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Welcome to the hot dish comfort food for rural America.

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I'm Heidi Heitkamp.

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And I'm Joel Heitkamp.

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We've got a very special show for you today.

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Heidi just had an amazing conversation with retired General Mark Hertling about everything
going on with the US military and our foreign policy right now.

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man, it was really enlightening and interesting.

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And let's get to that conversation right away.

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I am so excited today to be talking to retired general Mark Hertling.

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General Hertling served as the commanding general of the United States Army in Europe and
the seventh army.

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He commanded the first armored division and task force iron multinational division North
in Iraq during the 20, 2007, 2008 troop surge.

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So he knows a little bit about what he's talking about.

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And we're going to be talking about his new book, which is If I Don't Return, a Father's
Wartime Journal, which I'm very excited to hear about.

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And I think it's really important, especially for the younger generation, to understand
what it's like to uh sacrifice and to put your family in that position.

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But in the meantime, I want to talk a little bit about an article that you just wrote for
The Bulwark which you're affiliated with.

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and you introduced a new concept for me, which is the belly button rule.

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Can you talk a little bit about why you wrote that article?

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And before we came on the podcast, you were talking about actually writing an article for
warning folks that this, operation in Venezuela could result in some real challenges later

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on.

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So uh the floor is yours, General.

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Thank you so much for joining us.

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Well, thanks, Senator.

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I appreciate it.

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And it's an honor to be with you today.

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I'm a big fan of yours.

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I always have been.

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Yeah, the first article I wrote, I should cover that first before going into the belly
button rule.

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uh Literally the day before Friday, the day before the Saturday, early Saturday morning
attack, I wrote a piece for The Bulwark called Regime Change is Harder Than It Looks.

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And what I talked about is uh experiences I had in the Pentagon as one of the directors
where we

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I was assigned there as the J7 on the Joint Staff, which was at the time the person
responsible for war plans and transformation of the armed forces.

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This was also the time the building was hit.

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9-11 occurred while I had just arrived at the Pentagon.

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And of course, there was a lot of scrambling on what to do next.

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And then we developed or adapted into the approach toward going into Iraq.

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uh

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When we first heard what the Secretary of Defense wanted us to do as a military, which was
regime change of Saddam Hussein government, there was a huge discussion among the uniform

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folks saying, hey, that's not one of our missions.

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That's not what we do.

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The military does a lot of things, but that ain't one of them, because there's a whole lot
more that goes along with regime change than just uh driving tanks into a city and

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capturing a leader.

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oh

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I kind of outline the experiences I had during two long tours in Iraq, one in 2003 and
another one in 2007, uh where we saw the various aspects of what occurred within the

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government, the economy, the security forces, the treatment of Ba'ath officers, the
Ba'athist uh civilians in the society.

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It's one thing to say, we're going to take Saddam Hussein and get him out of power.

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It's another thing to understand the repercussions of doing that.

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And it took a long 15 years before a lot of advances were made within the government, the
economy, and the diplomacy and the institutions of the nation of Iraq.

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uh The following morning, I woke up, as everybody did, to the announcement that we had uh
gone in with special forces into Venezuela.

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captured Maduro and brought him out.

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And I was eagerly awaiting the press conference by the president to see what he was gonna
say if the plans that I had suggested in the first article were going to be followed.

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And my first indication that they were not was when a reporter asked the president who's
in charge.

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And he looked around behind him to Secretary Hegseth and Secretary Rubio and director of
the CIA, Ratcliffe and-

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Stephen Miller and I can't remember who else was behind him.

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He said these guys are in charge.

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Well, that's when anything that I thought might be happening behind the scenes went pretty
far south because I knew when you don't have one person in charge either an envoy or a

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military person or a diplomat or someone who's in charge of the post-conflict, you're
going to have trouble.

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And sure enough, we've seen that already.

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And that actual

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answer to the question was the generation of the next article I wrote called the belly
button rule.

