Can you explain why that happens and what it means moving forward?

Sure.

Well, it was a huge victory for Pete Hegseth yesterday.

I was there at the Pentagon yesterday morning as Hegseth staged this unusual press conference where he basically came out swinging, pushing back against his critics, depicting them as extremists who were attacking the troops.

Importantly, he was trying to portray this as not just a political attack on him and his policies, but rather an attack on American service members and a threat to national security.

And I think that's the strategy we're going to be seeing for him going forward in the new Congress and any future impeachment attempts.

So basically, he was able to take a victory lap yesterday.

What in broad strokes have been sort of the major policy pushes under Pete Hegseth that have rankled many of our listeners and folks within the military community, what have been some of the more controversial policy pushes that Hegseth has undertaken in his year so far as secretary? Just get us caught back up to speed on that.

Missy, take us through this flashpoint.

So the firing of Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia is significant.

He's not the only person at the Pentagon who is responsible for planning the Iran war.

The Pentagon has been pushing back against that today, saying that this is happening at CENTCOM.

But the truth is...

He is a key figure.

The planning for Iran and any military operation occurs between usually the joint staff.

And what is going on?

I just wonder, is there a limit, Missy Ryan, to what this president will tolerate of Israeli actions at the West Bank?

Well, that certainly is a question that we've all been asking ourselves in the diplomatic press corps and those who cover the conflict.

There have been some signs that the Trump administration has been willing to signal displeasure in certain incidents that relate specifically to US citizens in the West Bank.

But frankly, the tripwire is a lot farther away than we saw during the Biden administration that you would think at this moment where there's been this unprecedented surge in settler violence, not just against journalists.

This is not the first incident against the press.

There was an NBC crew that was attacked a few months ago.

And I will just say, you know, I worked with Heidi in Ukraine.

awful attack.

But what is the sense that you pick up in Washington and elsewhere about this? Do people realize that this is actually a dig at the United States, a very serious dig at the United States, or is it just seen as this is temporary and everything will move in a different direction?

It is a nuanced situation, even for Carney, obviously, as Peter was saying, the interconnected nature of these two economies, Mexico and the United States and Canada.

Clearly, Carney has chosen to go for a values-based and sort of national dignity-based response here, and it has aggravated Trump.

It has made things worse for them.

And there is, you know, the tension that Peter mentioned between the political and economic response for Carney.

But I do think that, you know, at the same time, the economics can't be disentangled, and no one's suggesting a full break.

I think, you know, just to raise another dimension here, which is more...

Watching Washington's approach to this conflict, has Trump's reluctance become the defining fracture in the relationship between the United States and the Saudis? And are we seeing a new sort of change in the dynamic of this war that is now affecting the last readout of where oil can come from in this part of the world?

What on earth did he mean by that?

Yeah, I mean, this clearly was the most animating element of his approach to the military.

That is, you know, his belief that the military had become too weak and too woke, as he would call it, and that it really just needed to, to man up and get more focused on the, the basics in terms of physical fitness, in terms of shooting, in terms of, you know, being tough, and he felt like those qualities and those skills that had sort of been diluted over time, and that is something that he's been trying to fix.

Yeah, and by the way, Hegseth, he's part of the reason that the US is at war in the first place, right? Because when others were urging Donald Trump not to go down this path, he was pushing for it.

Yeah, I mean, I think he, both he and General Keane have made the case that the US military could succeed in eroding the conventional military capability of Iran, and, and they, they have to a certain extent, but that has no bearing to the strategic outcomes that the United States wanted to achieve in Iran.

First and foremost, you know, abolishing the, the nuclear program, encouraging regime change, or now making sure that there's, uh, safe and reliable maritime commerce.

So, you know, they can rightfully say, you know, "We thought we would be able to degrade their conventional military power," and they have, but they haven't totally destroyed it and that, as I say, it still doesn't make for a success on these more important strategic levels.

What else do we know about what the Army secretary was telling the president before he resigned?

So Driscoll was at the White House early last week and he met with President Trump.

And certainly it was no surprise to Trump and his close advisers that there was friction between Pete Hegseth and Dan Driscoll from the beginning.

Even though they have kind of similar backgrounds, they both were infantry soldiers, they both are people who sort of rose up from humble backgrounds and went to Ivy League schools, they have totally different styles and temperaments.

Hegseth is a very showy former Fox News host.

He likes to be an online scrapper, and he is a kind of a MAGA warrior.

Dan Driscoll is much more low-key, and they brought those differing styles to the Pentagon.

And as you report, the president seemed surprised by the ouster or passing over a lot of these senior leaders.

Missy, why did Dan Driscoll resign?

So Driscoll's departure has been widely expected for months.

