Rob O'Neill

Yeah, Megan, it's crazy. My initial reaction was Senator Blumenthal, who I can't believe shows his face in that committee because he lied about Vietnam the entire time. He's been lying about Vietnam since he didn't fight there. And then he finally got busted, had to come out and say, you know, I apologize for misspeaking.

There's a huge difference between fighting in Vietnam with real Marines and misspeaking and lying. So he's up there doing that. I love how high and mighty they all get. They're not mentioning – Senator Ben Cardin had a staffer who had gay sex in the Judiciary Committee room, filmed it, no big deal. And then even as far as – I love how Senator Mullen –

from Oklahoma said, you know, they come in drunk. I've seen you come in drunk. It's almost like there's some Senate, like the Democrats are playing their, the cards they play and their, you know, their, their sentences that they don't, their questions they don't want answered. But now all of a sudden you, you turn the light on and the roaches just scatter.

It's, I mean, it was, it was, Pete did a great job, but I think Democrats look horrible.

Go ahead, Rob. Well, I think that the rules of engagement have a tendency to get way too strict, especially the longer we make a war last. And, you know, the Geneva Convention was one thing, but things change. And then I mean, I've seen everything from NCIS, which, by the way, the worst thing that ever happened is they made a TV show making those guys look cool.

They're going to get promoted the more people they can prosecute, play the good guy, then the bad guy, and they get whatever credit when they put someone in jail. What I've noticed, especially with my unit in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fewer rules we had, the better we were because we had the latitude and were more precise. And like it or not, we on the ground are the good guys.

And the Monday morning quarterbacks that sit in Washington, D.C. and put people in Leavenworth for murder in war – I remember even on the bin Laden raid when we before we even got in the house, one of my friends shot one of the couriers and then his wife jumped on top. He shot her. He looked at me outside the house. This is outside bin Laden's house. And he said, I just shot one of the women.

She just jumped in front. Am I going to be OK? It's like, stop worrying about that. That should not be in your mind. And when a Marine is in a gunfight, they should be worried about, well, is some dude in a nice suit that's never been in mud going to prosecute me for this? It's nonsense. And this is just what.

This is the bureaucracy that happens with the further you go, the bigger the government agencies get. And then it turns into the self-licking ice cream cone, personal power. Can I put an American in jail so I can get a Navy achievement medal? And that's what he's getting at. And the reason there's so much blowback is because what needs to happen is the fat needs to get trimmed.

What needs to happen at the Pentagon is exactly what Elon Musk did at Twitter. Get rid of everybody. almost changed the name and they'd be more efficient. You're seeing the death throes of dying policies, and that's what these senators were doing today. And Pete nailed it.

Yeah, that was the best quote of the day. I remember when he said that, and that's exactly what he was bringing to it. He's trying to simplify it. He's not trying to spin anything. We're going to fight the war, and we're going to win. And accountability is huge. And every veteran back there, there was a lot of special forces, a lot of infantry and Marines behind him.

You could almost hear them agreeing with him because that's what they want is accountability. They want to be able to have a line solidarity. They want to forward defense and deterrence. They're not worried about the political class. Like Pete was just saying brilliantly that that's where all this stuff comes from. And you could even hear it spun today.

I think it was a Mazzy Hirono from Hawaii who said something like, it doesn't matter who you love. If you fight in a war, it's like, well, it's not quite that Pete's saying, if you live up to the standards, you can work. And it's not the worry about the LBG LGBTQ stuff. It's the, are you going to get an operation that requires you to recover for 18 months and you're not operationally ready?

That's all he's saying. But the problem is a lot of times, especially even dealing with politicians, you really got to be careful telling the truth because you might just offend stupid people. And that's all that's happening here. But Pete nailed it. And that's right, too. The only person who's been held accountable for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a colonel who spoke up.

And he didn't even say anything disparaging. He's like, hey, where's the accountability? Boom, fired. And that's the way they handled it because you get to a certain level in the military, you stop being military, and you start being political because you want to get that job at Raytheon. You want to be a contractor. You want to run for politicians.

And I've talked to so many – I've been saying for a long time we need a mid-level officer with experience on the ground to take the Pentagon. Yes. I've talked to so many good officers at the major level, lieutenant commander level, that get out of the Navy, get out of the Army, because they're tired of dealing with the bureaucracy. I have a simple plan, too, if you want to keep it simple.

The second you stop carrying your own bags, you need to get out of the military. And that's it. So we need a major in there, a lieutenant colonel to run the—I think it's a perfect choice. And you know what? If we're wrong, we're wrong, but we're going to find out. Peaches Cruz today, he's going to get nominated—he's going to get the job. Confirmed.

Well, yeah, I mean, well, because when he's when he's talking to Senator Kelly, who, by the way, is just ramping up for a run in 2028, that's all he's doing. But at one point he was saying it's anonymous and he always said, well, they're not anonymous with no proof. Like, oh, well, then who's the who is it? Well, yeah, he's seen them. Well. They are.

But I think that the beat your wife thing was so egregious that Pete had to say absolutely not, because that's just ridiculous. I mean, it's to the point where, well, if you did.

Well, he was saying it was addressed and he wasn't there. If he wasn't there, that's not really on him, I don't think. I don't think the chain of command in the civilian sector works like it does in the military. It would be probably on the XO or the CO if a bunch of his guys went to the bar on a weekend on a trip and then got in trouble. That would be on them, but I don't think it is there.

Okay, I mean, you put it that way, yes, I agree with you. I was just thinking it was the strip club or the beating your wife thing, he's going to answer it that way. Because, I mean, you've got to consider with all the stuff being thrown at him, he really handled his emotions very, very well. This is one of the major reasons I'm not running for office or trying to get confirmed into anything.

But he handled it like a pro, and he did get a little upset. But, I mean, he did a really good job. Knowing the Democrats are... He did such a good job today, and the Democrats were so bad. I think it's going to make the next confirmation hearings go a lot smoother because they're going to shoot their shot like they always do. We've seen in landslide elections where the American public wants it.

Even the media is taking a knee to what's going to happen. This is where they've got six days left. They're just doing what they can, and then they're gearing up for the next election, which is what politicians do.

Dakota, I'll defer to you first. Cause I think I outrank you.

Nice. Go ahead, Rob. I had leg day because I'm still moving out of my house. A lot of furniture to carry.