Trump SUDDENLY CONFRONTED By ARMY GENERALS: "DANGEROUS IDIOT!"
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00:00Chris, here's the nuance, OK?
00:03The war plans or the operational plans for China would involve things like targets and
00:07potential assets that would be used, ships, aircraft, whatever it is.
00:11It's very possible that they discussed some elements about the possibility of a conflict
00:16with China today, but without actually providing the full operational plan.
00:21So there may be a little bit of gray area here.
00:23Again, we were told by defense officials that one of the topics of discussion today was
00:28expected to be China.
00:30So General, I just got my hands on a letter that was sent to Pete Hegseth from Tammy Duckworth,
00:36U.S. senator and also, of course, a veteran and Elizabeth Warren.
00:41And they want to know what went on today.
00:43They say it remains unclear exactly what information he received.
00:48But they say this.
00:50Although it may satisfy his curiosity, there is no legitimate national security or other
00:56rationale for providing this information to Mr. Musk, who is not a military or national
01:01security expert, is not a member of the president's cabinet and is not even serving as a permanent
01:07federal official employee.
01:10Although Mr. Musk is ostensibly engaged in effort to cut wasteful spending, there is
01:14no need for him to obtain access to some of our most secret sensitive secrets to do so.
01:21Then they ask point blank, did the Pentagon today provide Mr. Musk with a top secret briefing
01:27on U.S. war plans for China?
01:30Is that a question that members of the U.S. Senate have a right to have answered?
01:36Look, the bottom line is, Musk is no question a brilliant, successful, creative tech leader
01:47in the business world.
01:49And so his input would be valuable on anything talking about space or missile systems.
01:55And I think they ought to welcome his participation.
01:58Having said that, he is not a Senate-confirmed officer of our government.
02:05His agency, DOJ, was not created by Congress.
02:11He has enormous conflicts of interest, both with the U.S. federal government and, needless
02:16to say, with China, where half the Tesla production is in Beijing.
02:23And so it's not clear to me why he would have a passing briefing that might allow him to
02:30decide what technologies are acceptable for future warfighting, which might benefit himself.
02:39And why would he have any necessary expertise on this?
02:42You know, the fact that you're a genius like McNamara turned out to be one of the worst
02:46secretaries of defense we ever had.
02:49So it's a chaotic, unhappy situation for national security.
02:56There's also questions about whether he would have input on the way money is given to the
03:01Pentagon, to the military.
03:02He has, of course, been tasked by the president with cutting the federal budget.
03:07It's hard to do.
03:08We've seen the reversals that have happened.
03:10By his own admission, he said that they've made mistakes, DOJ has made mistakes.
03:17What would you make of that?
03:18What could that mean for the military budget?
03:20Who should be looking at that?
03:23Look, this is the most gigantic organization on earth.
03:28It purposes peacekeeping and deterrence.
03:31The technologies it deploys take five to 15 years to mature.
03:38As a collective leadership responsibility under Article 1 of the Constitution, the Congress
03:43plays a vital role.
03:45Communist Party of China is, leads PRC, is the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary
03:54this nation has ever confronted.
03:55I openly warn the American people that from my unique vantage point as an official who
04:01saw more intelligence than anyone else, I assess that China was far and away our top
04:06national security threat.
04:08So we're going to start by ensuring the institution understands that as far as threats abroad,
04:13the CCP is front and center.
04:16I do believe we are in a cold war with the Chinese Communist Party.
04:21They certainly are in one with us.
04:23These are all Trump officials making it crystal clear that, in their view, Trump is the top
04:30national security priority of the United States right now, something to keep in mind given
04:34today's stunning reporting in the New York Times that Elon Musk, whose extensive ties
04:40to China and comments seem as favorable to Beijing are well-documented, have been set
04:46to get a briefing on war plans at the Pentagon today.
04:49Let's bring in the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes
04:53of Connecticut.
04:54Congressman, first, your reaction to the New York Times report?