We always thought he was going to stay 18 months to two years in his job.

That was sort of his approach coming in.

But his tenure really has been marked by ongoing friction with his boss, Pete Hegseth, for a number of reasons.

There was sort of a rivalry between the two men.

Hegseth viewed Driscoll, who is very close to the vice president and has really good relationships with the media, with the members of the key members of Congress.

Who's left right now, Missy? Is the Pentagon able to function well defensively in this moment?

Long-term jail sentences will be sought." Give us a overview of what's going on here in terms of manufacturing and depletion.

Sure.

Well, the one thing that he, that rings true in his, uh, hi- his tweet is that there is an effort to replenish these stockpiles.

But what I'd like to talk about a little bit is the fact that this is a problem actually decades in the making, and it's going to take years to solve it.

These munitions just were not a priority in the post Cold War era.

We were con- we were fighting counter-insurgent wars that had different requirements.

The munitions were known as a bill payer for the military, so that was if there was a shortage in another area, they would, you know, shorten the, reduce the number of munitions that they were going to be buying.

Right.

Flesh out your reporting for us.

So our reporting from my colleagues at The Atlantic and I, and in addition to the court documents that you referenced, showed that despite the attestations that the State Department had made in a FOIA lawsuit, that Secretary Rubio continued to use the disappearing message function on Signal.

last year, and that it was something that the State Department is now saying was permissible because they also had installed new technology that captures the messages of Secretary Rubio and other senior officials at the State Department who have some of this technology.

And really, it goes to show the complexity of the tension between the ease of technology and the requirements that the government has to keep information safe and also comply with federal records requirements in a day and age and an administration which really loves to keep things informal and has a lot of outside personnel who play a significant role in key government decisions.

And I think that's one of the big takeaways from our reporting that Even though Marco Rubio and other government officials were warned by Trump last year after Signalgate that it's probably best to use Signal, that they continue to do so, they say in compliance with federal records laws, but they do it because it's fast, it's easy, and this is an administration that likes to keep things loose in some ways.

Why is it important to comply with federal records laws? Because it's important to know what federal officials, government officials get up to in on the in the nation's business on taxpayer dollars.

And that is something that government officials have to comply with.

Why have it double up? Why are you using Signal in the first place?

Um, if you could walk us through a little bit about what's happened there, just sort of big picture, the changes and, and how they've, uh, affected your reporting, if they have at all.

Sure.

Well, can you guys hear me? Okay, great.

Well, first of all I want to say thank you to NYU and to Just Security for having me and for really, um, especially, you know, shining a light on this really important issue and the work that you've done back on, uh, trying to, you know, bring together what is this disparate picture, the, of the evolving media situation.

It's really valuable.

Um, and, you know, it's such a good question.

The Pentagon does seem like it's ground zero for a lot of the most pernicious trends that we're seeing across the administration in terms of restricting what has been, you know, decades-long, uh, um, traditions in terms of media access.

Um, has covering the Pentagon changed? Has it become more restrictive, even more restrictive since the war with Iran started? Um, and, um, if you could compare what it's like to cover the Trump administration at war with what it was like to cover the Bush administration or the first Trump administration, kind of what's different? What, what are you used to getting that you're not getting, um, outside of the Pentagon access? Um, talk us through a little bit about what that's been like.

What is your take on that? And then is that in itself, uh, a win for Xi coming out of, uh, that trip?

Yeah, that is absolutely a win for Xi.

Even just putting that on the table obviously is provoking a lot of concern in Taiwan, and I think for US partners across Asia, it really goes to show that the United States is not necessarily going to stick to its traditional alliances and is willing to, uh, at least consider r- uh, reneging on the, you know, military support, the, um, the political and military umbrella that is provided to countries that rely on a US counterbalance to China.

So he may not follow through with that, and y- you would think that he would've actually made a deal in China if he was going to.

But certainly it's not good news for Taiwan.

Missy, I'm curious, as you watched this trip unfold and heard all of the comments about Iran, of course, the prelude to these conversations that took place in Beijing was another summit between the foreign minister of China, the foreign minister o- of Iran, um, what you walked away from in terms of the role that China is playing now and is prepared to play, uh, in, in trying to ameliorate or solve this conflict in, in the Middle East.

Yeah, my impression was that China is not really interested in using a lot of political capital to end this war.

You know, it's not clear...

Venezuelans broadly feel that way.

Correct.

And I, I think that that should be the ultimate arbiter, that, you know, it's not, it doesn't matter [laughs] as much what analysts in Washington or Miami think.

