Tim Miller: Pete Hegseth Looks Completely Out of His Depth

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Hey everybody, Tim over to the bulwark here.

I just got off with my friends Nicole Wallace and Tom Nichols and Claire McCaskill for

a power panel in Deadline White House.

And we were mostly talking about war stuff and the reaction and the political fallout

for our Donald Trump.

While we were on air, Trump was giving a speech to the Republicans who had gathered

at his club in Florida because the Griff test to continue for every possible scent,

Trump has to squeeze every possible scent that he can out of us, the taxpayers.

And by ensuring that these gatherings happen at his fucking shitty hotels.

So anyway, in that speech, Trump is rambling and he's doing like the thing he's been doing

from the start of this, which is not giving a coherent vision or strategy for what

is happening with the war.

On the one hand, he said, we've already won in many ways, but then we haven't won enough.

We're not going to relent until the enemy is totally indecisively defeated.

But we don't exactly know how that's going to happen or what it will look like after.

On why we got in, he threw out that they were going to attack us 100% within the week.

Who is us there?

I guess it would be an interesting follow-up question.

They suddenly want to attack the American homeland within the week.

But anyway, we press four.

There's a lot more of that.

It's just, dude, is not really lasered in on what the reason was for the war or what the

plan is for the war because there is one.

So I want to talk about one clip in particular that I think is important because it speaks

to the end game.

Let's watch that.

So there's a lot here.

On the one hand, it betrays the lie of the idea that this thing is already won and it's already over.

We don't know what happens next in Iran yet, then how can it be almost over?

I referenced in the co-clip, which we'll get to this phone call that Trump has with the

White House reporter for CBS where he says that we've basically won and that quote goes

viral, but in the same phone conversation with Harry's I got, but we also might need

to lock down the straight of her moves and take control of it ourselves, which is a pretty

big task, right?

So he is all over the place and I think that that is evident in that clip.

Another thing that's evident on that clip is I talked about this with JBLS out of the

live stream.

There's like a video game element to this like he's loving it.

He's loving like pressing the scene that like people press the buttons and then things

go boom.

And in this, in that comment and the speech, he's almost, he's like loving the chaos in Iran.

Like, let's look at this quote again.

He says they had leaders and they're gone.

Then they had new leaders and they're gone.

And now nobody has any idea who the people are that are going to be the head of the country.

He doesn't see that as all of us would see that as like a problem that we don't know

what the exit strategy is.

He sees that as like kind of fun.

It's like a reality show.

It's like, let's see what happens on net next week's episode of Traders to Ron Edition.

So there's not a lot of sense in us analyzing this when the president himself and the people

in charge of the war are out there just kind of shooting by the hip and seeing if Rob

from Traders will emerge at the council.

Not a big Traders watcher, but it's kind of on the screen when my husband is watching

it.

So I'm getting the gist of it.

I hope I'm getting the references close enough.

What other clip on a shaper today that we that I referenced on Nicole, though I don't

think we've gotten to in the channel, I want to play JD Vance and how he describes the

war.

In the dignified transfer of six American soldiers who were killed overseas in this conflict

with Iran.

I love the tell there from JD Vance that he just like stumbles over his words.

And then rather than saying the word war, he spits out conflict when he does trump hands.

It's like the the conflict.

It's like Teddy KGB would have that guy pegged at the poker table.

I think that it was very obvious that he was struggling to come up with the the Soros

word for war that he felt like was appropriate in the moment.

And I just I think that's a representation of where we are right now.

So we talk about that a little bit also in the context of Pete Haysath and and his visual

ticks.

I talk as well about Lindsey Graham treating down Trump like a nine year old and and helping

BB manipulate Trump and us into war.

And then we talk a little bit more about that Tucker Carlson clip about how Trump is

getting manipulated.

So stick around for all that mean Nicole Tom Nichols, Claire McCaskill, subscribe to

the feed right here and we'll be seeing you guys soon.

I want to bring Pete Haysath into focus a little bit.

Tim Miller, let me show you how he answered this question about put some the ground.

Do we have any overt or covert forces inside a run now?

I wouldn't tell you that if we did.

Only reason I ask is earlier this week you said no, because that's still the answer.

Yeah, that's still the answer, but we reserve the right and we would be completely unwise

if we did not reserve the right to take any particular option, whether it included boots

on the ground or no boots on the ground.

So Tim, what's interesting to me is the body language, right?

And I always wonder how people around the world are watching this.

But first is the smirk.

Then is, you know, well, nanny, nanny, nanny, I wouldn't tell you if I did.

