It s a dangerous moment for the United States of America when the president and his loyalists use every lever of power to silence United States senators for speaking up. President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth both defend the administration s boat strike campaign while distancing themselves from the most explosive detail.
00:03:30.620We've been conducting interviews throughout the week.
00:03:32.820We got to meet with the Secretary earlier today.
00:03:38.120Talk to us about this new, you know, this sort of new transparency, this new welcoming that the Department is offering for the new media corps.
00:03:46.500Yeah, I think we're very excited to have, you know, the new media in here.
00:03:50.900You know, we went through, you know, quite a process with the legacy media and the Pentagon Press Association to try to implement reasonable regulations because building access is a privilege, not a right.
00:04:05.540And I think that they had considered it to be a right.
00:04:09.140And so when we went through all that and ultimately, whether it was a negotiating tactic or something else, they all decided to leave or, as Kenzo likes to call, self-deport.
00:04:19.720And I think that they really thought that that was going to be something that would cause us to say, oh, OK, well, we'll pull back the policy because we really do want, you know, you in this building.
00:04:30.140But the reality is we didn't need that.
00:04:33.560And so, you know, to have new media come in who are, you know, really covering this department, you know, not in just the way that we want to, but you guys have been really asking good, hard, fair questions and putting out the truth of what the department is actually doing.
00:04:48.880So we're very excited about that and want to build that relationship.
00:04:51.840You know, since since I've been in the building on Monday and I keep waiting for it, you know, nobody's handed me my script of prepared questions.
00:05:01.120No one's handed me my this is what we want you to ask about it.
00:05:34.660In the 1940s, back when this building was first built, press passes were handled through the Office of Censorship.
00:05:40.100And so everybody signed this thing, this different era, this that they had to submit all of their writings to the Department of War Office of Censorship for pre-publication review.
00:05:52.100You all had to maintain physical standards, too, because you had to go out in the field with the troops.
00:05:59.000But that hasn't been the rule since the 50s.
00:06:01.560And so when we put out this new policy, we put in there very explicitly that the department employees and the military members are not allowed to release non-public information without it being pre-cleared, you know, through the appropriate office.
00:06:18.640The media misinterpreted that as we were saying that they weren't allowed to do it.
00:06:23.640And the reality is that was not even a policy.
00:06:28.360Congress passed laws that says government employees are not allowed to disclose non-public confidential information, not just classified.
00:06:36.860When I was in a very similar uniform to yours, that was absolutely something that we had to get, and we took training on it every year, and it was very well understood.
00:06:48.000And so we had to be clear that this is the rules regarding department personnel so that the media would understand it is a crime for them to do that.
00:06:58.200And so if you're asking a department employee to commit a crime, you're soliciting a crime, building access is a privilege, not a right.
00:07:09.280And if you're soliciting crimes, you don't get the privilege of being in the building.
00:07:12.720And that's really, at its core, what that instruction was about.
00:07:17.640And ultimately, while they did this whole performative walkout, you know what they did?
00:07:24.320We'll be right back here from the Pentagon.
00:07:28.200Stand in our way, and our golden age has just begun.
00:07:31.680This is Human Events with Jack Posobiec.
00:07:33.460Now it's time for everyone to understand what America First truly means.
00:07:38.120Welcome to the second American Revolution.
00:07:44.740All right, Jack Posobiec, we are back live from the Department of War from within the bowels of the five-sided puzzle palace, the Pentagon itself.
00:07:53.780And folks, the Pentagon knows about a good cup of coffee.
00:07:57.380And anyone that knows me and the work that Human Events does day in and day out knows the conservative movement never stops.
00:08:03.560And the fuel that keeps me going, keeps the show going, and the work going is blackout coffee.
00:08:07.900And trust me, the commander here knows about a good cup of coffee.
00:08:36.640It's founded on Christian values, rooted in family, and built on the belief that hardworking Americans deserve better than corporate swill.
00:09:31.820Do we have that clip of Senator Kelly?
00:09:34.120And we're pulling up a clip here for Senator Kelly because he had this video over the last couple of weeks where, as you were just saying, you know, about the regulations of federal workers, it sounded to me that he was soliciting information or leaks or insubordination.
00:10:02.000And to my ears, it sounded like insubordination from members of the military and undermining the chain of command.
00:10:08.100Now, as a retired Navy captain collecting a pension, he is still under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
00:10:18.300I asked the press secretary, Wilson, yesterday, will there be an investigation?
00:11:21.940You know, they could bring administrative penalties here.
00:11:24.560They could – for example, they could reduce his pension.
00:11:27.600They could potentially, you know, say he's being reduced to the rank of commander in his retirement and then, you know, just take his pension down.
