Seth Moulton Reveals What Active Duty Troops Think About Sec. Pete Hegseth Following Signal Scandal

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss what troops think about Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Transcript

00:00What do troops abroad think about him? I think we're all curious about that because

00:04they're abroad, they're serving this country, and they're seeing the Secretary of Defense,

00:10their top boss there, sharing these sensitive details on separate group chats,

00:15one group chat that includes his family members. What are they thinking? Do they feel safe right

00:19now in their jobs? No, a lot of them do not. I've heard from active duty troops I've never heard

00:25before on an issue like this that's in the political discussion. They are disgusted. They

00:31know they can't trust him. They know they can't enforce these own rules, or at least they're going

00:35to have difficulty doing so with their own troops because the top person in the Pentagon, the person

00:41who's supposed to lead by example, the person who's demanding accountability from his organization

00:46but refuses to take accountability for his own illegal behavior, just cannot be trusted. I can't

00:53tell you just how frightening it is to be in a situation where you're putting your life on the

00:59line and you can't trust the people above you. I remember what that feels like on the ground in

01:06Iraq when people in Washington were making decisions completely out of touch with reality, with the

01:12reality that we faced on the ground in that war. It's an incredibly disheartening feeling. And even at

01:18that time though, we didn't have a secretary of defense who was this incompetent. We didn't have

01:24a secretary of defense, even though I disagreed with many of the things they were doing, who just

01:28lied through his teeth and was completely untrusted by even his closest advisors. I don't think we've

01:35ever had a situation like this before in American history, and it's incredibly dangerous for our

01:40national security. We all know we can't trust Hegseth. That means our allies don't respect him and can't

01:47trust him. That means our adversaries, our enemies around the globe, don't respect him and don't trust

01:53his resolve. And worst of all, it means our own troops cannot trust him with their lives.

02:01I'm curious what you think our enemies specifically are thinking right now, because this is what White House

02:07Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said today. This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working

02:12against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement. And that quote

02:17sounds like some in the Trump administration are at war with the government they run. And this approach

02:22arguably helped them win when they were campaigning. But now they're running the government here. So what

02:27type of message is this sending to the enemies abroad, as well as our enlisted men and women abroad too?

02:32It shows that the top people in the Trump administration know absolutely nothing about

02:39leadership. And what the message that it's sending to our adversaries abroad is that this is a good time

02:45to think about taking advantage of the United States. There's chaos at the top of the Pentagon,

02:49as admitted by some of Hegseth's own closest advisors. Our troops know that they can't trust their

02:57leadership. This is a recipe for American military disaster. And it's an invitation to our adversaries

03:04to take advantage of us now.