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And the belly button rule is simply this.

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Whenever you have a tough operation, you've got to put your finger in somebody's belly
button and say, you're in charge, you're responsible, I'm holding you accountable for the

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things that are happening.

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Now, over the last week, we've heard the president say he's in charge, the new, uh the old
vice president of Venezuela is in charge.

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Marco's in charge, Hegcess in charge.

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We still don't know who is in charge of Venezuela as oil companies are considering going
in there and trying to renew the infrastructure and generate oil out of there.

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So it doesn't seem to be as much about regime change as it does about capturing and
basically hoarding foreign nations' oil resources.

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Yeah, I mean, and as I explained, I certainly don't have your background, but I understand
a little bit about um oil economy.

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And, you know, the head of Exxon basically said it right, it's uninvestable.

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mean, and you know, we've seen oil grow 2 % demand for oil grow on average 2 % for a long
period of time.

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And we're in a spot where we're talking about peak oil demand.

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And we're also in a spot where

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that investment that could be made in uh oil production, a lot of people think it should
be made in the United States, not in Venezuela.

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so, mean, can you imagine just for a minute what was going through the president's mind
when he decided that this was a good idea?

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And then, I kind of thought, okay, well, now we're gonna see the woman who won the Nobel
Peace Prize.

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basically being installed and that's going to be difficult um because does she have the
military behind her?

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And I want you to speak to the role of the Venezuela military um in terms of the
challenges that are ahead.

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Well, any kind of assessment of the Venezuelan government or the Venezuelan security
forces writ large, not just the military, but the police force, how they have both Cubans

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and other nations providing security forces, it's extremely corrupt.

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It is in some cases capable.

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as a military force, have very good equipment that's been given to them or sold to them by
the Russians and the Chinese.

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But you're talking about a military that is beholden to the legacy of the hierarchy of the
government, in this case, Machado.

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Now, okay, his vice president is now in.

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Do they have the same uh deference to her that they had to him before he was replaced?

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And

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You know, when you're talking about uh changing regime, that legacy security forces is
going to be asked the question, who should we be loyal to?

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And, you know, one of the things I did, Senator, when I was still in service, when I used
to go around to different countries in Europe, I would ask soldiers from the different

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country, who do you swear on else to defend?

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Well, that gives an indication of what the force is like.

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If they swear the oath to the queen or the king or the motherland or the fatherland, uh we
as the US military swear our oath to the constitution and ideas and ideals.

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uh There's not a whole lot of other nations in the world that do that.

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Venezuela is one of them.

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uh They basically swear their allegiance to the president and the government.

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So you're talking about a force.

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that is allied with the corrupt government and they've been taking kickbacks and a whole
lot of money.

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So it isn't just the army from the standpoint of who's going to fight, but having, as you
mentioned in the introduction to me, having spent my last year and a half in combat in

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Northern Iraq, we were responsible for

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getting the Baiji oil refineries and the Kurdish oil fields working again after they had
been destroyed by terrorists.

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And you realize that you have to have a whole lot of security on those facilities.

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And when you have honest security people, they work pretty well.

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When you have a government that's corrupt and you have a legacy military that is
corruptible, then you're not going to provide Exxon or BP or Chevron or anybody else with

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the security that they need.

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I think one of the things that came up in that oil executive meeting, uh which only
reinforced my conclusion that there was no preliminary planning for this other than the

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special operations mission, which was a tactical mission that went off brilliantly.

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But again, what comes next?

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And you would think that that meeting with the oil executives would have occurred before
uh going into the country and saying, we control the oil wells.

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Because there is no control of the oil wells right now other than by the government of
Venezuela, as you well know.

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And I thought what was interesting is when he started saying, well, when did you leave?

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And they said, when you started sanctioning Venezuela, that's when we left because we
couldn't operate in Venezuela under your sanctions in your first term.

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And I think he was shocked.