It, it's about the Venezuelans who are in Venezuela, and then obviously the, the exile community throughout the world who are deeply invested in what happens there, could potentially return and help grow the economy, rebuild Venezuelan society after, you know, a, a very traumatic period of, of repression and economic deterioration.

So the polling, uh, was very important and, you know, that could change.

I think that really the sense was people were willing to give Delcy Rodriguez, the interim president, some time, and the, the interim authority some time to show if they could deliver on the kind of bread and butter issues that Venezuelans seem most focused on.

And that is starting to have...

Do we have any idea now that it's been three, four months when we might see elections?

So just paint a picture for me.

So, the Washington Hilton is this huge, sprawling hotel, and every April, hundreds and hundreds of journalists and government officials, politicians, business executives, some celebrities descend upon the Hilton for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

And it was the first time that the president attended this event.

He's boycotted it for his whole first term, and, you know, he has had a famously adversarial relationship with the press.

And so it was kind of a surprise that he was gonna be there.

So we all go down to the ballroom.

There is security, security screening, these mag gates that were, I think, two levels down from the lobby.

But as you say, it really highlights the threat of political violence in America, doesn't it? It must be deeply concerning what's unfolding.

I mean in just about every geopolitical way, in every future-bearing way, and in every way the, the, the, the negotiations seem to advantage Iran

IranYeah, I mean, I think my colleague absolutely correct in pointing out that the outcome here is far from what Trump talked about at the beginning of the war which was some sort of transformational outcome, the end of the Iranian, the Islamic Republic as we know it.

He has you know, to General Hertling's point about what the goals are, there have been a number of different things put out there from the beginning including regime change and then to the nuclear program.

But what the administration has really reverted to in, in making this victory lap, uh, this morning, uh, at the Pentagon and then at the White House for Caroline Levitt's briefing are these more narrow military goals that they're ab- they are able to, uh, point to progress and success there in terms of eroding the ballistic missile capability, the Iranian navy, the, the, uh, the leadership of the IG- IRGC.

You know, there is a lot that they can point to there, but that doesn't amount to strategic success in terms of changing the Iranian state.

There's a...

You know, the, the people who are in charge now are not very different than the people who were in charge before, whatever Trump may say.

What is the, what is sort of the rationale for where things stand right now?

Missy, remind us why was that center created and, and why did Hegseth shut it down?

Sure.

So that move related to the Center of Excel-Excellence is just one that he's taken that could have an impact, and I think we're seeing that now, uh, in Iran, but also in the conflicts we've seen in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

So the-- ironically, the Center of Excellence was part of a greater effort to, uh, reconcile with the military's legacy of civilian harm that started in the first Trump administration.

Uh, it came out of the war against the Islamic State.

There were thousands of civilian casualties, you know, unintended deaths that the United States caused in Iraq and Syria.

And so there was this kind of big process, internal studies, uh, uh, new regulation that came out, and they set up new structures.

All of those things k- together, can you explain what no quarter means and more broadly how this violent rhetoric from the top es- echelons of the American command structure play into, um, assigning intent in international law?

Right.

You know, the, the most likely scenario is that they are holding those in reserve potentially to clear the Strait of Hormuz, but they could be used in other ways as well.

Um, but the issue here is that there's an asymmetry.

Even though Iran is, is weakened, its m- military capability has been degraded, there's an asymmetry in its ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, uh, keep it closed with, you know, a small number of mines, a small number of missile strikes on commercial tankers, and there's also an asymmetry in its ability to threaten Gulf countries with the kind of drones that even though, you know, the US military has been hitting some of its manufacturing sites, it's easy for them to, you know, hide them in a garage, you know, put them in the back of a pickup truck, and launch those and really continue to wreak havoc, the kind of havoc that's gonna have an impact on oil markets, on, on financial markets here in the United States as well.

... no, the, the US military doesn't need

need... you know, the French military or the Danish military.

What the United States would do if it, uh, took the decision to do so, it would first- the, the, the biggest barrier to trying to clear the strait is making sure that the, the counter mine ships are not hit by drones, they're not hit by missiles.

So that is why they're not in the region.

Uh, the deployment of Marines, what would they usually be used for? Would it be for something like seizing Kharg Island?

It could be.

Yeah, the, the muse, the Marines come with a full suite of aircraft, uh, um, amphibious capabilities.

They could be used for a number of things, certainly going ashore at Kharg Island or other parts of Iran.

However, that would be extremely risky.

This is still a very hot fight.

The Iranian regime ha- is weakened, it's battered, but it still possesses some really potent drone capability, uh, some missile capability.

But we know that pres- uh, uh, Vice President Vance, uh...

Um, let me start with you, Missy Ryan, and just ask you to take us through the reporting.

Sure.

So Hegseth this week, as you said, anoun- uh, released this video where he talks about a big reform to the JAG Corps.

