How did we get here?

I think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, as it's being rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law, and the message that is being sent there is, "If we want to kill you, we will kill you." I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream He has suggested, and President Trump has suggested, that it will be a deterrent against terrorism.

I don't think that's a very convincing argument because terrorists who commit these kinds of acts usually expect to die in the act themselves.

In fact, one argument against this is that this is broadcasting martyrdom.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, h- how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here?

I think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law, and the message that is being sent there is, "If we want to kill you, we will kill you." I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

He has suggested, and President Trump has suggested, that it will be a deterrent against terrorism.

I don't think that's a very convincing argument because terrorists who commit these kinds of acts usually expect to die in the act themselves.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, h- how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here? I

think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law.

And the message that is being sent there is, if we want to kill you, we will kill you.

I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here?

I think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law.

And the message that is being sent there is, "If we want to kill you, we will kill you." I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

He has suggested, and President Trump has suggested, that it will be a deterrent against terrorism.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, h- how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here? I

think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law.

And the message that is being sent there is, if we want to kill you, we will kill you.

I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here?

I think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law.

And the message that is being sent there is, "If we want to kill you, we will kill you." I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

He has suggested, and President Trump has suggested, that it will be a deterrent against terrorism.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, h- how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here? I

think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law.

And the message that is being sent there is, if we want to kill you, we will kill you.

I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here?

I think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, as it's being rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law, and the message that is being sent there is, "If we want to kill you, we will kill you." I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

He has suggested, and President Trump has suggested, that it will be a deterrent against terrorism.

I don't think that's a very convincing argument because terrorists who commit these kinds of acts usually expect to die in the act themselves.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, h- how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here? I

think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law.

And the message that is being sent there is, if we want to kill you, we will kill you.

I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

How did we get here?

I think that the reason why we are at this point is because Pete Hegseth has presided over a real shift in military culture, a real shift towards generating content.

For decades, the American military has wanted to be seen as lawful and professional.

Pete Hegseth wants the American military to be seen as dangerous, as lethal, and as broadcasting to America's enemies that they will destroy them.

And we saw earlier this year that the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, as it's been rebranded, posted videos of lethal American airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, airstrikes that are probably illegal under US law, and the message that is being sent there is, "If we want to kill you, we will kill you." I think that this is the same message that Pete Hegseth is trying to send with this execution live stream.

He has suggested, and President Trump has suggested, that it will be a deterrent against terrorism.

I don't think that's a very convincing argument because terrorists who commit these kinds of acts usually expect to die in the act themselves.

We've touched on what this execution might do to America's standing globally, but in particular, h- how might it affect its ability to influence sovereign nations that the US perceives to be bad actors in relation to human rights?

Okay.

It's not like some of the ballots that you face in American elections.

Right, right, right.

But you have to number everyone on the ballot.

Now, what this means is... that usually the real contest is going to be between the two major parties.

And even if you are voting for an independent or a minor party, you're still getting a say in that contest between the two major parties.

And a lot of people, like my podcast co-hosts, don't like being forced to ultimately make a choice between the two parties.

So from the point of view of public diplomacy

line.Does his ascendancy pose a risk to the Democrats in terms of fracturing the party even further over the issue of the Middle East and Gaza?

I don't think that the issue of the Middle East and Gaza was the major issue in this election, and I don't think it's gonna be the major issue in the election later this year either.

El-Sayed, if anything, is more in tune with where the Democratic base is on Israel at the moment.

But he didn't want to make that the major issue of the campaign.

He thinks that Americans are far more concerned about things like the cost of living and the state of public health in the United States.

A lot of the $84 million of funding that went to Haley Stevens came from AIPAC, the America-Israel Political Action Committee, because they really saw this race as essentially a struggle over the future of the Democratic Party, whether the Democratic Party would continue to back Israel or not.

The fact that they made this primary into a referendum on Israel was probably a strategic misstep on their part, because surveys are consistently showing at the moment that Democrats are turning away from Israel.

More broadly, how does this land as we sort of come up to those midterms?

And he has heavily brought religion to the Pentagon, hasn't he?

Yes, he absolutely has.

So he is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which is a Calvinist sect in the United States that its leadership is all about bringing biblical law to the United States and extending Christian dominion over the world.

So Pete Hegseth, for years now, has talked about the Crusades as a kind of model of defending Western civilisation.

He wrote a book called American Crusade where he said you have a crusader to thank for Western civilisation.

So people are pretty worried looking at a war between...

Pete Hegseth and Iran, which looks very much like a religious war.

And the huge problem is that the American leaders of this war might not have a plan of how to actually get out of it, how to end it.

Mm

... because of the fact that so much is already known about the Clintons' relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

And given that Bill Clinton has already been investigated by the FBI, it's doubtful that they're going to be able to accuse Bill Clinton of criminal wrongdoing in these hearings.

The big thing that everyone's concerned about at the moment is, how much did Epstein's associates know about what was going on, and why didn't they do anything to stop it if they did know? So that might be what all of the probing is about, but this is assuming that Republicans on the committee are going to act in good faith.

There are definitely people on that committee who just want to get to the truth, but there could also be people on the committee who want to use it for political grandstanding, who want to use it to get damaging material that they can put on social media.

Mm.

Things like tough law and order policies that significantly contributed to the mass incarceration of African Americans.

It was a very different environment politically back then, and Bill Clinton was seen within the Democratic Party as a conservative who was really trying to purge the left from the party to remake the Democrats into an electable entity.

Mm-hmm.

So Elon Musk is another person who claimed that he actually refused contact with Epstein, that he was invited to Epstein's island but refused to go.

The emails that have been released tell a different story.

They do seem to suggest that Musk wanted to go to the island, even to the extent of asking what dates would be the best dates for the wildest parties at the island.

But at the same time, there's no evidence in there that he ever actually went to the island.

And this is very typical of the kind of relationships that we see.

Epstein was very interested in cultivating these relationships with very rich and powerful people.

As we said the victims of Epstein's it mustn't feel like much justice for them at this point.

Why are they still pursuing it now?

So Greenland is very strategically important and it's becoming more strategically important as Arctic ice melts.

That means that the waterways around Greenland are potentially becoming very important both to trade and to security.

Now, Donald Trump has claimed that Greenland is surrounded by the navies of China and Russia.

There is no evidence for that at all.

And today, Denmark's prime minister said that there hasn't been a Chinese boat anywhere near Greenland for the last 10 years.

But nonetheless, Trump is claiming that there is this major security threat to Greenland and that only the United States can actually protect Greenland.

Where do you see this one going?

Whose idea was this?

This was actually Ron DeSantis' idea.

It came shortly after Donald Trump had floated the idea of reopening Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay as a federal facility.

Now, that's not a particularly feasible idea.

That facility's been out of use for about 70 years now, and it probably can't be reconstructed as a prison.

But DeSantis very quickly built this facility, which he called Alligator Alcatraz, because he claimed it would be as secure as Alcatraz would've been.

Alcatraz famously was surrounded by the very hostile waters of San Francisco Bay.

And what do we know about some of the conditions inside Alligator Alcatraz?