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I think he just thought he was doing them such a big favor.

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you know, I want to pan out a little bit, General, and talk about what this means at large
in Latin America, because the thing

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just say one more thing?

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Because you triggered something in me that I ought to comment on.

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Back in 2015, during the presidential campaign, I was still working for CNN.

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I did a candidate Trump at the time said, we should have gone into Iraq and stolen all the
oil and all this other stuff.

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Well, Anderson Cooper knew my background.

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He asked me on his show and he said, what do you think about that?

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I said, well, it's a war crime, first of all.

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And I said, secondly, we tried to bring in oil companies.

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had BP, Shell, and Exxon all coming into Northern Iraq.

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And they all said, first of all, the security is not good enough for us to work here.

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And secondly, the facilities are such bad shape that we're going to have to invest
billions of dollars to get it up and operational.

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And they left.

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So I told that to Anderson Cooper.

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The next night, Cooper had Trump on sitting at the floor of his Trump Tower in New York.

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And he said, well, we've got this candidate or we've got this military analyst who says
it's a war crime.

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he tried to bring in oil companies to do this.

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And candidate Trump answered, well, then I'm smarter than that general.

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That was the first time he used that phrase.

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So I can have that on my tombstone saying that I was the first general that he said he was
smarter than.

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I once was with a billionaire and I remarked that Trump told me once that he was the best
golfer, a billionaire golfer in America.

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And this billionaire who was quite a good golfer, know, scratch golfer went, no, he's not.

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No, he's not.

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So no, he's not.

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So yeah, no, I was going to say, you know, when you look at the activity in Iraq and we,
you know, we have the advantage of 2020 hindsight.

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I get it.

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but it destabilized.

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mean, Iraq was always the tension with Iran.

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We had that ability to kind of maneuver those two great, uh you know, historic enemies,
you know, and so it was a uh limitation.

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once we uh undertook the activity that we had in Iraq, that destabilized the region.

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So I wanna talk about your opinion about, you know, if we raise out, let's first talk
about Latin America.

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What's the consequences for the United States, not just in Venezuela and not just for the
military and not just for, you know, kind of regime change in Venezuela, but let's pan

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out.

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And, you know, when you look at it, based on your experience in the mid-East, how
concerned are you about destabilization of Latin America as a result of this?

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Yeah, I'm very concerned about it.

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And it was another thing I pointed out in the article that I wrote before the incursion
into Venezuela.

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And that has to do with alliances.

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And one other similarity that you bring up is the president said multiple times, they will
welcome us with open arms when we go into Venezuela.

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We've heard that before.

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And I had to live with it on a couple of occasions for a few years.

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And there wasn't a universal

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uh cheering and decrees of faith and loyalty to the United States as they entered into
your country.

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But when you talk about the region, uh whenever a military operation is conducted, there's
an assessment of who's with us and who's against us.

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And what kind of regional attitudes do you have?

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uh You you can't take Venezuela in a vacuum because they border, first of all, Colombia.

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which is a pretty important country in Latin America.

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They also have borders with Brazil, another important country.

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So what you're talking about is understanding the regional implications as well as the
international implications.

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I mean, around the world, beyond the region of having confused our Latin and South
American allies about what the US is doing, proclaiming we're in charge of the region.

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with this regional hegemony and the approach to the, uh to our hemisphere that has been
said so many times, even in the UN by the UN ambassador, Michael Waltz, who said, this is

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our hemisphere, we should control it.

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And it's like, holy smokes, you're saying that on the floor of the UN in your speeches?

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That's the kind of thing that will confuse our neighbors in Latin and South America.

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But you also have to look beyond that.

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What are the implications around the world?

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for security and what both our friends and our foes see in us.

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I mean, we now have former allies in NATO who have seen this incursion into Venezuela and
said, hey, the next time President Trump says something about Denmark or Greenland or any

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other place, we better believe him.

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And that's not the kind of ally you want.