And then is, oh yeah, I'll tell you, no, but might be yes.

Again, privately, I have no idea how we act.

So all we have is what he puts out there.

Brilliant's and the competence of the courage of the military are its own standing thing.

And I want to really cleave PTAG said off of that in terms of his public utterances.

That was disturbing in its weakness.

I'm not going to tell you, but yeah, I will.

I mean, what was that?

Yeah, and the smirk gave away the whole game, right?

Nicole, look, I'm not a body language expert.

And I was never going to be a White House Press secretary if any of my candidates said one,

because you all the viewers right now can know what I think about PTAG says just looking at my face, right?

I can, that's certain types of people.

I made Pete was meant, I think, to be a weekend talk show host or co-host, rather.

And I think that he was good at that.

And then he has an expressive face, but it's like, his smirk at major told us that we all we need to know.

Obviously, we have covert boots on the ground there.

Obviously, he's lying.

His response was a tell.

And then, as you said, it was kind of weak his follow-up response to that.

He's not up for this.

Luckily, as you mentioned, we've got a competent people underneath him.

But, you know, look, he also is even in charge, is even running the show, right?

And, you know, his answer in a separate clip of that interview was that this war is just getting started.

Well, the president, apparently, called Ouija CBS today and said it might be over soon.

So, you know, there is no strategy.

So he can't offer a clear strategy.

And, you know, he has no, you know, kind of gravitas and experience to be a clear messenger in this.

So he's not going to be.

And what we have is just a very amateurish, childish person in charge of the Department of War in a very serious time.

And we've already lost seven Americans and a bunch of people that we've wrongly killed in Iran.

And I guess that would be my last comment on this.

He's obviously lying.

And that may there's reason to lie about whether we have special forces there.

There is no reason to lie about the fact that we are responsible for the death of 100 some odd children in Southern Iran.

And that's exactly what Donald Trump and Peterx have did when they're asked about that yesterday.

Tim, Lindsey Graham for a long time has been a fool.

But now he's proving to be a manipulative one.

Let me read this from the Wall Street Journal's reporting quote.

As Lindsey Graham tried to sell Donald Trump on bombing Iran, he liked to play a little word association game with the president quote.

I say Franklin Roosevelt, what do you say?

The Republican Senator from South Carolina asked the correct answer quote,

you have nothing to fear but fear itself.

As he ticked through memorable presidential freezes, Lindsey Graham asked Donald Trump what his phrase would be.

Trump said he didn't know Lindsey Graham recalled quote, keep protesting help is on the way Graham suggested.

Senator Graham said he was already talking with Trump about further military interventions in Lebanon and potentially Cuba,

which he says will happen soon.

The seriousness of this isn't just that we're at war with Iran right now.

It's that a Republican Senator only elected by the people in South Carolina and a foreign leader conspired to manipulate Donald Trump

into feeling like his legacy would be quote, keep protesting help is on the way.

That's what Donald Trump posted on social media to the people of Iran about five, six weeks ago.

Your thoughts on this Wall Street Journal report?

So many.

I don't think that quote is going to be the one they remember Donald Trump for, the keep protesting quote.

In part because after that quote, the Iranian regime massacred like tens of thousands of Iranians while we sat on the sidelines and did nothing.

And we eventually came in but after the protests were like basically over.

So I don't think that don't pitching down Trump as a savior there is really going to work.

My other thoughts about that is it's pretty alarming that a senator like treats the president of the United States like he's a 10 year old

and plays little games with them to manipulate him to try to get him to do what he wants.

I mean, I do this with the girls I coach on the eight year old basketball team.

And I feel okay about that because they're eight and you don't trying to get them to focus on the game.

But it's it's pretty alarming that that strategy seems to be working for the president of the United States when it comes to war and peace.

And I just as the broader Lindsey Graham agenda, I just cars on the table, I I don't have any I don't have no love for Maduro.

I don't have any love for the communist and Cuba or the Iatola and Iran.

And I supported and support the right of people and all those countries to be free and and was inspired by John McCain and others and

Claire and others advocacy on that in the past, but like at a practical level, like we've learned a lot of lessons last quarter century about the limits of our abilities there.

And over the past three months, you know, I don't know that Lindsey Graham has a lot of wins to point to as far as creating more freedom for people places, right?

And we traded one communist dictator for another in Venezuela.

And in Iran, so far we traded one committee for another, her many and killed a bunch of girls at a school along the way.

So, you know, I think it's pretty concerning that that Lindsey Graham is like full speed ahead and now we're going to look into Lebanon while the Iran mess is still ongoing.