His stated purpose is to, uh, increase effectiveness and sort of sharpen the legal edge, as he calls it, in order to sharpen the war fighter edge, and it's part of his desire to boost lethality, as he calls it, in the US military.

But in, and on the face of it, the action that he's talking about, sort of, uh, reallocating legal duties between the uniform JAG Corps and then the civilian lawyers in the Defense Department seem fairly benign or anodyne, but really, um, they need to be looked at in the context of Hegseth's long-standing hostility towards military lawyers whom he has repeatedly said sort of represent impediments to, uh, the kind of, uh, bare-knuckled lethality that he thinks the US military should bring to any conflict.

He has used kind of crude curment... uh, terminology to refer to, to the JAGs.

One of the first things he did when he came into office last year was to fire the top, um, some of the military's top lawyers, saying that they represented roadblocks to the president's, um, agenda.

What is a single example of, of a military operation that was inadequately lethal, Missy?

Were you surprised that we struck at all, or were you surprised that we coordinated this closely with Israel?

I don't think either of those things was particularly surprising given the months of lead-up, uh, uh, that we've seen on a military level.

There's been a shifting of military buildup.

You know, they had two aircraft carriers.

They positioned extra air defenses, extra planes, extra ships in the region.

And President Trump himself has been kind of hinting that it was time that they do something, as he said, to take care of Iran's nuclear threat, which is a little confusing 'cause he did strikes last year that he said at that time completely obliterated the nu- their nuclear capability.

But larger than that, he also said, you know, we can't let Iran be this bad actor in the world in the way it's been in past decades, and that was a reference to, you know, the long history of, you know, shadow war between the United States and, and Iran and the attacks dating back to the 1980s on American personnel and assets.

It sounds like you don't necessarily think Israel had as great a role as people are saying today.

Missy, in those descriptions, do you hear anything, anything that suggests there's any distinction between the example written in the Laws of War manual about how to treat survivors of a shipwreck and what was briefed to Congress yesterday in terms of the video they saw?

saw?It's a great question, but the distinction that I see is actually the administration's maritime campaign, which is newly militarized and it's taking over what has tr- traditionally been a c- uh, Coast Guard and law enforcement domain, Coast Guard interdictions, law enforcement prosecution, intelligence gathering, uh, and this is something unfamiliar and new for the US military.

And the other crucial distinction, and potentially more important, is something that, uh, General Hertling, uh, referenced earlier, and that's Pete Hegseth and the way that he is leading the Pentagon, the messages that he's sending down the chain of command about what is and isn't acceptable.

And you know, I've covered nine or 10 secretaries of defense, and since Hegseth took office and he started doing all these sort of unorthodox moves in- in- in his leadership of the Pentagon, I've really asked myself, "What is the lasting impact that he's going to have on the institution?" And I think that this is starting to give us some clues in terms of how this impacts operational decisions that are occurring in the military.

And, you know, I think there- some of these things are always gonna be debatable in the moment.

And I think when you have a campaign that puts, uh, criminals, what have- t- who have- people who have traditionally been viewed as criminals, not terrorists, in this new light, this is really uncharted territory for the military itself.

Do- do you know where that analysis comes from that they were sunbathing and they were, um, he saw evidence that they were, that there was any scenario where they could get their burning boat back up to continue and make it to America?

America?I think, like so much else these days, you're seeing a sort of partisan split screen when it comes to the response to a single piece of information.

Um, just talk about how that flies in the face of, of journalism as a whole.

Sure.

So, it was y- you know, this very, um, monumental and, and emotional (laughs) day for a lot of us at the Pentagon.

You know, I first covered, started covering the Pentagon in 2010.

Many of us have done this for decades.

It's, it's a press corps that has, is very dedicated to the issues and, you know, because of the complexity of the military enterprise, you know, it's something that really lends itself to people sticking around for a long time.

So, you know, we thought that there might be something coming from the Trump administration.

How will you go about doing that kind of reporting?

Can you paint a picture of some of the places where this money makes a difference and that if things go forward and these programs are permanently halted, that it could have a real impact on people's lives?

Yeah, well, we were talking earlier about how the foreign assistance represents only 1% of the U.S. budget.

But the United States is still the largest donor by far globally.

And so you're looking at a world where there's a huge gap in funding and nobody else can really step in to that void.

I'll just give you an example.

The United States has been a huge donor in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict there, the largest donor.

And, you know, there's been all sorts of challenges that you and I have discussed previously about getting aid in.

Tell me about what are you looking out for in the coming days and weeks to see how all of this progresses and really like whether USAID continues? continues to exist in one form or another or whether it's basically gone?