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But even beyond that, Senator, you're talking about intelligence agencies.

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that provide us with all sorts of information from around the world who are now saying,
we're not telling the US anything.

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And that's one of our powers.

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The national power of information is what has made our country so great and our military
so effective.

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When we start losing that capability of relying on our allies, and we already have begun
to lose it, we're in bad shape.

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Yeah, I want to point out too, when you say this is our hemisphere, what's the sub China
as a I, you know, their, their historic, you know, desire to reunite Taiwan into uh

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mainland China.

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It know, it just, you got your hemisphere, we got our hemisphere, our hemisphere.

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mean, so it was words that were not

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I don't think well thought out, no surprise there.

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That's kind of the MO.

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But the first thing I thought of is if I'm China, I'm like going, okay, if I'm Russia, I'm
saying, okay, you have no business dealing with Ukraine.

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That's not your hemisphere.

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This is my hemisphere.

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wanna, you know, there...

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hell out of all the people that for the last 70 years we've been trying to make as part of
different alliances around the world, not just in Europe, but all over the place.

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And that's been one of the things over four decades of my service in the military, one of
our big efforts other than fighting wars was making fronts, theater security cooperation

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so we can gain access.

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Yeah.

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I think it's important before we kind of leave, Venezuela I want to talk a little bit
about what this means for, for Ukraine.

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But I stood on the bridge and I saw the massive number of hungry people.

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I talked to people, you know, who were coming across into Columbia, who didn't have
insulin, who didn't have, I mean, he took a very prosperous country and

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absolutely decimated it and Colombia took a lot of refugees.

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In fact, it's the largest refugee migration in the history of the world.

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And you might say, why do you do that?

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Culturally, they're the same, but also during the Colombian Civil War, Venezuela took a
lot of refugees.

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And so I talked to the border security people there and said, well, aren't you a little
nervous about this?

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And they said, look, if we don't accommodate and document at this border, they'll just
come through the jungle.

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I mean, they knew they couldn't.

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control the border.

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00:18:15,308 --> 00:18:25,823
But so, I mean, no one should take what you and I are talking about in any way to be a,
you know, approval of Maduro.

199
00:18:25,823 --> 00:18:35,447
He was a horrible dictator, desperately put his people into poverty, people who were
middle-class, and it's probably better off.

200
00:18:35,447 --> 00:18:42,040
it, again, you know, the easy, and I wouldn't say the military stuff.

201
00:18:42,724 --> 00:18:54,087
is not easy, but it is strategic and it has a beginning point and an end point, which was
the extraction of Maduro and his wife out of Venezuela.

202
00:18:54,328 --> 00:18:55,448
Now what?

203
00:18:55,448 --> 00:18:57,248
And that's the problem.

204
00:18:57,829 --> 00:19:10,252
think um recently there was a report that in his first term, uh Russia approached Trump um
to basically say, look,

205
00:19:10,444 --> 00:19:15,769
let us have free reign in Ukraine and you can do whatever you want in Venezuela.

206
00:19:15,769 --> 00:19:17,110
Do you think that's true?

207
00:19:17,110 --> 00:19:24,525
Do you think that that is in fact what was in the back of Trump's mind when he was doing
this?

208
00:19:24,525 --> 00:19:28,617
Yeah, I try and stay away from unconfirmed reports.

209
00:19:28,617 --> 00:19:30,269
I saw that too.

210
00:19:30,269 --> 00:19:37,333
And truthfully, my first reaction, as many people as, whereas that makes sense, but
there's no confirmation.

211
00:19:37,333 --> 00:19:38,504
standpoint.

212
00:19:39,227 --> 00:19:39,667
Yeah.

213
00:19:39,667 --> 00:19:45,673
sense in terms of what the president has been doing in terms of allowing Russia to do what
they're doing.

214
00:19:45,673 --> 00:19:55,584
uh So you could see some dots connected, but I don't want to draw a conclusion from that
because I just don't have the facts.

