoll. He was an officer in the United States Army as well. And so he served our country abroad.

8:26Ben Meiselas:And here's what he had to say there. Let's play this clip. I think that was not working for us. And this actually happened in Germany about 10, 12 weeks ago. We had the Ukrainians, and we invite them in to be our red team, our enemy, and our training, because they are really, really talented, as all of you might have seen on the battlefield. And we learn a lot from them. And so the day before I was in one of the other Eastern European countries talking to the president, the minister of defense, and they had gotten a new counter drone technology, an interceptor, and they were talking about how difficult it was for them to sync in this new interceptor with their radars and their sensors and their command and control system.

9:01The very next day I was in Germany with the Ukrainians, and I asked them, do you all have trouble syncing your sensors? And the look they gave me, the only way I can describe it is the way like a 13-year-old looks at their 85-year-old great-grandparent when they can't zoom in on a phone. And basically the Ukrainians were like, no, sir, as long as it moves data through a wire and can access the network, we can hook anything up.

9:24Ben Meiselas:And he talked over here about the modular open architecture and just how advanced things were in Ukraine. Here, play this clip. Senator, I talk to the Ukrainians reasonably frequently and definitely through SACU. The United States Army has had a presence helping Ukraine since day one. A lot of our leaders have developed very long-term relationships, and it's been a two-way street. We have learned an enormous amount from them. When I talk about Operation Jailbreak, That was because two weeks ago we were in Germany running a joint exercise and the Ukrainians actually sent some of their most talented people to help us learn how they would do the fight.

10:01And it was in that instance that we learned this.

10:04Ben Meiselas:But now Driscoll had to deal with people like Laura Loomer trying to get him fired. Hegseth was always leaking out stuff, as Dan Lamothe of The Washington Post writes. New line of attack on Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. A single anonymous Pentagon official tells The Hill that Hegsitt's team believes they've uncovered proof that Driscoll has become a resistance figure within the Pentagon, not only against Hegsitt, but against Donald Trump himself. And I'll show you over here. This is how state regime media posted it, described it. Multiple sources told us that the removal of Randy George has to do with Hegseth's rivalry with Dan Driscoll.

10:48Ben Meiselas:This was back a few months. This was back in April, I believe. Here, play this clip. Yesterday, Hegseth surprised the Pentagon and White House by firing the Army Chief General Randy George, a respected close ally of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Multiple sources tell us the removal has to do with Secretary Hegseth's rivalry with Dan Driscoll, who is a close ally of Vice President J.D. Vance and was considered on the short list to replace Hegseth at one point, Laura. And Driscoll was also opposed to things that Hegseth would do, like Hegseth blocked the promotion of four Army officers to be one-star generals, two of which are Black and two women on a list of roughly three dozen officers up for promotion.

11:35Ben Meiselas:Hegseth had been pressing senior army leaders, including Driscoll, for months to remove the officers' names, military officials said. Secretary Driscoll, citing the officers' decades-long records of exemplary service, had repeatedly refused. Earlier this month, Hegseth broke the logjam by unilaterally striking the officers' names from the list because they were women and because they were black. He did not want to promote women and black people. He doesn't want to promote other minorities either. And so you have that taking place. You know, there were just open fights between them as well. And in addition to U.S.

12:12Ben Meiselas:Army Chief of Staff Randy George being forced out, Defense Secretary Hegseth removed and forced the retirement of General David Hoden, former Army Ranger, who leads the Army Transformation and Training Command, and Major General William Green, Jr., the Chief of the Army's Chaplain Corps, as Hegseth and his team escalates their long running feud with Secretary of Army Dan Driscoll, who reports indicate may soon be reporting, may be departing from the Trump regime. And I will remind you about this odd story about Driscoll as well. So Driscoll grew to actually like Zelensky and appreciate the tactics of Ukraine, but that wasn't always the case.

12:56Ben Meiselas:So Driscoll was the guy back in November of 2025 or in that period. Remember when Whitcoff basically took the marching orders from Russia, from Dmitriev and Lavrov and others about what the Russian deal would look like with Ukraine? And remember, like they met in Miami. And then remember, there was a meeting that took place then with Zelensky. It was actually Driscoll who took the proposal that Whitcoff claimed that he drafted, but it turns out the Russians actually drafted it. And then Driscoll took it, met with Zelensky in Ukraine. Zelensky's like, I'm not signing this. What the hell is this?

13:38Ben Meiselas:And then they actually developed a good relationship or a decent relationship, Driscoll and Zelensky. And obviously, right now, we know that Trump and Hegseth are depriving Zelensky of the Patriot interceptors. interceptors, depriving Zelensky of the interceptor licenses. They're also refusing to allow Zelensky to get access to Starlink to strike the ballistic missile launchers, right? Zelensky was like, all right, you're not going to give me interceptors. And that's the only way to stop the Russian ballistics, which are just crushing Ukraine right now. You're not going to give us the license so we can make our own.

14:16Ben Meiselas:So can we at least just access Starlink so we We could be able to strike down the ballistic missile launchers just in a defensive posture. Nope, we're not going to let you do that either. And so I just think Driscoll's like, all right, I've had enough. We're out. See you later. And again, you've seen all these people quitting. It'll be interesting to see what they say. It should also be noted, by the way, that the former senior civilian Navy leader, Phelan, he was fired and forced out as well. U.S. Secretary of Navy, John Phelan, he a few months back. Right. He was basically fired by the Trump regime because he wasn't building for Trump at Hegsitt the Trump battleships quick enough.

15:08Ben Meiselas:and he was like, why are we doing the battleships? And that doesn't really make any sense in modern warfare. So he's gone. I just want you to think about, though you take a step back, all these senior Trump officials who have quit, but also think about these senior civilian and military officials who have been quit. All these generals, all these admirals, all these top civilian officials, all gone. And a lot of it happening during the catastrophic war with Iran. And the ultimate irony is, right, you know, Donald Trump's like, Iran, we don't know who their leadership is. They don't know who their leadership is.

15:44Ben Meiselas:It's so chaotic there. There's no real leaders. It's always projection with Donald Trump. He's talking about his own regime, right? Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Get your copy of WTF America, the book I wrote with my brothers. Thanks for watching, everybody.

16:06Ben Meiselas:UTF America. And well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre-order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below.