04:58You're referring to the bus meeting in the Pentagon?
05:01Musk being briefed on war plans for China at the Pentagon, a briefing that was reportedly
05:07called off after the New York Times published its story.
05:10And we should say that Donald Trump called, quote, fake story.
05:14Yeah, that's why I asked, because it's not exactly clear what happened.
05:18Of course, the defense secretary and the president, everybody denied that there was any briefing
05:21on plans.
05:22And, you know, what the meeting does, we'll need to wait to find out what was actually
05:26said.
05:27But, you know, like everything else that Musk touches, this is such a lost opportunity.
05:32You know, if on January 20th Elon Musk had said, I'm going to truly make the government
05:37efficient rather than making it a clown show, as he has, he would have started at the Pentagon.
05:43Why?
05:44Because of the big ticket items that the federal government spends, Medicare, Social Security
05:47and the Pentagon.
05:48Those are the three big ticket items.
05:50If you're really looking for efficiency, you'd start at the Pentagon.
05:53But, you know, if he'd done that deliberately and carefully and not like a clown, he could
05:57have actually done a huge service to the American people.
06:00Instead, here we have a guy who was also a defense contractor.
06:03You know, we don't let the CEO of Northrop Grumman wander the halls of the Pentagon.
06:08We have a guy who we have no reason whatsoever to believe that he will show the discipline
06:12that is required around handling classified information.
06:15And we have a guy who simply breaks things, you know, who fires the people who look after
06:20our nuclear weapons and then says, oopsie, will you guys please come back?
06:24You don't want to do that when you're talking about our warfighters and their equipment
06:28and stuff.
06:29So we need to wait to see what was actually said.
06:31But I fear that the news is not likely to be good.
06:35Congressman, if you look at his interviews talking about China, he speaks about Taiwan
06:42as something to be, I think he used the word, quote, reunited with China.
06:48I mean, he also doesn't seem to understand U.S. national security prerogatives.
06:52Yeah, well, that's right.
06:55I don't think anybody would say that Elon Musk is an expert on American foreign policy
07:00or particularly aware of our history of, you know, being strategically ambiguous about
07:06Taiwan with the Chinese.
07:08You can only imagine what the Chinese are saying when Joe Biden says three times that
07:12we will intervene to defend Taiwan.
07:14And now the Chinese are watching President Trump humiliate and attack Zelensky, cozy
07:20up to Putin.
07:21And, you know, his co-president, Elon Musk, is saying, oh, yeah, maybe that's OK.
07:25I mean, just talk about making us less secure from a standpoint of not really not really
07:32understanding where our strategic interests lie.
07:34I mean, you worked alongside some of these folks that are in the Cabinet that came from
07:39from Congress.
07:41What does it mean to Taiwan to see men like Marco Rubio, who was a hawk on Russia, totally
07:48capitulate when Trump decides to crawl under the covers and get in bed with him?
07:52How does Taiwan feel when they see men like Rubio do that?
07:56Well, I think what Taiwan and China and Putin and Zelensky all understand now, and I think
08:03everybody understands now, is that there's only one person who matters in Washington
08:09and all principles that might have been previously held by somebody like Marco Rubio don't matter
08:15anymore.
08:16I mean, I sit in the United States Congress, which is now fully flat on its back with the
08:20entire Republican conference in the House, with the exception of Thomas Massey.
08:25Basically, when Donald Trump says put on clown shoes and jump, they say, what color shoes,
08:31sir, and how high?
08:32And that's a huge problem because our founders set up a system in which the Congress was
08:37the primary check on the power of the president.
08:40So we don't have that anymore.
08:41But to get back to your question, look, Taiwan understands, just as every other world leader
08:45understands that the only thing that matters is whatever happens to be going through Donald
08:50Trump's brain in this particular moment.
08:54You have used the word clown show a couple of times.
08:56I wanted to deal with the serious before I dove headfirst into the clown pool.
09:02Republicans are afraid of their Republican voters.
09:06The Republicans have given up republicanism for Trump 2.0.
