Trump Loses It and Fires Top Generals at Worst Time!!!

0:00Hey, Chicagoland. Wayfair's big sale is coming to the Wayfair store. It's Way Day and it's almost here. Starting April 25th, you can score huge deals on everything home in person, like up to 60 % off mattresses, up to 40 % off appliances, and up to 60 % off home reno. Plus, you can take home the small stuff that day and get the big stuff shipped fast and free. Shop Way Day from April 25th through 27th at the Wayfair store at Edens Plaza in Wilmette.

0:56Way fair, every style, every home. Yes, the same Monday.com.

1:27That's 1-800-Flowers.com slash podcast.

1:30Ben Meiselas:The top officer of the United States Army fired. The top leader of the United States Navy fired. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs fired. Fired, fired, fired. The leader of Southcom in the Caribbean fired and forced out. You have Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth conducting a massive purge of our military over the past 14 months. You've had generals, admirals, and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, other top military officers purged or resigned. And some of our top talent is gone when we need them the most. And I think back to an interview that I did with Ben Hodges, who was the army commander of Europe for the United States.

2:25Ben Meiselas:And he told me his big break with Donald Trump and him becoming an outspoken guy against the Trump regime. when you hear Donald Trump talk about my generals, my admirals. It's the language and my opinion of Adolf Hitler and Mussolini. And these types of purges that we're seeing now are the types of purges that we saw that would be conducted by Hitler and Mussolini of their top military leaders. I mean, let's just take a look at what happened in the past 24 hours. United States Navy The Secretary John Phelan was fired. He was fired by Hegseth, who doesn't actually have the authority to fire because he's Senate-confirmed, president-appointed position.

3:11Ben Meiselas:Trump had to be the one who actually did the firing. So Hegseth said, I'm firing you. Phelan said, I don't believe you fired me. And Phelan actually goes to the White House to confront Donald Trump. It's the story that CNN and others are reporting. And Donald Trump said, yeah, you're not building my ships good enough. I wanted those ships built quicker. And you may recall that Donald Trump wanted a group of ships called the Trump battleships. I kid you not. And Trump doesn't like the aircraft carriers or stealth ships or modern ships because Donald Trump thinks they're not aesthetically pleasing.

3:47Ben Meiselas:And he goes, I'm an aesthetic guy. I want those battleships we used during World War I, those big, big battleships, Trump would say. I want to call them the Trump battleships. And he said that Phelan wasn't building the battleships quick enough. So while we have a naval blockade in the Persian Gulf right now, which is the main barrier to reaching negotiations or having negotiations with Iran, we fire the Navy secretary. I mean, look, John Phelan was a weird person to have this job in the first place, but who isn't in the Trump regime? The guy's never been in the Navy, never been in the military.

4:21Ben Meiselas:He's a private equity guy who's just a Republican donor. But he's fired by Hegseth and Trump because he wasn't building the Trump battleships quick enough, right? And then what, a week and a half ago or two weeks ago or so, you had Sean Parnell. He's the spokesperson at the Pentagon. The same way he announced the termination of Phelan, two weeks ago, he announced the termination of Randy George. That's the Army Chief of Staff, which is a four-star general. I mean, he's the top guy in the United States Army, General Randy George, the top position in the Army, is the Chief of Staff. And as Dan Lamouth, who's a foreign policy and a reporter for Washington Post, says, this move is a surprise to many relatively senior Army officials.

5:11Ben Meiselas:It also comes close to nearly a complete remake of the Joint Chiefs. since Hegseth took office. He basically fired everyone who's on the Joint Chiefs, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And in addition to Phelan, in addition to Randy George, the general, the Army Chief of Staff, Defense Secretary Hegseth also fired this guy named David Honey, a former Army Ranger who led the Army Transformation and Training Command, Major General William Green Jr., who's the chief of the Army's Chaplain Corps. And Hegseth and his team are now looking like they're going to try to fire Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll because Hegseth is very jealous of this Driscoll guy who's like Vance's buddy.

