I don't know who to trust. I don't know why I would trust any of them. They all seem pretty terrible. Remember how three Defense Department officials who were very close to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth randomly got fired? They were accused of being leakers. They claim we weren't even investigated for leaking to the press. [00:00:19] Why? There's no evidence that we've leaked to the press. We just got fired. And some of them believe that they got fired because of their foreign policy views. In fact, Dan Caldwell, who was a close advisor to Pete Hegseth, recently went on [00:00:35] Tucker Carlson's show and said, you know, I think that they got rid of me because I'm against doing military strikes in Iran, and I do not want to go to war in Iran. And then he talked about his other two colleagues who also got fired, likely for [00:00:50] the views they hold on foreign policy. Now, there are several people that you need to be aware of in order to understand this story, because Ryan Grim has actually gotten a little more clarity on some of the fights that are happening among two different camps within the Defense Department. [00:01:07] Okay, the first person you should know about is someone I just mentioned, Dan Caldwell. He was the advisor to Pete Hegseth before he got fired. Now, the second main character is a guy by the name of Joe Casper. He was the former Pentagon chief of staff. More on him as we go through this story. [00:01:25] And then there's the third person you need to know about. His name is Colin Carroll, the former chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary. Now, what happened? Apparently, earlier this month, on April 3rd, Colin Carroll got a call from Politico reporter Daniel Lippman. [00:01:41] Now, Daniel Lippman hit him up because he wanted to know about an alleged investigation into Joe Casper. So it was apparently or allegedly an inspector general investigation into Joe Casper. [00:01:57] Carroll said that he knew nothing about it. And then he hung up. And then he contacted other people within the Defense Department to let them know. Well, there are political reporters snooping around, and they're asking about this inspector general investigation into Joe Casper. Now using signal. [00:02:14] Carroll then texted Dan Caldwell the following. I just had a political reporter call me and asked to comment on an ongoing IG and criminal investigation into Joe Casper. I told him, no comment. I feel like I should report this call to someone, but not sure who. [00:02:34] Given the leak and disclosure stuff. So there had been leaks coming out of the Defense Department, so he wanted to make sure that he contacted the right person. Given the leaks that had been coming out of the, you know, Defense Department, Caldwell responded by saying, flag for your public affairs officer and then [00:02:52] Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell. So Carroll did just that. A week later, Caldwell and Carroll were fired for allegedly being leakers. Interesting. Okay. Well, it turns out that Joe Casper was the one who launched and delegated the [00:03:09] investigation that led to their firing, which seems weird and counterproductive given the fact that it appears Carroll was looking out for him, told the political reporter Lippman. I've got nothing. No comment immediately reported that Politico was snooping around [00:03:24] and had brought up some alleged investigation into Casper. But for Casper, Carroll's email was not an innocent act of forwarding on information received from a reporter, but was aimed at manufacturing an IG investigation. [00:03:40] Odd that he gets a call from a reporter about it and CC Dan Caldwell. Casper texted drop site now. Casper said of Caldwell and Carroll, if you want to know why somebody is dismissed by higher powers and higher authorities, you know, [00:03:58] it's not only just unauthorized disclosures, but it's crap like this where they were trying to manipulate people and things and the secretary through crap like this. Okay, now Casper is stating that Carol accidentally emailed [00:04:14] the Pentagon chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell about the political reporter which gave away his alleged scheme. But honestly, that makes no sense because Carol addressed his email to Sean Parnell. So how is he accidentally sending the email to Parnell when in [00:04:32] reality he addressed it to Parnell? And as for the Inspector General investigation, Casper told drop site News that it was never real. He claims he's got no no issues. Apparently the investigation had to do with drug use. [00:04:48] Casper claims that he was facing an anonymous complaint about drug use. The complaint stated that Casper was talking about using drugs at a party. By the way, if he did say that and someone like snitched on him, like, what do you. [00:05:04] I don't know. I mean, I don't I don't buy this part of it. I don't think that you could be in the top ranks of the Department of Defense and have a substance abuse issue. I just don't buy that. Yeah, I mean, obviously we know who he's referencing here. - Anyway, yeah. - He denied that allegation, though. He also denied an allegation that he falsified a drug test. [00:05:22] He was like, how could I fake a drug test when they're literally in the room, like watching me, you know, whiz into a cup or whatever? I mean, I've watched. - They literally watch you do. - I don't know if that's true. And I'm not going to take his word for it, but Casper worked for a former disgraced Republican congressman by the name of Duncan Hunter. [00:05:39] - You might be familiar with him. - Southern California? Yeah. He worked for Duncan Hunter for well over a decade. Duncan Hunter is a convicted felon because he stole campaign funds and used it on personal expenses. This is a small expense compared to what he had spent his money on