00:11:35.140But ultimately what they're going to do is they're going to make a decision not based on politics but based on the facts and the law as to what statutes that video violates, what are the impediments to a potential court-martial, and what makes the most sense in this case.
00:11:54.400You know, one of the difficulties of court-martialing a sitting senator, the Constitution prohibits somebody from serving offices in two branches at the same time.
00:12:05.620And so if a senator or congressman – yeah, there are members of congress that continue in the reserves.
00:12:17.980And so then they can't serve both offices at the same time and it acts as a functional forced resignation from Congress or the Senate, which that could potentially bring all sorts of other separation of powers issues.
00:12:32.100So, you know, I think that ultimately the Navy is going to make a well-reasoned decision and recommendation.
00:12:39.760It could include administrative penalties as opposed to, you know, the full freight of a court-martial.
00:12:47.660But then at the same time, you've got to remember the FBI has been looking into this.
00:12:51.460There's also the DOJ side, you know, which applies to all six of them.
00:13:03.380So this is something – and I appreciate though that the department is taking it absolutely seriously because it certainly is something that undermines good order and conduct.
00:13:12.440And at the end of the day, that's what it's all about and that's what the secretary has always said that he wants to restore.
00:13:18.180And we saw leaking even in the previous Trump administration from uniformed individuals that led to an impeachment process.
00:13:26.500We saw, you know, honestly leaking of classified information, which, you know, did not result in any administrative corrections or punishments at all.
00:13:35.340And so I understand the necessity for keeping it serious.
00:13:40.140Because moving aside, you know, talking about other investigations, I did also receive information from Press Secretary Wilson yesterday regarding a phone call that was made between Secretary Hegseth and Senator Roger Wicker.
00:13:54.480And this is the head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
00:13:57.460He had come out and talked about opening an investigation into the secretary regarding a series or a drone strike or a series of drone strikes, depending on, you know, the parlance on that, that took place down in Venezuela.
00:14:13.040When it comes to the legality of these strikes, now this is something – and I've said here on the program, just with my background as an intelligence officer, what I know about that strike just from open source reporting seems to be standard operating procedure.
00:14:26.460It doesn't seem to be a differentiation for that.
00:14:28.980But for the audience, could you walk us through what you're looking at there?
00:14:32.960So the initial strike, you know, that's – there's Office of Legal Counsel opinions that say we're allowed to do the initial strike.
00:14:40.800Where the controversy comes in is this follow-on second strike.
00:14:44.520And here you really need to do a very fact-intensive analysis of it because what The Washington Post did is, you know, after the video came out and, you know, the lack of an unlawful order, you know, they put out this, you know, fake narrative based on anonymous sourcing to try to pin an unlawful order on the secretary.
00:15:09.900But the reality is he did not give any such order.
00:15:13.760You know, the commander, Admiral Bradley, he made the decision, a command decision based on the information he had available to do a second strike.
00:15:22.060Now, ultimately, you have to decide, is that second strike a legitimate military target?
00:15:27.360And so here I'm going to draw a very serious distinction between the people and the boat, okay, because you have – initially you have a boat speeding along full of cocaine and people, and that is a lawful target.
00:16:43.120It was listing and we continued to put dive bombers and torpedo planes onto it until it went to the bottom of the ocean with all of the wounded Japanese sailors on board because the goal was to sink the boat, not the people.
00:16:56.900Now, if you have a boat that's on fire, full of cocaine, it's got a couple of narco terrorists on board.
00:17:08.960That boat is still a target and he can shoot that.
00:17:12.840Now, if the admiral sits there and says, I see two terrorists, I see two wounded terrorists on a – you know, floating in the middle of the ocean, I want to kill those terrorists.
00:18:06.720Which, by the way, is separate from an objective strike, which would be on, say, an HVT, high-value target terrorist, where that is and has been signed off by OLC.
00:18:17.000The thing about shipwrecked people, OK, in the laws of war, you're not allowed to target people that have been shipwrecked.
00:18:25.260And what that means is what the Japanese and Germans used to do to us of strafing American sailors in the water, shooting sailors that are swimming.
00:18:45.400But if he's shooting the boat, then that's not a problem.
00:18:48.480And that's, you know, where all the people are messing up their talking points and thinking that this is a war crime, when really this is perfectly permissible.
00:18:55.960And another point, we're not throwing him under the bus because by Secretary Higgs saying, no, I didn't give him that order, that's not putting him in front of the bus.
00:19:03.700That's saying you can't put him in jail for following a manifestly unlawful order.
00:19:08.180Instead, you have to focus on, did he make the appropriate command decision based on the intelligence he had available to him?
