Hegseth’s Livestreamed Execution Exposes His Pathetic Tough-Guy Act

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1:26I'm going to be joining us on the road on October 20 in Atlanta for our show there. It's at 8 p.m. in Atlanta. It's going to be me, Tim, Sarah, JVL, Mark, Bill, Andrew, Edgar. We're going to surprise guests too. I'm not going to let you know about that one. But look, I'm doing this because Atlanta and folks around Atlanta, you got to get your tickets. We sold out Charlotte. We sold out Columbia. Atlanta, you're lagging a little bit. And so I want you guys to come and get your tickets because that's the one where you're going to get to see Mark talk about the most important world events that are happening right now. And you get to hang out and have a good vibe. It's a great time. So go to our side, the blog.com slash events. And you will be able to see how to get tickets there. Atlanta, October 20 at 8 p.m. All right, Mark, let's start with tough transition here. But let's start with the firing squad. So Pete Hexeth yesterday

2:28announced that they are going to live stream the firing squad execution of Nudal Hassan, who is the Fort Hood shooter, Fort Hood incident killed 13 people in 2009. I know one is arguing that this man deserves leniency. But I want you to listen to Hexeth take almost kind of like a bit of gree at the idea that we would have a public execution that would be livestream. Let's watch the video. No brainer. Execution by firing squad. Army major betrays his country radical islamas kills a bunch of Americans at Fort Hood. Of course, we're going to do it at Fort Hood. We're going to do it on a Thursday. We're going to do it at 1 o'clock, which is when he did it. And it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad. I hadn't been since World War II since we've done that. Well, I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was when, which was, uh, understand when the enemy attacks you, you, you, you need to stand your ground. So it was radical islamas terror attack. Remember what, remember what the Obama called it? Workplace violence. I mean, that's what we're up against. That's the world

3:29viewer up against is workplace violence. Uh, CVE. We know what it is. It was a radical islamas attack in uniform inside the ranks. And so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers as it should be. And we'll make sure that people are able to watch it. That is public. All right. Um, I, well, I'm curious for your thoughts, Mark. Well, first of all, he's pretty excited. He's almost excited. I'm intimidated to say to go on with you, Sam, because of your interview yesterday with Mr. Teeter. Uh, he's, uh, he's almost excited as Mr. Deeter about proclaiming a, uh, a snuff film. You know, he's talking about doing something we haven't done since World War II. We did it in World War II because it was inside of a combat theater. And private Eddie Slovick was tried and convicted of basically running away from his unit when they were in combat. And they did it because we didn't have the opportunity to do lethal injection in war. But I got to tell you the questions about how, how would the army do this? First of all, they're, you know, in 1944, there was actually a

4:33guidance on how to do executions for capital crimes like murder or rape or, or basically running away from your unit. Uh, today we're talking about, uh, we also have a regulation, believe it or not, Sam. It's called Army Regulation 190-55. And it's about executions, the process of executing, executing people at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas with lethal injection for capital crimes. It's done, there's a process to it. And it's, it's humane because a major Hassan, former major Hassan, committed a grievous and heinous crime doesn't mean that we as a society, I think, should, should ignore our moral center. Uh, the issue is, I think, with this, and not only doing it as firing squad, but Secretary Hicks has also wants to live stream it to the public so we can see how we take care of people that do this. I mean, you know, I don't think we need that personally. Uh, you know,

5:35you can go on one side or the other of capital punishment. You know, it, there are various moral approaches toward that, but this is providing just war porn, more war porn that Secretary Hicks has seems to be so, uh, interested in. The other thing I'd say is, who's going to do it? You know, in the procedures for execution at Fort Leavenworth, they talk about having chaplains there, having doctors there, even having the surgeon general there after, after the president gives the order to use a capital punishment, uh, using execution, lethal injection. But in this case, we're talking about getting either volunteers or assigning soldiers to maintain the elements of a firing squad. What we saw in World War II, 12 soldiers of those 12 rifles they were handed before firing the squad. Four of them between one and four would have blank ammunition so they could have deniability on whether or not they fired the deadly shot that killed the individual. There's

