Transcript of US Generals Sound Alarm Over Trump’s Destruction of Military

Current and former top military leaders are sounding the alarm and delivering an urgent and dire warning about the Trump regime crippling our military readiness, crippling our military, and making the United States weaker than it's ever been before. In the past 24 hours, we have learned the following. It seems that US Army Chief of Staff, 4-star General Randy George, who was the most respected member of our military, who was fired in April by the Trump regime, he was launching an investigation into the Apache flyover of Kid Rock's home. And that was one of the main reasons why Pete Hegseth, along with one of his goons, an individual by the name of General Chris LaNieve, a very jealous and not so respected general within the military, worked together to team up to force out the very well-respected Randy George, the Army Chief of Staff. Currently, there is no Senate-confirmed Army Chief of Staff, and numerous other top generals were forced out and fired by Hegseth as well. Here is what the Washington Post reported— hat tip to Dan Lemuth, who's been getting some incredible scoops. Exclusive: Days before General Randy George was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in April, he was advised by another officer to drop the investigation into the Apache helicopter flyby at Kid Rock's mansion.

That officer is General Chris Laniv, who is now vying for the job. Laniv is working with Hegseth to gut the cutting-edge drone program that learns the lessons from Ukraine and that was pioneered by General Randy George, and they are focusing on a back-to-the-basics approach to focus on what they refer to as a warrior ethos fueled by testosterone and not with technology. So here's what Lamuth and Washington Post report. One person familiar with the matter told the Washington Post that General Chris LaNieve said directly to General George— Randy George, the former Army Chief of Staff— that Hegseth did not want the investigation to proceed into the Apache helicopters who did the flyby of Kid Rock's home. 2 others said George told colleagues about the encounter with Lenev and seemed very troubled by it. Hegseth's team intends to nominate Lenev to be the chief of staff and is actively coordinating with Senate partners to lock in the optimal moment to do so, is what the spokesman Sean Parnell said. The Army has no confirmed chief of staff as of now. And we do believe there are Republican holdouts, even MAGA Republican holdouts, in the Senate because Randy George, from Iowa by the way, was a very popular general, probably the most popular general, um, and most well-respected and decorated general in the United States Army by, by far, and in the United States military probably as well, who was forced out.

Now, this comes at the same time that Lieutenant General Kellogg, or former Lieutenant General Kellogg, who was at one point in time Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, but then Putin said, we will not negotiate with you, so Trump removed him from that post and he just became the envoy to Ukraine. He's calling out Kushner and Witkoff as being horrible negotiators as well. Just a fact about Kellogg: I'm not a fan of Kellogg at all. I do want to note that he served 36 years, though, in the military, and His service included the command of the 86th Airborne Division. He says a lot of neocon warmongering stuff that I don't agree with, but I do think it is noteworthy what he is saying right now about the Trump regime. He was a top member of the Trump regime. He says Whitcoff and Kushner have never seen war like in Ukraine. They may know real estate. I do not. They do not understand war. Russia, the enemy, or the human cost. Putting them in these talks is a mistake, because this is not their skill. He goes on to say, on Independence Day for Ukraine, no official US representative came.

Finland's president came to Ukraine. Britain's prime minister came. You cannot negotiate Ukraine's future without seeing Ukraine at war. I came as a private citizen. You need to see what Ukrainians live through. Hey, Kellogg, did it ever occur to you that Donald Trump wants Ukraine to surrender to Putin? He wants Putin to take over eastern Ukraine. You want to talk about Independence Day, Kellogg? On United States Independence Day, on our 250th anniversary, Trump spent 90 minutes on the phone with Vladimir Putin. I'm just giving you my opinion protected by the First Amendment, which you can feel free to disagree with. But I believe Putin and Trump on that call were hatching out a plan to tap Zelensky along by having Trump pretend to give Zelensky Patriot interceptors or Patriot interceptor licenses, which Trump promised at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. And then when July was concluded, to say, Oopsies, we're not going to give it to you. Sorry, we don't trust you. We're not gonna give you the interceptors, to allow Putin to be able to build up even more ballistic missiles, and to tap Zelensky along and say, Can you stop blowing up some of these tankers and other Russian ships?

Don't you— you want those interceptors, right? And then drag Zelensky along and then say, oopsies, we're not going to give it to you. Kellogg goes on to say, Russia did not want me on the negotiating team. Washington should have told Moscow, you don't choose our negotiator, we do. Instead, they let Putin shape it and brought in his friends. I wanted to handle both Ukraine and Russia, but the president decided otherwise. People talking about business deals with Russia are being foolish. Putin sells them his world, they buy it. He tells them, I'll give you a Maserati, and they believe him. Some negotiators need to step back and look at reality. I mean, is that the former envoy to Ukraine and Russia accusing the US negotiators of taking bribes publicly? It sounds like that's what he's saying. And then he goes on to say US defense giants like Lockheed Martin, Fear giving Ukraine licenses for their IP. I think this is the wrong business call. Ukraine can move faster and build better fixes. I will tell Trump what I think he should do. Give Ukrainians a chance. Who do you think is telling Lockheed and Raytheon not to give the licenses?

You don't think that they would give the licenses if they were able to control all of the IP in perpetuity, or for at least the next 50 years? It would actually benefit them, in my opinion. In my opinion, Trump is the one telling them, do not give those licenses. You want the billions of dollars in government contracts? Go along with what I'm saying, and I'm gonna blame it on you. It's a cowardly Trumpian thing to do.