00:20:54.260All right, folks, so we've got this new report that's out, and we'll have our next guest here in a minute.
00:21:00.300We've got this new report out, the Pentagon IG report on the Signal app.
00:21:05.740And AP is reporting, and CNN first reported earlier, regarding the use of Signal messaging app to convey information about a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen.
00:21:17.060Now, remember, this was back earlier in the administration, so a different drone strike than the one that we were just talking about.
00:21:23.360So I do have some quotes that they've given us from Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, and Sean will be joining us in a moment's time.
00:21:35.300And so Sean has stated, says that it's a total exoneration, proves what we all knew.
00:21:42.860This matter is resolved, and the case is closed.
00:21:44.840This is, again, I'm reading the statement.
00:21:47.000The Signal narrative is old and worn out.
00:21:49.040It's starting to resemble Joe Biden's media mental state.
00:21:51.600The department stands behind its previous statements that no classified information was shared via Signal.
00:21:56.300I'll skip down a little bit to a deeper point here.
00:22:00.440It says, the review confirms what we said from the very beginning.
00:22:03.500The Secretary of War did not share any classified information.
00:22:06.980This review shows the Secretary is vindicated.
00:22:09.040The IG found that no classified information was shared.
00:22:12.360What it found instead is a bureaucracy desperate to weaponize process by leaking information because they knew it would hurt Secretary Hegseth.
00:22:20.080And, of course, this is between Operation Rough Rider and Operation Midnight Strike.
00:22:24.380And so the question, the report that's out from AP, and I'm putting these up against each other, said that it was sensitive information, potentially could have put U.S. personnel on the mission at risk.
00:22:37.100However, Hegseth has the ability to declassify material as an originating classification authority, an OCA, and that they did not find that he did so improperly, according to people familiar with the report's findings.
00:22:55.800The review by the IG has been delivered to the Capitol in the SCIF, and a partially redacted version of the report is expected to be released publicly later this week.
00:23:07.340And so this has been one of the things from early on in the administration that has absolutely been a huge story, huge question.
00:23:20.880The signal chat, the use of this chat, was it classified information?
00:23:25.900The signal, the text chain of people that were on the signal chat?
00:23:29.240Of course, many people who were in there, it was almost the entire cabinet at the time, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who is now over at the U.N. as U.N. ambassador, I believe, and Vice President J.D. Vance, D.N.I. Gabbard, were all on this chat as well.
00:23:48.500And so regarding the Houthi strikes, this was the question, was it classified information or was it sensitive information?
00:23:56.000And of course, the issue being that Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic had been added to the chat.
00:24:01.420And one of the questions that I still have, and at the time, I remember hitting up every single source that I had in the administration, just about everyone that I could find who had any idea what was going on here.
00:24:16.760How was it that Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic was added to this signal chat?
00:25:24.900As promised, Sean Parnell, joining us right now on Human Events Daily.
00:25:29.680And so this and we were looking and I and I said, look, you know, your office, not afraid of anything here, not afraid of serious questions.
00:25:38.260We have about a minute till the break, but then we'll hold you after that.
00:25:46.420I mean, so the signal report is out and it proves what we've known all along, that the secretary shared no classified information and he's totally exonerated.
00:25:58.720And if you remember, Jack, back to the original narrative when the signal story broke.
00:28:07.680And they're saying that Secretary Hegseth put U.S. personnel, put the mission at risk using the Signal messaging app to convey what they call sensitive information.
00:28:19.680However, also points out that it is declassified.
00:28:23.800What would the secretary say regarding – and I know you mentioned it before, but just since we have longer time.
00:28:28.560What would he say in response or what would the office say in response that did this put U.S. personnel at risk?
00:28:46.380No U.S. personnel were wounded or killed.
00:28:49.920Operation Roughrider was wildly successful.
00:28:52.380So, obviously, Americans' lives weren't put at unnecessary risk.
00:28:57.400The secretary – I mean I've said it before and I'll say it again.
00:29:01.220The secretary, when he's in these meetings and he's in these operational plans – in these operational planning sessions, he listens to uniformed military personnel.
00:29:13.440And he adheres to and believes in the commander-in-chief and President Trump, which, by the way, is something that's different from the president's first term here in this building.
00:29:23.460The secretary is a great, great advocate for the president, believes in him here in this building, and ultimately he's very decisive.
00:29:31.600So, you're going to see a bunch of headlines that have come out about this signal stuff.
00:29:36.480But the most important thing for the American people to know, Jack, is the – the narrative back then was that the secretary disclosed classified information and, therefore, because of that, broke the law.