09:11There's no qualms about it.
09:13There's no push and pull.
09:15If Access Hollywood broke today, there wouldn't be Republicans coming out and disavowing him
09:20or separating them.
09:21I mean, they're all into everything and anything.
09:26What does it mean in terms of the political opportunity Democrats have to talk to the
09:30country, including Republican MAGA voters, about Elon Musk's hostile takeover of the
09:36government, including bringing the FBI and D.C. police to independent agencies like the
09:41Institutes of Peace?
09:42How do you talk to the whole country right now about what's happening?
09:47Great question, Nicole.
09:48And I'll tell you what, you don't talk about the Institute of Peace.
09:50You probably don't even as much as it breaks my heart to see what Elon Musk did to USAID
09:54and to our soft power abroad.
09:56You don't talk about that stuff.
09:58What you do talk about is what we are about to see become a force perhaps even more powerful
10:03than Donald Trump in the Republican voters' mind.
10:06We're already seeing it, right?
10:07Because in the next two weeks, the Republicans are going to have to say precisely how they're
10:11going to take roughly $80 billion a year out of Medicaid without creating the absolute
10:17havoc and horror that that will do.
10:20And by the way, we're seeing this already, right?
10:22Look at any one of these Republicans that are still courageous enough to face their
10:26constituents what you're hearing in the town hall.
10:28And the reason for that, and we're publicizing this, this is our mission from now on.
10:32We are going to explain to the American people what a 30 percent cut to Medicaid looks like
10:37and who dies because of that.
10:39We're going to explain tariffs and the fact that three months from now, when you go into
10:42the Ford dealership to buy that Ford Bronco and it's now $2,000 more expensive and the
10:48dealer explains to you that that's because of tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
10:52And when people start seeing that their meat is not being inspected by the FDA and people
10:56are getting salmonella, when Republican voters start experiencing that, you are going to
11:02see a political reaction, if I may use the president's phraseology, like you've never
11:08seen before.
11:10And it feels like, we can do this another day, I'm not going to drop the whole sort
11:16of values that America has represented around the world with USAID and starving children
11:21and Ukrainian children that have been kidnapped.
11:24I know you care about those things.
11:26So like people in the military are rightfully aghast at what we're seeing.
11:30And I want to be clear, I am not, I don't buy into the US hysteria around China.
11:36China can and should be criticized when it does bad things, but I'm not like a huge
11:41Sinophobe.
11:43So like, don't mistake this for me buying into all of the American obsession with China
11:49being the evil empire.
11:51But it is somewhat interesting, isn't it folks, that Elon, the free speech absolutist, who
11:58says he'll say anything anywhere if it's what he believes and you can say anything on his
12:03social media and all of that, and yet Elon, who will criticize Canada, criticize Germany,
12:09criticize the United Kingdom, criticize all of Europe, I don't think he's ever criticized
12:15China.
12:16He doesn't criticize them wrong, but he certainly doesn't criticize them very often.
12:20Criticizes Europe for censorship, but doesn't criticize China.
12:25And it's not because of principle.
12:27In my opinion, probably yours as well, it's because Elon has a lot of business interests
12:34in China.
12:35Tesla has a lot of consumer share in China.
12:38It's a big market.
12:39He wants to grow it.
12:41And one of the things that China can do, because even though it's largely a capitalist
12:47economy, there is more government intervention, is that they can make it much more difficult
12:53for his company to operate more easily than other countries.
12:57And so Elon, who now all of a sudden is being invited to secret military meetings, apparently
13:04secret surprise military meetings, is also to hear about potentially issues with China,
13:14is the kind of guy who's afraid of criticizing China and doesn't have the sort of experience
13:22and democratic accountability that other people have.
13:26When you're talking about top generals, they have to be confirmed by the Senate and have
13:31decades of military careers.
13:34Trump, like him or not, was elected by the people.
13:38Elon is a nobody afraid of criticizing China and maybe getting secret info about China.