6:38moral injury associated with this and, and Bill Crystal made a statement in his article this morning that was on morning shots about how senior leaders should resign before allowing their soldiers to be selected to conduct a firing squad. And make no doubt about it. There will be some people who will want to do this. And certainly some people who want to watch a film about it. But truthfully, Sam, this is, this is the gravity. And it's not something we should be doing or leaders in the army should be allowing. Yeah, I have, I've thoughts on this. Look, I'm personally opposed to the death penalty. But I understand arguments for it. Right. Well, I don't understand is making theater of it. Yeah. I can't get my head around the kind of thirst that Hegseth exhibited there to make a public spectacle of this as if, you know, this is some sort of great moment for America. We should, we should not be celebrating death. It seems fundamentally into Christian to me. I'm a Jewish,

7:41obviously. But the idea that you would put it up on a live stream with all the complications and possibilities that that has with it. I mean, where does that footage go? Who broadcasts it? How wide is it disseminated? I mean, we have social media platforms that you get that stuff out there. It can spread to virtually every corner of the internet. Our kids are going to be able to see this stuff. And then I hadn't even thought about, you know, who performs the execution. But, you know, of course, that is a very valid question. And I know the sounds go attest. But like, I do wonder if Hegseth wants to do it himself. Just listening to him there. I don't think he's brave enough to do that himself, Sam. And that's where I'm going to pick up on. This is all performative from both him and the president. And neither one of them have executed something like this as a mission. I actually think they're a little bit cowardly in suggesting this. It shows a big bravado, and that's usually a sign of insecurity. And I don't think he would certainly want to take part. Although,

8:43you know, he could he could prove himself like he doesn't do every day doing PT with the troops by stepping in line with him. You know, the other thing I'd point out too, that there's only two countries in the world that do public films execution. And those are Iran and Afghanistan. I had the unfortunate instance a long time ago in my career while I was in Saudi Arabia to see a public amputation for a crime of an individual who had stolen something. So they cut off his hand in Chop Chop Square, which was famous. I also saw the virtual and vice police of the Saudi Arabian government beating a woman on the street because her her her robe was too short and it showed her ankles. These are the kind of things that immoral societies do. And they taint you. I used to be a proponent of the death penalty for heinous crimes, but like you, I've changed my view on that. I don't think it's right for a moral nation to do something like that. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium.

9:44It's destroying athlete, creator, and YouTube Maxter. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads so I could download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym. So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus, I get ad free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Hey, what's up guys? It's Hayley Bailey. Okay, I need to tell you about something. I just got YouTube Premium. It's got tons of awesome features like offline downloads so I can download my favorite videos before I travel and watch them whenever I don't have Wi-Fi because we all know airplane Wi-Fi is the worst. I get ad free, I get back room play, and there's like a ton more in there. You should try it. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. So try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. That's a mouthful. As Los Angeles continues to celebrate what was an unforgettable FIFA World Cup

10:442026, we proudly thank our host city supporters, Amgen, Archer Aviation, Kaiser Permanente, L.A. Tourism, and Metro. Your partnership and commitment helped us celebrate our diverse communities and showcase the very best of the Los Angeles region. Together, we're building a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire our communities and shape the future of major events in Los Angeles. Thank you for helping us show the world why we love L.A. For more, visit LASEC.net. Well, and then the idea sort of, and he's kind of the undercurrent of what he was saying there as well. It's a deterrent, right? Like we're going to, we have to show them that if they do this, we'll do it right back to them. But it's really not a deterrent. I mean, empirically, the death penalty doesn't prevent people in the future from committing heinous crimes. I doubt that future radicals, lawmakers are going to say, oh my god, they did a public execution. We therefore will not do the sacked of terror that we've been plotting. So it just doesn't make sense to me. Other than to

11:45your point, they really love the spectacle. And they think that this makes them look manly and tough. And I just don't see it. I think this, like you, I see this as a sign of sort of projection and weakness. Well, and we should add one more thing to this. Major Hassan is currently crippled and in a wheelchair. So I'm watching all kinds of comments on the internet saying, well, that's too bad, you know, problem up and shoot him anyway. Won't this just inflame tensions? I think it will. And the fact that Hassan has repeatedly claimed himself as a potential martyr for this act, he wanted to die during this act. And they basically arrested him as opposed to killing him. So this is only going to inflame the Muslim world, the extremists in the Muslim world even more. And I'm certain we don't need any of that. Yeah, but we don't because we already are dealing with it. And we have an unfinished war that's in some sort of stasis that it's hard to describe with Iran. Basically, we're blockading them. They're trying to continue to