00:30:17.560But the point is, is obviously the IG report was not damning if the recommendation was simply more cyber awareness training.
00:30:26.020And, no, I haven't seen the report yet.
00:30:27.560You know, this is still kind of breaking as I've been on air.
00:30:29.660Was there a section – did the IG get into – and I understand if this is beyond the purview – did the IG get into the inclusion of a mainstream media reporter in this signal chat, Jeffrey Goldberg from the –
00:30:54.240But ultimately, for our purposes, the IG report totally exonerates Secretary Hanks.
00:30:58.820He did not disclose classified information.
00:31:00.520That's still been – and I'm just going to say it.
00:31:02.520For someone who's done so much adversarial journalism against the – against President Trump and against members of his administration, this was the guy who came up with suckers and losers.
00:31:16.500And so to say that it was a random inclusion on a signal chat like this of that guy beyond – and I was going to say prior to when he walked in, I was – you actually cut me off when I was making my point that sometimes on signal you can only see the first two initials of the name.
00:31:33.420And so, OK, JG, I've got lots of people in my phone that might start with a J or a G, a friend or a relative or whoever.
00:31:42.320What are the odds that the person that comes in that has the J and the G is the guy who made up the suckers and losers hoax?
00:31:48.780It just – it – that's the part where it just – it don't pass the smell test.
00:32:02.820It – I mean how the hell he gets added to a signal chat I think is beyond me, but he did.
00:32:11.100And ultimately pushed yet another hoax with saying that the secretary disclosed classified information or classified work plans that put American troops at risk.
00:32:28.120Now, that being said, you know, you mentioned communications.
00:32:33.820Is there something that the DOD is working on beyond this to kind of – this platform to be able to work on with government devices to be able to have these high-level communications?
00:32:45.100Because I remember taking a step back and thinking about it and saying when you have members of the cabinet, when you have them going all over the world working for the president, working on his administration, working on his priorities over the world, over the country, different parts, I can see the need for having a way to communicate electronically to be able to cut across all of the boundaries.
00:33:22.220But to your point, Jack, I mean it is critically important for us to be able to communicate at the speed of relevance on a 21st century battlefield.
00:33:33.140And even – and I'll just say it because, you know, I'm not in uniform or in official capacity that – and I've been on the civetses and secure, you know, video contacts.
00:34:30.600You know, Sean, I watched all these Hollywood movies and I see all these fancy gadgets that James Bond and Jack Ryan and all these people have.
00:34:40.460Surely the secretary and the president have a line like that, right?
00:34:44.340They – yes, they do have secure ways and secure cell phones that they can talk on.
00:34:56.120And so that's something where, you know, it seems to me that I kind of – I think I understand the situation because, you know,
00:35:02.980having been an intelligence officer, I understand that this is – I don't even want to say publicly.
00:35:08.940Some of the ways that I've communicated with people that have been in the field in the past, let's just say they're far less – far less secure than Signal.
00:35:30.420So, yeah, of course we're looking at more modern, secure ways to communicate in real time because, as you said, the president doesn't sleep.
00:35:38.820The president is all over the world, all over the country.
00:35:41.680The secretary is all over the world, all over the country and oftentimes working in a skiff.
00:35:45.140So you have to be able to communicate on the fly, you have to be able to communicate at the speed of relevance on a battlefield that changes on a dime, and we're working on ways to develop and do that right now.
00:35:56.360What is – now, I only have it for a couple more minutes.
00:35:59.660I asked Press Secretary Wilson yesterday regarding this Senator Wicker and this situation over the U.S. Senate.
00:36:09.180She said that there was a phone call between the secretary and Senator Wicker.
00:36:13.180I think that was the first time that's been publicly acknowledged.
00:36:15.560Can you tell us anything else about that phone call or the current status of all that?
00:36:19.740So the secretary you're talking about with the investigation of Mark Kelly.
00:36:39.140So I'll tell you that the secretary a couple of days ago talked to Chairman Rogers on the Hask and talked to Chairman Wicker and those conversations went, as I understand it, very, very well.
00:36:53.500And the narrative in the media that you see is that, oh, we don't talk to Congress enough.
00:36:58.520I think there have been 13 briefings on Southcom operations with members of Congress to try to keep them in the loop.
00:37:04.520But, yeah, I mean part of our job is to – the president has a mission.
00:37:10.660He's told us that defense of the homeland is a main priority and a main pillar of that mission.
00:37:17.160And part of it is stopping drugs, fentanyl, from flowing into our country.
00:37:23.260And that's exactly what we're doing and we're going to keep doing it.
00:37:25.700Is there any plan to have Secretary Hegseth head over to conduct briefings either classified or unclassified with the committees?
