Oops! He Did It Again: Secretary Hegseth on the Defensive over Second Signal Chat
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Who is Bob Woodward and why is he significant?
OK, the first thing I should tell you tonight is that Bob Woodward is here. Yes, that Bob Woodward, all the president's men, Bob Woodward, the reporter who toppled the president, Bob Woodward. I can tell you that when you're working in government and Bob Woodward's number pops up on your phone, which has happened to me, your heart rate picks up a little bit, no matter what administration you're in. And he's going to be here at the table in just a few minutes. But first, I want to show you something he said the last time we spoke, because it was right after the election, just a few weeks after. And one of the things we talked about was the glaring incompetence of the people Donald Trump was picking for his cabinet. People like Pete Hexeth.
What are the allegations against Secretary Pete Hegseth?
I have known, over the reporting time I've had for five decades, 16 secretaries of defense, going back even before I was a reporter, Robert McNamara. And they have to know management. They have to know what the responsibility is. They have to know where the levers of power are. And in this appointee, I see none of that.
Sixteen secretaries of defense. I see none of that, is what he said. And yet it didn't take an investigative mind like Bob Woodward's to know that Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense might be slightly problematic. I mean, before running the U.S. military, he was a weekend morning show host on Fox News with a reputation for going years without washing his hands, which, by the way, is his admission, just to make it even weirder. And no shade to cable news hosts, obviously, even ones who get a little crazy on New Year's Eve, you can see there. It's not a job that exactly prepares you to run the Pentagon as your next step. There were also the countless allegations of Hegseth drinking on the job, both at veterans organizations and at Fox News. The New Yorker reported he once got so drunk that he had to be restrained from getting on a stage at a Louisiana strip club. There were the allegations that he ran those relatively small veterans organizations into the ground financially.
And of course, there were the allegations about his abuse of women, including his second wife. He denied all of it, of course, but yeah, it's safe to say there were some signs that maybe this guy wasn't exactly fit for the job of overseeing the Defense Department. And so when we saw this headline at the end of March, it was one of those things that was both shocking but kind of unsurprising. And the very first paragraph of Jeffrey Goldberg's story was, again, both shocking but entirely unsurprising in a lot of ways. I mean, here's what it said, quote, The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern time on March 15th that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming.
The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, had texted me the war plan at 1144 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons, packages, targets, and timing. Well, a few hours after that story was published, Jeffrey Goldberg was here at this table, and we watched together as Pete Hegseth looked straight into the camera and lied about what Jeffrey Goldberg knew to be true.
Talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again. Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that. I'm going to be responsible here and not disclose the things that I read. and saw, I will describe them to you, the specific time of a future attack, specific targets, including human targets, meant to be killed in that attack, weapon systems, even weather reports.
Now, as you know, eventually Goldberg did release the screenshots of what Hegseth texted him, laying out in explicit detail the weaponry and sequencing involved with that attack. And even after those screenshots were released, after, Hegseth kept on lying.
I noticed this morning out came something that doesn't look like war plans. And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans. There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Bob Woodward and why is he significant?
0:08–0:48
2
What are the allegations against Secretary Pete Hegseth?
0:48–5:24
3
What sensitive information did Hegseth share?
5:24–11:10
4
How are Hegseth's actions affecting his position?
11:10–17:13
5
What did Bob Woodward say about Hegseth's leadership?
17:13–23:22
6
What are the implications of Hegseth's leadership for the Pentagon?
23:22–30:58
7
How does the White House respond to criticisms of Hegseth?
30:58–34:09
8
What broader issues are related to Trump's administration?
34:09–41:32
Speakers
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