overall, but he [00:05:58] spent $625 on flights for his pet rabbit. I knew I remembered the rabbit flights. Yes, and I think that's nice. Like, I think your rabbit needs to travel. To travel in style. He ended up spending 11 months or he was sentenced to 11 months in prison. Who knows if he actually served that time in prison fully? [00:06:17] And here's how Carol responded to all of Kasper's claims. The story he has concocted is false, and he has used this story to slander myself. Dan Caldwell and Darren Zelnick, both privately as an anonymous defense official and now publicly on the record. [00:06:33] He also used this story to have us placed on administrative leave and then terminated for allegations of leaking both this as well as classified sensitive operational information. Both allegations are entirely false, and honestly, I'm inclined to side [00:06:51] with Carol and Dan Caldwell. I actually do think they were ousted from the Defense Department because they're less hungry or thirsty for war compared to, you know, other neoconservatives who are unfortunately still within the Defense Department. [00:07:07] This Kasper sounds crazy. Kasper sounds like a paranoid, like delusional person. - But what do you think? - Yeah. This is like coming into this with all the characters and their apparent long standing issues with each other and the backstabbing [00:07:23] and the allegations of backstabbing, I feel like a person dropping in, like season six of Game of Thrones and just being expected to know what's going on and why. That guy just, I don't, I, I assume they're like, I don't know who to trust. I don't know why I would trust any of them. They all seem pretty terrible. I will say that the context that all of this is going on in, I agree with you. [00:07:43] I think with everything else that the Trump administration has been doing, that Hegseth himself has been doing the idea that you'd be weeding people out for having nothing to do with their job, but just, having politically incorrect views. I totally buy they've been doing that all over the government. Why wouldn't they do that? In this case? [00:07:59] They don't accept disagreements, particularly Pete Hegseth, who desperately wants wars like we know that we know from his writing going back years, he's been advocating for wars. Okay. So there's something really interesting happening with Hegseth, and I don't know what to make of it, because in that lengthy New York Times report last week, [00:08:17] I was really surprised to read that among those who were discouraging Trump from doing military strikes in Iran was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Now, that might have been because of the influence of advisers like Dan Caldwell. Dan Caldwell is the real deal in regard to not wanting to go to war with Iran. [00:08:35] I believe him on that. And he was its adviser. And so maybe the neoconservatives within the Defense Department are like, Caldwell's got to go. Okay. He's turning this neocon into a peacenik. We're not in favor of that. But look, I don't I don't know. Hegseth got deep, deep issues. [00:08:52] I actually would not. I think he should be let go. I mean, you want to talk about leakers. You want to talk about leakers? - That's what I was going to say. - Like. Yeah. Come on. The idea that in in a time of actual leaks from him that he refuses to apologize for, change his behavior, whatever, if he even remembers doing any leaking, he might have been browning out [00:09:09] at the time or something, I don't know. But the idea that we should be worried about these anonymous dudes for anonymous leaks, that we don't even know what they were. Like, you want to talk about leaking? You're the leaker, dude. We all know that. And I think it's a very convenient cover story, not just in general, but specifically with Donald Trump. [00:09:26] Because what does Donald Trump hate more than anything? Leaking. So you just anybody that you want to get rid of, just say they're a leaker and it'll seem like the most reasonable thing in the world that you would get rid of them. And so look, I again, I can't I can't say anything about any of these individual people. I don't know them. [00:09:41] I don't have a history with them or whatever. But this is the sort of chaos and mismanagement and incompetence that I expected to see. But I did not expect to see it almost instantaneously in the Department of Defense. Yeah, and didn't waste any time. Honestly, I actually think that his days are numbered within the Defense Department [00:10:01] because, look, publicly, Trump has defended him, but privately he's been going around asking people, so what do you think about this Hegseth situation? And there have been some rumors that the administration is already looking for replacements. - I don't know. - And there are good candidates out there. [00:10:16] I mean, it could be Kilmeade. It could be Doocy. See like it's already mix it up. Put McEnany back in there or something. Ainsley Earhart I think there's some great people with all the same qualifications Seth has. Don't give them any ideas, but honestly, I don't think it even matters. Yeah, I think they probably already have crazy ideas. [00:10:34] Yeah. So probably we'll see what ends up happening ultimately with Hegseth. But so far I'm going to stick with what my thoughts already were, which is these people probably got pushed out because they don't want to go to war with Iran. And right now, there's a lot of pressure for the United States government [00:10:51] to sign off on a hot war with Iran. We have to prevent that. Senator John Fetterman has called for us to not only, like, bomb the nuclear sites in Iran, but to make Iran a wasteland. What the hell? He's a bad guy. [00:11:08] He's a really bad guy. Just absolutely no concern for civilian lives whatsoever. He's disgusting. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.