12:48control traffic through the state of home moves. It's we appear to be moving a lot of oil through there, but at a significant cost economically. President Trump posted this just yesterday, and we're recording this on Friday. He wrote, we are having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Want to make clear to everybody that while Iran is in a very bad condition, but economically and militarily, and while the blockade will remain in full force and effect with oil flowing in record numbers of barrels through the homeless straight, we will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd. Now, the reason he posted this is that there's a couple of recent articles in the Atlantic and elsewhere that suggested they were preparing for a pre-midterm attack. So he's trying to put the kebash on that. But honestly, I don't know. I don't necessarily take him at his word here, but I'm curious why you think he felt the need to say this. And also, there's certainly got to be some downside saying, hey, you got three or four weeks before we do anything, right?

13:48Yeah. Well, I think he kind of posted as he is want to do in a willing, nearly way that they might attack before the midterms. And I would bet a whole lot of people got up in his face that were the uniforms and saying, hey, this is not a good idea to continue to do this back and forth because it's causing us, first of all, planning drills. Imagine what's going on in the military every time they say, hey, we want more targets. And that was the initial report, I think out of the Atlantic, right? That they had indicators that the military was conducting planning for different courses of actions. Having been involved in those kind of drills, Sam, they are not fun. They call it the death star when you do that because you're wrapped up in a room trying to figure out what the options are going to be, what your courses of actions are going to be. And every time the president and his folks over in the White House say, hey, we're going to do something like this, the Pentagon gets to work because that's what they have to do. So I'm sure somebody said, hey, let's see how this plays out. And oh, by the way, using this course of action has the potential to inflame the region even more,

14:53cause gas prices to go up even more because the Houthis might be more solidly involved. And one of the things the folks, the planners at the Pentagon are doing is they are not, there's two terms I'll throw at you, Sam. One is called an area of operation. That's where the commander is focused. So Admiral Cooper is focused on Iran right now in the area around the Arab Sea and the Red Sea. When you're talking about an area of interest, his staff is also focused on that and that expands it outward even more. So what we're talking about that most Americans don't see are some of the other issues that are going on in the region. Eritrea and Ethiopia are at or at it again. Egypt is upset because the Suez Canal is closing down because of what the Houthis are doing against the Saudis. Saudis are attacking with a Yemeni back government against the Houthis trying to keep the Bob El Monde abstrate open. And if that closes, you're going to lose about a half of the world's oil. So all of these things could compound this situation where he's just saying, hey, I want to strike more targets and bring them to the table. It's not going to do

15:56that. Well, and it didn't make any sense on a political level to do something before the midterms are just remind voters that were in a war that had become like I said, sort of like background music at this point. So we'll see what happens after the midterms, obviously on a technical level, you're absolutely right. It's just going to flame and flame things where there's no easy way out. The other thing that came across spectrum was that CBS has this new footage that obtained. Now the footage is actually from March. It's sort of underscores, again, when I say background music, it's a little bit surprising. We haven't really understood the extent of the damage that we have incurred from these Iranian drone attacks and strikes. CBS got this footage that actually gives us a sense of the damage that took place in the spring. And it's pretty shocking. The interesting thing about this is we see this occur. This is Camp Burin Kuwait, which every soldier in the army and every Marine in the Marine Corps will know because that's kind of a staging area

16:56for going into either a rock or Afghanistan. And there's part of the Scentcom's strategic reserve that's there all the time. So you have troops based at this camp and a few other camps in Kuwait on a daily basis. And all those round buildings there, those are troop headquarters. So there's the daylight attack and you're seeing drones coming in. Those are explosions from drones. Those are buildings. The round buildings are placed. That's a drone in the sky right now. In the middle of the day coming in, Moon's still out and striking something in a precise targeting basis, which drones can do. You see the round buildings are normally either headquarters or logistics facilities or troop billets outside of those billets. You see those three things along the side. Those cement things are usually either bunkers or t-walls. Here we are the same location at nighttime. So this was a continuous attack against a base that normally has literally thousands of soldiers there on any given day. The tents don't seem very protective. No, they're not. Okay, they're not. I mean, there's

