Michael Steele

I don't do this to you when you say that you've been talking to people in the White House.

But, but the point of the, of the conversation really was to, he was trying to explain to me the complexities in the military and the division of culture and, and really Pete Hegseth's own experience in Iraq when he was working for a character called Michael Steele, who people might remember because he was actually at the center of the Somalia incident, which later became the focus of the movie Black Hawk Down, in which 18 American soldiers were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Somalia.

Uh, and that left, uh, a deep, profound impression on Michael Steele, uh, who then ended up running, uh, a large unit called the Rakkasans in Iraq, which Pete Hegseth was then attached to, and then Hegseth himself, uh, ran a smaller command.

So Pete Hegseth is running Charlie Company, and there is an incident where they're out on an operation and five unarmed Iraqis are shot and killed.

I'm not trying to imply he was there, but then what unfolds is, uh, three of the soldiers who are involved try to cover up the incident, and of course it becomes one of those things where the cover-up is as bad as the crime, and lawyers get involved, and there's a whole, um, there are whole court cases over it, and the soldiers themselves end up going to prison over it.

And it centers around the command of this character, Michael Steele, and the fact that he had no interest in culturally understanding Iraq.

He wasn't interested in learning the language.

He was there only, uh, as he said, "To give the enemy the maximum opportunity to give his life for his country." Obviously an ironic quote, meaning that they were there to kill as many Iraqis as they could, and that his experience in Somalia had really sort of toughened him, uh, to the point where he wanted his men to be as lethal as possible.

Let's see what else we got here.

We have Michael Steele saying, hola, player.

Oh, yeah, good to talk to and hear from Michael.

I had a chance to see him up in, I was trying to forget what part of North Carolina we was in, though, but went up to do a show, and Michael was there.