6:01Ben Meiselas:And Hegseth wants to see that guy gone. Now, this follows Admiral Alvin Holsey, who led Southcom. He stepped down. He was the Southcom chief, the top person, the top command of Southcom. You don't just resign. But he was asked to leave by Hegseth. And Holsey was objecting to Hegseth's war crimes in the Caribbean, where the United States military just blows up fishing boats that are off the coast of Venezuela. And as Zachary Cohen from CNN explains, tensions were simmering between Hegseth and Holsey for weeks. Hegseth did not believe Holsey was moving quickly, aggressive enough to blow up the fishing boats in the Caribbean.

6:46Ben Meiselas:And he wanted more people to die. He had this bloodlust. He wanted to see more people dead. And Holsey said, look, these are war crimes. We can't do this. Now, It should be noted that in 1938 to 1912, Adolf Hitler systematically downgraded Germany's military command structure, sidelined independent generals, abolished the war ministry, and then concentrated control under his command. He had like a Hegseth-type sycophant, ultimately making himself the supreme commander, a deliberate centralization of military power in his hands. You know that moment when you're heading out the door and need something that looks polished without ironing or overthinking it?

7:28That's exactly why I wear Mizzen and Main. I've been shopping with them for a while now, and honestly, once you try their shirts, it's hard to go back. I recently picked up one of their dress shirts and a pair of pants, and they are easily my go-to now. Super lightweight, stretchy, and just ridiculously comfortable while still looking sharp. Mizzen and Main makes classic menswear with performance fabrics, so you can look sharp and feel great all day long. No compromises. They actually invented the Performance Fabric Dress Shirt over 10 years ago, and since then, they have perfected it with modern fabrics.

7:59Their shirts and pants look refined, yet they're stretchy, lightweight, moisture-wicking, wrinkle-resistant, and completely machine-washable. No ironing or dry cleaning, and you really can wear them anywhere. Office, golf course, even just hanging out, they are clothes you actually don't want to take off. And here's something really special. Mizzen and Main is a veteran-led organization, and I love that. They're committed to supporting those who have served. They offer a year-round military discount and proudly give back to veteran organizations. Now is a great time to give them a try. Right now, Mizzen and Main is offering our listeners 20 % off your first purchase at MizzenandMain.com, promo code MIDAS20.

8:42That's Mizzen, spelled M-I-Z-Z-E-N, and Main, M-A-I-N.com, promo code MIDAS20, M-E-I-D-A-S-2-0 for 20 % off. MizzenandMain.com, promo code MIDAS20. And if you'd rather shop in person, you can find Mizzen and Main stores in select states.

9:07Ben Meiselas:By the way, this is why I said, if you look at Trump building the ballroom and the bunker underneath, Trump's not planning on leaving, right? Trump is planning on using the military, in my opinion, after the term ends in order to try to stay in power. And he's trying to figure out how to do that now while his approval is 33 % and 30 % on the economy. As Dan Lamothe previously wrote, according to an exclusive report published by the Washington Post. This was several months back. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Kane, along with other senior officials at the Pentagon, were preparing a major plan to present to Hegseth, which would basically downgrade several of the U.S.

9:48Ben Meiselas:armed forces, unified combatant commands, and they shift in the balance of power among its top generals as part of a consolidation that Hegseth wanted. If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military's highest ranks in decades, which would include reducing in prominence the headquarters of CENTCOM, EuropeanCOM, EUCOM, U.S. African Command AFRICOM, by placing them under the control of a new organization called U.S. International Command Intercom. In addition, the plan calls for realigning SouthCOM and U.S. NorthernCOM, which oversees operations throughout the western hemisphere under a combatant command known as americom it's something they're still working on right now and basically all of this would be controlled by donald trump the way hitler centralized these command structures as amy siskin also writes our military right even now the military sees what trump's doing that's why you know this was sorry in the wall street journal article recently she's reposting the wall street journal article that we've been talking about a while now, where you have military leaders trying to keep Donald Trump out of the situation room.