18:02are not cement buildings. These are fiber stretched over frames. And it's never been something that's been hardened from the standpoint of a fortress. It's just where people live while they're going someplace else. That is just destruction right now. I guess it is a tent. So yeah, Ben and I showed this these photos. That is the naval base in Bahrain. And you can tell it's a headquarters because sticking out of the roof is a series of antennas. And again, it's not a hardened facility. So a drone can fly or a bomb can go right through the side of it as you can see it has. But that was a major operation center for the US Navy in Bahrain. How do you reconstitute this? So let's just assume that this is just completely obliterated. You got to reconstitute it. How long does it take? How much money do you imagine? Well, first of all, it causes massive confusion when you take out right when you destroy the headquarters. But when you're seeing the equipment inside, there's a lot of costs associated with that. But then you have to find and hexeth is proud of using the term moving

19:02them off the x. The x is the targeted area. Well, all of these bases, which we'll talk about in a minute, we're all targeted areas. They used to be just facilities where military personnel would sleep or work while they're working inside of other countries like Iraq or Afghanistan. But when you have to move a major headquarters, it's in the rear lines that is not prone to attack. It causes you, first of all, the discernment where are you going to put them that's safe? And secondly, how are you going to reconstitute the amount of equipment and get the people there to do it? So when when campuring was attacked, those guys went into the middle, literally went into the middle of the desert that was not a facility and put up tents like we did during desert storm before these bases were operational. So not only the confusion and the disruption, but it's also the amount of equipment, high speed, highly technical equipment that were destroyed during these operations. You you shared with us a bit of a kind of rundown of the costs that you think are growing,

20:08but yet still underestimated. Can you walk through some of that? Yeah, there's there's six major weapons system components that everybody when when when we talk or we're hearing the news about the depletion of precision weapons, there are six major types of weapons. First of all, there's the offensive strike weapons and you and I had this conversation because when the Abe Lincoln pulled in the port, they were making a big deal about the fact that they used 420 Tomahawk missiles. 420 Tomahawk missiles at $3 million a piece is a lot of quaint and that's just one type of missile. There's also called a jasm, which is a joint air to surface standoff missile, which is kind of like the Tomahawk. There's something called a JSAW joint standoff weapons, which is a precision glide glided bomb precision guided glided bomb. There's J-dams, which the Air Force likes to use a lot, which is a joint direct attack munition GPS guided bombs and the military has all

21:12kinds of names for these things, but those are just the attack missiles. Then you get into the air and missile defense interceptors. The Navy has missiles called SM-2's, SM-3's and SM-6's. Six's and they have stand for a standard missile. The Navy does not have a whole lot of, I won't insult the Navy, but they don't have a whole lot of cool names for their missiles. They just call them SM's. The Army has the Patriot Pack 3, which is the advanced capability Patriot. And that is a very expensive missile. The original Patriot was designed to knock down airplanes. The Pack 3 is designed to knock down cruise missiles. There's now the THAAD missile, which their missiles are $15 million a pop when they launch those knock down cruise missiles and prevent damage, but those are all the defensive missiles. Then you go into the third category, the air-to-air weapons. I won't go into the side winders and the amrams and all that. Then there's a fourth category of

22:13expendable weapons systems like one-way attract drones, which cost a couple of hundred thousand of peace. Air launch decoys, specialized munitions. Then in the final category, you're talking about what we provide to our allies, which also depletes our resources. Now, you know, HECSF made a big deal about how much we've given to Ukraine. We gave probably multiple times that to all our golf partners over the last couple of years. So when you talk about the cost of these things, per capability, per missile, it's extorting. The Atamahawk cost about $3 million a copy. We launched 420 of them from the carrier strike group A Blinken. The jazzms are about 3 million. The Patriots are about 3 million. There's others that cost even more expensive, like the surface missiles that the Navy use are $28 million. It builds up a cost. That's just the ammunition.