00:37:32.680So I think Admiral Bradley is the then commander of JSOC and now the SOCOM commander is going to be on the Hill this week talking about it.
00:37:42.900But like I said, the secretary is in regular contact with members of the Hask and the Sask and he's going to continue to do that.
00:37:50.380But we're also going to continue to get after this mission because it's important to protect our homeland.
00:37:54.160You know, like we are the first Department of Defense, Department of War that's actually prioritized defending the homeland.
00:38:01.140You remember some of the images of our southern border under Biden, like where the military is being overwhelmed and illegals are streaming into the country?
00:39:42.840Because, first, let's face it, your phone is a tracking device.
00:39:45.560Government agencies, like perhaps the one I'm in right now, big tech, corporate data brokers, and even cyber criminals, they are all fighting for a piece of your digital footprint.
00:41:28.720And I said, okay, do you want, you know, do you want me to bring this up?
00:41:32.380And they said, well, when Sean Parnell comes in, I'm the chief spokesman.
00:41:36.420We want him to talk about it, and he wants to talk about it.
00:41:40.180And so you think of the narrative that they've been pushing at us, saying that, oh, you're the new Pentagon press corps, that, you know, you've got Jack Posobiec, James O'Keefe, and guys from Tim Pooler there, and you've got the post-millennial and human events and all the rest.
00:41:54.240And we can bring him in if he's ready.
00:41:57.880And you're not asking any serious questions.
00:42:01.420They came to us and said, we want to talk about the IG report on Signal.
00:42:37.620What is happening with these drone strikes?
00:42:39.280Are they actually hitting people who are just floating around in the water like survivors?
00:42:44.520Well, you saw the commander here, and he walked through it.
00:42:47.220He walked through the legalities of that.
00:42:49.880That if you have a vessel that is recoverable by a terrorist organization that still has those narcotic content on there, which is a commodity that can then be traded and then sold in the U.S. market, not only just for, of course, for sale, but then used for that funding that goes back to that organization, then that is still a legal target.
00:43:13.180It is a lawful target of the United States military under those authorities.
00:43:19.280And we're here asking those serious questions.
00:43:21.740And in fact, I appreciate the fact that they gave us serious answers.
00:43:25.300And ultimately, just like in any other media, it is up to you, the American people, to be the ones to decide what you do with that.
00:43:36.620And again, you know, we think about different things and, you know, you go back to, say, the Pentagon Papers, right, all the way back during the Vietnam War and questions about whether or not the Vietnam War was going well.
00:43:51.500And the fact that that was a Democrat scandal, right?
00:44:08.340And inside this building, inside the Pentagon, this very same building, and I really should have, you know, we've been doing all these interviews about news of the day.
00:44:17.800But the history of this building is so incredible.
00:44:22.640And in this building, they had reports during Vietnam that the war was not going well.
00:44:48.640And if America's interests are being called into question, then we want to know, are these operations being done for the interests of the American people or are they being done to serve some other purpose?
00:45:02.280That's going to be continuing to be my job.
00:45:04.720And, you know, really when you look, really when you look at the history of the Pentagon, not only, of course, you know, the Pentagon Papers, but you go all the way back to 9-11.
00:45:20.040And you go back to the rings that were smashed here on that day, the people who saw the plane flying over on the bridge, the bridge that I drove over just this morning to come into this building.
00:45:32.560When you think about the different operations that were fought and run out of this building, it's truly remarkable.
00:46:10.580We only actually have a couple of minutes left until the end of the show.
00:46:14.540But what I'd love to do, if we can, we'll get you on for the last two minutes and then we'll go over a little bit and we'll play on the next time.
00:46:21.080But I want to say thank you so much for joining us.
00:46:32.400When we're talking about, though, the military readiness, the quality of life, just in one minute, what would you say the difference has been between the previous administration and now?
00:46:41.560We're focused on those things that unify us instead of those things that divide us.
00:46:45.340We're focused on unity of command, unity of mission instead of critical race theory and DGI.
00:46:52.520And it's really as simple as that, folks, because you have a situation where now it's about every warfighter and every member of the military, which, by the way, includes families, which includes dependents, which includes children, which includes the quality of life on base.
00:47:09.260It doesn't matter what your politics are or what your critical race, et cetera.
00:47:15.460None of that matters because that's all something that affects everyone.
00:47:20.420Since the president was elected, since the secretary has been put in the position and the Senate confirmed, recruiting is off the charts for every service.
00:47:29.080We've already hit mission on a couple of services for the next fiscal year.
00:47:33.360I actually know someone, I have a friend who's younger who was looking to get in, and for specific jobs, you can't even get them.