10:59Ben Meiselas:He's just so erratic. He's so erratic. He wants to play war and dress up and he wants to show how tough he's erratic. He gets scared, you know, and it's really becoming deeply, deeply problematic. You know, and it should be noted that even some of the generals that Trump's kept, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Cain, by the way, he had to get to get a waiver to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs because he didn't have the rank to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But Donald Trump liked his name. Raising Cain, Raising Cain. I'm going to make you my guy right out of central casting.

11:35Ben Meiselas:But even Cain, before the war in Iran started or Trump's unlawful war in Iran started, he warned Donald Trump that an attack on Iran would be very problematic, that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, attack its neighbors and that the U.S. was lacking some of the critical munitions and we would not get the support from our allies and it would become a quagmire. And yes, they were absolutely right. So as Shanaka Pereira explains, 26 generals and admirals in 14 months, no misconduct cited for a single one, a former Fox News weekend host who never held a senior military command, pete hegseth has removed the joint chiefs chairman the army chief of staff the commandee the commander of army transportation and training the chief chaplains the head of south com and at least 22 other senior officers from the most powerful military on earth he also blocked four army officers from promotion to brigadier general two black men and two women because he didn't want to promote black men or women by unilaterally striking their names from a list of 36.

12:45Ben Meiselas:When Army Secretary Dan Driscoll refused to remove them, Hegsitt did it himself and then fired Randy George, who wanted to keep those individuals on the promotion list. Now he's trying to fire Dan Driscoll as well. And this is what Hegsitt is doing. I want to share with you right now that clip I told you about. And this is Ben Hodges right here, retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. This is what he told me back in 2024. This is what he told me in 2024, so you can hear for yourself. And this was January. This is before the election. And he and I were having these types of conversations. Here, play this clip.

13:24The thing that really pushed me over the edge on Mr. Trump was when I heard him talking about my generals and my judges as if we were some third world country that the judges and generals and other authorities all owed their fealty to whoever the dictator was. And I just can't imagine that the founding fathers intended that, you know, the president would have this kind of personal control over generals. But that's obviously how Mr. Trump thinks, and it's reprehensible.

13:58Ben Meiselas:And then recently, he talked about how the United States, having gotten rid of all of this great talent, all of these top generals, like our strategy is so outdated. Like we have all these weapon systems, whether it's the Patriot or the THAAD systems that cost hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars. And each missile that's used to, as air defense costs millions of dollars, sometimes tens of millions of dollars. And Iran's drones are like, the Shahid drones are like$20 ,000. And those FPV drones that they do, The drone swarms are even cheaper than that. And so we're using million-dollar missiles in order to stop$20 ,000 drones.

14:39Ben Meiselas:And just think, if Iran sends decoys that aren't even armed, they can make them even cheaper. And so we're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, which we have, deplete our entire stockpile of missiles trying to shoot down$20 ,000 Shahid drones that the Iranians are able to rebuild very, very quickly. Here's what Hadjah says. Play this clip. And then, of course, we're watching with our own two eyes what's happening in the Gulf region and how effective Iranian drones still are. And that here we are still launching Patriot against Shahid's versus. And then the president couldn't even be poised enough to say, you know, maybe Zelensky does have some cards and let's let's accept his offer to help instead of saying, no, we have the best drones already.

15:29I mean, that is not helpful.

15:33Ben Meiselas:And then you remember there was that moment where Democratic Congresswoman Madeline Dean confronted MAGA Mike Johnson. This was a while ago. This was back in October of 2025. And she confronted MAGA Mike. And she's like, the president is unhinged. This is already in 2025. He's unwell. And Mike's like, a lot of folks on your side are unwell. She's like, did you see what he said to the generals? Like, did you see what went down when he spoke in front of all those generals? Here, let's play this clip. The president is unhinged. He is unwell. What are you doing? A lot of folks on your side are too.

