The Pentagon has gone dark. No press conferences since May. No real embeds in an active shooting conflict. Four-star generals pushed into retirement with a short phone call and no explanation. An Army Secretary out. Polygraphs on the table. And a 60 Minutes segment that played less like accountability journalism and more like a Hegseth highlight reel. Washington Post national security reporter Dan Lamothe returns for his 11th appearance to walk Paul through what it actually looks like to cover Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon in 2026 — and why the propaganda machine is only getting louder.
Paul and Dan get into the purge of senior officers around Dan Driscoll, the JD Vance-Driscoll axis and what it means for 2028, the paid “military influencers” quietly on the Pentagon payroll while attacking reporters online, and General Dan Cain’s growing credibility problem after Trump falsely placed him in the room at a partisan event. They also dig into the story nobody in the building wants to touch: what is the Pentagon actually doing about AI, and does anyone in leadership grasp the threat the way earlier generations grasped nukes? This is the kind of no-BS, intelligence-grade conversation you won’t get in a five-minute cable hit.
In this episode
- Why the Pentagon hasn’t held a press conference since May — and why that matters during an active conflict
- How Hegseth’s team is running a propaganda operation: no embeds, no briefings, no casualty figures
- The four-star purge: Randy George, CQ Brown, Donahue, and the pattern of firings with no explanation
- Dan Driscoll’s resignation, his clashes with Hegseth, and why he may resurface running JD Vance’s 2028 campaign
- Polygraphs inside the building — who is being tested, who pushed back, and why
- The Washington Post’s reporting on paid “military influencers” who are special government employees while attacking reporters on X
- Sean Parnell publicly calling for Jeff Bezos to fire Post reporters — a line we haven’t seen crossed before
- The 60 Minutes segment on the shot-down aviators: puff piece or accountability journalism?
- General Dan Cain, the partisan convention that wasn’t, and the circuit-breaker question
- The AI void at the Pentagon: no serious public threat assessment, no clear leadership, and a $1.5 trillion budget that barely addresses it