23:14Yeah, that's just the ammunition. Senkhanman mid-September said they put an estimate of $43.6 billion. That strikes me as quite low. As you're walking through this. There is a doctrinal term for that salmon. It's called bullshit. That is what the Pentagon is putting together based on roll-up of things they're getting. But like we just said about that headquarters in Ukraine, that's second and third order effects, which cost a lot of money. One of the examples I'll give you. There were three different bases where we have THAAD systems, which is an air defense system, a very expensive one, where they have what they call radomes, which is a large radar facility. Each one of those radomes cost a billion dollars a copy. The facility itself. When three of them are destroyed, right there is 3 billion bucks. Now you're talking about the other bases, anywhere from Qatar,

24:14Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE Jordan, and elsewhere. Then you also have the civilian infrastructure with the Pentagon, which the Pentagon probably is not incorporating the ports, the airports, the energy. Hell, King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, the capital, was hit last week. We don't know what that cost, but that is a major airport facility, as well as the energy facilities and the desalination plants. So we're not accounting for the kinds of things that have been destroyed. Then one last category, and I'm sorry for boring you with this, but then you've got the equipment. That's a tanker. That's a refueling aircraft. I think. There have been 81 aircrafts accounted for as being destroyed, which includes 45 Reaper drones, which are our highest standard of drone systems. 12 F-15s from Strike Eagles from the Air Force. Seven of these tankers, which are relatively limited, seven helicopters,

25:22along with a bunch of other high-value aircraft, we don't know the damage that have been done to either ships or unmanned vehicles. Some have been destroyed, some have been damaged. So you can see this all comes together and starts piling up. It's a whole lot more, in my view, than $48 billion. They said 43, so it's definitely more than that. All right. Well, that was damn depressing. Yeah. And it's just the other thing, it's like, how do we get out? We're waiting, obviously, through the midterms, but that doesn't, we're apparently going to start back up after the midterms, which is even more depressing. All right, Mark, I'm going to leave it there, but I appreciate your insights. I appreciate your analysis. It's so great. Like I said, Mark is going to be with us in Atlanta on October 20th at the Eastern for the last stop of our live show, live shows, our fall tour. Atlanta, you got to step up. Georgia, you got to step up because you're going to put,

26:27again, put the stand by Columbia and Charlotte. So by those tickets now, you get to see stuff like this. Also, just in general, I'm going to just be a little bit of, you know, Sappy here, but it is an awesome community. And it's so energetic and it's amazing when you are in the building, watching us, you know, conversely audience, talk to each other, go through all the news of the day and get great analysis like what you just heard from Mark. Being there, it's different. It feels different. It's amazing. Real community vibes. So if you are interested in seeing a show, like I said, theborick.com slash events get your tickets now Atlanta step up. Mark, thanks so much, man. Really appreciate it. You got to say thank you for having me. As Los Angeles continues to celebrate what was an unforgettable FIFA World Cup 2026, we proudly thank our host city supporters, Amgen, Archer Aviation, Kaiser Permanente, LA Tourism and Metro. Your partnership and commitment helped us celebrate our diverse communities and showcase the very best of the Los Angeles region. Together, we're building a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire our communities and

27:31shape the future of major events in Los Angeles. Thank you for helping us show the world why we love LA. For more, visit LASCC.net. This is Dr. Laurie Santos from The Happiness Lab. Research shows that social connection is important for happiness. And something that research comes back to again and again is that the little moments together matter more than we think. And that's why I'm such a big fan of rituals. Think about the glassware you use for all your dinner parties, ones that make your events feel right without even thinking about it. And that's why I've been using the Woodstock Tumblr from Simon Pierce. Their hand blown one at a time. With the kind of character you only get for a human hand. Something made that slowly has a way of reminding you to savor the moments that really matter. Find yours at SimonPierce.com. That's s-i-m-o-n-p-e-a-r-c-e.com. Simon Pierce made by hand one at a time. You know what quality feels like. You can see it in the way of fabric moves, recognize it in a flawless fit, and appreciate it in the details that make our

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