16:06I don't control. Oh my God, please. That performance in front of the generals. That is so dangerous. You know, I serve on foreign affairs and appropriations. This is a collision of those two things. Our allies are looking elsewhere. Our enemies are laughing. I just left the speaker. You have a president who is unwell.

16:24Ben Meiselas:And what she was referring to was that an event when Hegseth ordered all of the generals and admirals to go to Quantico, where he like berated them, right? He wants it to be an eyeball to eyeball kind of conversation, Dan Lamouth reported at the time. And he did it to basically say, if you don't follow everything I do, get the hell out of here. I don't want you to be a general. And Hegseth's an idiot. Hegseth doesn't know what he's doing. And that's how they've crippled our great military right now. And so here was Donald Trump talking about when he was going to meet with the military, how he'll be meeting with the generals.

16:59Ben Meiselas:You can play this clip.

17:11Ben Meiselas:Here's what he said in the Oval Office before that meeting back in October of 2025. Let's play it.

17:23When you say control, so we need 60 votes for this and we have 53 Republicans, so we need seven Democrats. And the seven Democrats and others are asking for an extension of a tax credit on people who get the Affordable Care Act and some other government-backed health care. So are you willing to negotiate? Well, what they're really asking for is they want to pay for illegal aliens that have come into our country by the millions and get onto the rolls. and they want to pay and our people don't want to do that our people are taxed enough you know we just approved the largest tax decrease ever in the history of our country including the extension of the previous trump uh you know trump tax cuts uh the tax cuts that we just approved they want to use those tax cuts to give the money to illegal aliens people that came into our country illegally and that are leaving the country you know there's been a self-deportation because of what we've been doing that's been incredible.

18:21Here was an interaction with Vance. Let's play it. Isn't it nice that people are coming from all over the world to be with us? It's not particularly unusual that generals who report to the Secretary of War and then to the President of the United States are coming to speak with the Secretary of War. It's actually not unusual at all. I think it's odd that you guys have made it into such a big story. Is it a big story? I mean, I don't think it is, I would think it's no, but isn't it a good story? I mean, you know, we're respected from all over the world as a military force. You know, I rebuilt the military during my first term, even though we gave a chunk of it away to Afghanistan.

18:57But we're talking to Afghanistan too, by the way, about Bob Roman, about that. But, uh, but that's a very small amount compared to what we rebuilt it by.

19:05Ben Meiselas:Here's what Donald Trump had previously said about, um, the military is bad. Our generals do such a bad job. They should be fired during the election. I mean, this is what he was running on, that our generals are bad. Our military is bad. We had the strongest military in the world, Donald Trump. It's like, they're bad. Here, play this clip. You know, why wouldn't they want to have a strong water? Why wouldn't they want to have good elections? Why wouldn't they want to have good schooling? Good, you know, so many different things. The military is bad. We have generals that do such a bad job. They never get fired.

19:38I mean, they should have been fired.

19:40Ben Meiselas:And finally, with John Phelan being fired by Hegseth and that whole scene where Phelan runs to the White House and he's like, Donald, did you really fire me? Trump's like, yeah, you're not building the battleships quick enough. Do you remember the press conference that Trump and Phelan had, right, where they were talking about battleships and building Trump-class battleships? And that's what really Trump wanted here to play. This ship isn't just to swat the arrows. It is going to reach out and kill the archers. And for the first time in generations, we'll have a new leg in America's nuclear deterrence because the Trump class battleship will carry the nuclear armed sea launched cruise missile.

20:19Striking dominance isn't all that the Trump class battleship brings to the fight at sea. It has the size and capacity to serve as a flagship for our fleet commanders so that they can command and control naval forces far out to sea.

20:35Ben Meiselas:Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks, everybody, for watching.

21:05five pounds and hit her goal while still living her life. Weight Watchers gave me the tools and I feel amazing. Join the millions of members and lose weight with the number one doctor recommended weight loss program. Lose more at WeightWatchers.com. At six months, participants in a clinical trial of Weight Watchers program lost an average of 12 pounds. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world. Stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just$15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird.

21:39Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month plan, equivalent to$15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com.