MELISSA MURRAY (GUEST HOST): Trump's pick for defense secretary, Fox News host, Pete Hegseth, has been a staunch critic of the Afghanistan withdrawal, saying that the United States lost the war and wasted billions of dollars in the process. Hegseth was a junior officer in the Minnesota Army National Guard. He served overseas, but he has never actually held a senior military position. He also has never served in government and has no experience in government.
What Hegseth is known for is his war on woke, which includes arguing against women serving in combat roles and regularly mocking and misgendering transgender service members. He also says that the next president should, quote, "clean house" at the Pentagon by getting rid of woke generals, and claims that the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the nation's service academies has made the military, quote, "effeminate."
Now, during Trump's first term, we also saw a steady stream of Fox personalities turned White House officials. There was John Bolton and Kayleigh McEnany and Monica Crowley. But many observers noted that Fox's efforts to paint Trump and his government in the best possible light was augmented by those hardliners in the White House.
But where it really took a hard line was in events like Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrection, where Fox and those hardliners in the White House tried to put a good face on the Trump administration's missteps and lapses. Network stars like Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro literally campaigned for Trump, making clear the connections between the network and the administration and campaign.
And while Donald Trump flirted with fringe conservative outlets like OAN and Newsmax, it's always clear that Fox was in the pole position as administration's preferred mouthpiece. Now as we enter Trump's second term, the right-wing media landscape has changed considerably and to the incoming administration's profound advantage. Trump will now have the support of fringe podcasters like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, who have already spread conspiracy theories on his behalf. And then there's the whole new world of podcasting, which includes pro-Trump hosts Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, and the hugely influential anti-woke podcast machine headed by Joe Rogan.
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What makes Trump's incoming second term more frightening than the first is the fact that the new president-elect will have an empire of far-right voices in his ear, but also in the country's ear to defend him at all costs. And now one of those voices may have command over the U.S. military — second only, of course, to Donald Trump's command.
Joining me now to discuss all of this is Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, as well as Danielle Moodie, the host of The Danielle Moodie Show and co-host of Democracy-ish on YouTube. And finally joining us, Rick Wilson, the co-founder of The Lincoln Project and the author of the best-selling book Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump and the Democrats from Themselves.
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MURRAY: Angelo, you and your colleagues at Media Matters have documented much of Hegseth's extremism, including his history of Islamophobic rhetoric. Can you talk a little bit more and maybe augment what Rick has said about the significance of someone who's taken such extreme positions as Hegseth has being considered for this top position in an institution that is populated by a very diverse group of people?
ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT, MEDIA MATTERS): Yeah. I mean, I'll start there. I mean, part of it is, you know, one of the important parts of the military is readiness, is to be prepared. And two of the things that he represents sort of undercut that. One is this idea again, the misogyny, and sort of the reduced role that women would play in the military — that everyone universally accepts that doing that would actually reduce the military's readiness. So that's the first thing. That will absolutely have an effect.
But then beyond that, it's his world's view. It is poisoned by not just Islamophobia, it's something even broader and bigger than that, which is that he sees the world through crusader terms. That — and he sees the military, the United States military, sort of as a flaming sword for Christ. That it is engaged in a — not just as, you know, national security, it's also engaged in a religious battle. And that is important to sort of stamp out and snuff out the rise of Islam across the globe; one of the things he's lamented on several occasions is that Muslims are simply having too many babies by comparison to Christians, and that that presents a problem for cultural dominance down the road, and we need to be thinking about this threat now. So that to me is the two big pieces aside from all of the experience questions, but there are plenty of people that sort of assess that.
For me, it's those two things. It's both what he represents in terms of unit readiness and the second is a worldview that is poisoned by this grand narrative that presents the military as an instrument, not just for sort of Trump's authoritarianism, which is extremely scary and he is fully obedient, but also for this broader sort of, you know, Christian worldview.