Let me show you what Tucker Carlson had to say because it's it's important.

This idea that Trump can be manipulated is clear and how Tucker Carlson is talking publicly too.

He says he tried to talk to him and try to talk him out of it.

I sometimes wonder, I mean, worked in the White House, what replaced a national security council and a cabinet.

This free for all is what replaced it. Here's Tucker Carlson.

So, I call over there to see, you know, Carlson who knows him to say, I said, I'm just going to fly up anyway and tell him this because I think it's so important and the person says, don't bother because he's being shown polling that this war is like a 910 win for him.

And I said, I don't know where that polling is coming from. It's like, you know, I guess you could make any kind of poll and it's he's watching Fox News, which is telling him the same thing.

And he's getting fake polling. I guess they're only polling Sean handy's viewers or something.

And so I don't not sure that there's a sense as if this was yesterday because I was getting so agitated and worried.

I don't think that there's a sense that this is unpopular.

I think there's an explanation vacuum here.

I have never said this before when I say it here with all of you for the first time.

I said the same thing as Tucker Carlson just said there.

I have noticed and Stephanie rules reporting from the state of the Union lunch made this clear to me.

All presidents end up in a bubble, but they spend the whole time in the bubble trying to punch out of them and they do OTRs and they do silly stuff to sort of have interactions with normal people.

I don't think real information is getting to Donald Trump not from the 65% of Americans who disapprove of him, but from the 35 who do.

Because in that 35 who do, the vast majority of Republicans who nominate him three times oppose, oppose war in the Middle East.

And I wonder Tim, how do you think he got so insulated from MAGA?

That's a good question. I think part of it is he's not doing the rallies.

He was getting, he wasn't actually meeting with the people in the rallies, but he was getting real time feedback from the audience.

And we saw this running back to 2016. He was adjusting his message, he was adjusting his stick, he was seeing what worked and didn't work.

And sometimes this had an adverse effect on what would have been better, by the way.

Like for example, during COVID or after COVID, when he's talking about the vaccines and he's starting to get booed in Alabama.

I kind of remember that one and he stopped talking about Operation War feed after that, right?

So that was an example of him being getting in touch with the base and then pulling back on something that he shouldn't have pulled back on.

But this is maybe the inverse of that. But I think not doing the rallies is part of it.

Part of it is I do think that, you know, I'm seeing this from other people, but he feels like he's a little bit on a hot streak.

A lot of people told him that the other stuff wasn't going to work.

He wasn't going to win again. He wasn't going to do well in Venezuela.

That the tariffs are going to kill the economy.

And even though there is real damage happening, he isn't experiencing it or feeling it.

And so I think that is part of it too.

And I think the staff thing is part of it. He's chosen a different type of staff to have around.

And this is something we all saw coming for Trump 2.0.

So I do think it's a combination of things.

But I think it's certainly true that he's getting less information than he was in the first room.

Tim, there's something that's so lame about cheating in public.

I mean, whether or not it's all out of weakness or not, this is still his field on which Democrats are playing.

And I wonder, like, how weak does he have to get before Democrats say,

we're not playing his dumb game anymore. Let's go play this game.

I mean, what is your sense of whether or not there's a tipping point for all of his BS?

Well, I mean, I think we're kind of, he's sliding down politically.

And this is, I think this is kind of a desperate effort.

Yeah, you say weak. I think desperate would be another way to put it.

He said he's talking right now. I was looking during the break.

And he mentioned the same thing to save acting and said basically, I don't know the quote in front of me.

But essentially, this is how we're going to win the midterms.

And he's not hiding the ball on it.

And he believes that creating these highly restrictive voting laws and trying to inject trans

issues back into the conversation is the path to win the midterms.

And I don't think it's going to work out for him.

So they might want to go back to plan B or I guess it'd be like plan E or F at this point

on how to stop his political problems because I don't think this is it.

I just add one more thing, you know, just unfortunately,

you have to pretend to take him seriously.

At some point he is the president.

Like the threat to not sign anymore bills, like you call it not doing his job, which is true.

But it's also not doing his job in the context of right now or in the middle of a war.

Or as JD Vance called it today, a conflict.

And we also have a DHS shutdown.

So there was a Claire can speak this.

There was a bomb threat the Kansas City airport yesterday.

I like, there's very serious stuff.

Like they have to pass the DHS funding bill.

They have to have some war funding bill in theory.

And if we're going to be like, no, we can't do that until you pass by.

I'm going to try to cheat the elections bill first.

I it's pretty insane given the seriousness of what is in front of us right now.

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