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It should also be noted that MSNow reporting that Pete Hegseth has faced a record number of military conscientious objectors. Troops fighting against Iran and alleged drug smugglers say they are being asked to violate international law. Organizations that help service members apply to leave the military as conscientious objectors are seeing a large increase in concerns over US military strikes against alleged drug boats, targets inside Iran. One service member is concerned the military blew up bridges in Iran that were not military targets. Another thinks Pentagon leaders are not doing enough to prevent civilian deaths during airstrikes inside Iran. Yet another asked questions about how the military knew it was not killing civilians when launching missiles at boats it believed were trafficking drugs. MSNOW spoke to 5 troops who want out of the military because in recent months it challenged their moral beliefs. And it talks about how 6 months into this war, we're seeing record-high conscientious objector rates, the highest that Mike Preisner, who runs a hotline to help service members file as conscientious objectors at the Center on Conscience and War, said his group has seen applications increase by 6 times their normal rate since Epic Fury.

And it's the highest at any point in the past 25 years. We're hearing other leaks from top military officials, The Washington Post reporting how U.S. weapons shortages from Iran War are alarming allies confronting China, but concerns are especially growing within the Pentagon and amongst our military leaders who are overseeing the regions, uh, and the countries in Asia and our military capabilities there. One US official says more than 30 ships that were supposed to be in the Pacific had been shifted to the Middle East during the war. Now, Putin obviously sees weakness. It was reported that CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow, and the Wall Street Journal says to give a warning Not about Ukraine, but about NATO countries. Don't attack NATO countries or else. Putin responded by immediately hacking Norway and launching a major hack. China responded by launching a major hack at the United States Senate, the Federal Reserve, and other agencies, which the US claims it stopped the China hack. But we know that the US lies about everything. Putin, and I believe along with Belarus, planning a massive strike and a massive northern front invasion of Ukraine during the winter. You can see the troop formations heading in that direction.

There are some military officials warning that they believe that Putin may use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. It's clear that both Putin and China and North Korea see the United States as weaker than ever. Having run out of weapons, having run out of interceptors, and Tomahawks, and ATACMS, and— I mean, as this article explains, 30 ships that were supposed to be in the Pacific shifted to the Middle East during the war, not returning, and the main aircraft carrier in the Pacific, the USS George Washington, was forced to leave because the logistics were so utterly awful. I showed you General McCaffrey's statement as well, yesterday about how the logistics of the United States military has been so crippled and Iran was able to just piece by piece surgically rip apart U.S., um, logistics and the ability of the U.S. to even provide food and mail and basic necessities to our service members. Look, Donald Trump is someone who's bankrupted most things he's touched in his life. He's bankrupted company after company, entity after entity, so it's not a shocker he's bankrupting our military. And he doesn't consider— he doesn't have the right leadership that considers real basic stuff when it comes to, like, logistics.

For Trump and Hegseth and people like that, that's boring stuff. That's not being lethal. Hegseth yesterday did a deranged presser where he said, uh, This is the warrior ethos. The world is watching and they see how strong we are. Here, play this clip. You see, a military that downplays its frontline heroes to avoid uncomfortable political truths only projects weakness. The world watches how we treat our heroes. When they see a United States that fiercely defends champions and unties the hands of its warfighters, a country that corrects injustices and honors value— valor at the point of friction. They see an ironclad resolve of an unbreakable republic. Yeah, actually, the world sees how weak we are. We've never been weaker as a country right now, and that's on full display. By the way, speaking about those conscientious objectors, That follows the report by ProPublica 2 days ago about how top commanders told Hegseth not to cut civilian protection programs that would avoid civilian casualties and war crimes, but Hegseth ignored what the generals were saying and he cut the civilian protection programs, and it was predictable that you would see war crimes with Hegseth doing this stuff.

Uh, you saw the war crime, for example, in Manab, 168 little schoolgirls slaughtered. In Lemaire, like 16, 17 young girls playing volleyball slaughtered in the first day or so of the war. That's Hegsyth for you. And then I want to chat about this quickly, which is a West Point professor was fired after pushing back on limitations to teaching climate change. Stars and Stripes is reporting a civilian geography professor was fired from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for pushing back after department officials barred faculty from teaching that humans contribute to climate change. Adam Kockstein, a climate scientist who spent 17 years teaching future Army officers, said he consistently received outstanding appraisals of his work. When leadership last year imposed a ban on teaching, that humans contribute to climate change. He tried to comply but ultimately pushed back, saying that it was a disservice to the cadets' education. We're only telling cadets part of the story. We're lying to them, deceiving them. It would be like trying to teach the law without being able to even mention the Constitution, Cockstein said. Well, Cockstein, that's, that's what the Trump regime wants to do. They don't want the Constitution being taught.

Donald Trump has ripped to shreds uh, the Constitution, that's for sure. Lastly, I'll remind you all of the New York Times article from 2 days ago, how Hegseth's purge of top generals has left the Army rudderless. The Army has not had a chief of staff, the service's top officer, since Hegseth fired Randy George, apparently for launching an investigation into the Apache flyover of Kid Rock's mansion. And by the way, you remember what Hegseth posted at that time as well? Hegseth's like, uh, I think we have the post. Hegseth posted in support of it, and he's like, carry on, no investigation. I mean, again, just so utterly, uh, embarrassing. And then the article goes on to talk about a lot of the other critical, uh, positions, uh, that also have been not filled. It talks about one measure of the vacuum at the top of the Army is the number of 4-star generals serving in its ranks. As recently as January 2025, when Hegseth took office, there were 10 4-star generals on active duty. The service currently has 5, the fewest in decades. We got rid of generational talent from the military. Our top people, our top generals and admirals pushed out.

People like General Christopher Donahue, who led the command overseeing US troops in Europe. I mean, well-respected people gone right now, and they're speaking out against this regime. Let me know what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. I know that was all comprehensive, but we got to really recognize what's happening at all levels of this military. Thanks for watching. We appreciate you. Before you go, our book WTF America is available for preorder now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To preorder, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this. Let's do this.