215
00:19:55,584 --> 00:20:01,099
I think someday someone will learn the facts about that, but it sure is an interesting
report.

216
00:20:01,424 --> 00:20:06,350
Well, Russia's been very quiet about what happened in Venezuela.

217
00:20:06,350 --> 00:20:13,618
you know, if I'm looking in the region, I'm thinking Cuba better be careful.

218
00:20:14,024 --> 00:20:14,782
I mean...

219
00:20:14,782 --> 00:20:23,207
say you say that Russia has been quiet, and I think that's only because we have been
distracted over the last week.

220
00:20:23,207 --> 00:20:26,573
The Russian attacks inside of Ukraine.

221
00:20:26,573 --> 00:20:30,055
have monumentally increased, exponentially increased.

222
00:20:30,055 --> 00:20:33,497
They've been striking targets that they hadn't struck before.

223
00:20:34,258 --> 00:20:37,961
This morning, I checked the weather in Kyiv, it's 14 below zero.

224
00:20:37,961 --> 00:20:45,656
And they are becoming very effective in terms of knocking out energy resources to the
Ukrainian people.

225
00:20:45,656 --> 00:20:51,109
And God bless them, the Ukrainian people are still...

226
00:20:51,683 --> 00:20:56,235
They have a will to continue the fight, which is just simply amazing.

227
00:20:56,235 --> 00:21:06,679
But Russia has been very active while we've been focused on Venezuela and Greenland and
people in our streets and ICE agents and all those kinds of things.

228
00:21:06,679 --> 00:21:11,344
Russia has been very active and I think it's been a distraction from what they've been
doing.

229
00:21:11,344 --> 00:21:17,947
Yeah, before we get to the book, I'd like to just spend a couple of minutes on the
Insurrection Act.

230
00:21:17,947 --> 00:21:28,551
um You know, obviously the um courts have restricted or at least sent a message that you
don't always control the National Guard.

231
00:21:28,551 --> 00:21:35,154
um These aren't emergencies for which you can advance or to nationalize the National
Guard.

232
00:21:35,154 --> 00:21:40,892
But obviously the president has a very powerful weapon or a very powerful

233
00:21:40,892 --> 00:21:44,773
um ability to invoke the Insurrection Act.

234
00:21:44,773 --> 00:21:55,416
um How concerned are you that given what's happened in Minneapolis that this will be a
direction that um he takes?

235
00:21:55,416 --> 00:22:00,537
And I just wanna kind of put a little more color on it.

236
00:22:00,698 --> 00:22:10,120
I have no idea why they overreacted in my opinion to the video that Mark Kelly and the
other former members, but clearly,

237
00:22:10,407 --> 00:22:17,923
they're concerned that that message may resonate and result in someone saying no, I think.

238
00:22:18,203 --> 00:22:33,876
mean, so can you just mention a little bit from a military man's perspective, um you know,
uh active duty troops in the United States, how concerned are you that that's the next

239
00:22:33,876 --> 00:22:34,629
step?

240
00:22:34,629 --> 00:22:42,329
I've been concerned that that has been an agenda item of this administration from the very
beginning.

241
00:22:42,329 --> 00:22:50,449
And they have done certain things that have attempted to crank up the temperature in
various key cities, democratic cities.

242
00:22:50,449 --> 00:23:00,065
Again, so you could use the mantra of, this is all the bad things going on in these blue
cities, when in fact, all the blue cities that they've gone into.

243
00:23:00,065 --> 00:23:04,798
are relatively calm and peaceful and have had lower crime rates than some of the other
ones.

244
00:23:04,798 --> 00:23:12,212
I mean, there's parts of any large city like Los Angeles that's going to have crime, but
that's not where the National Guard was.

245
00:23:12,212 --> 00:23:14,313
The same thing in Washington, D.C.

246
00:23:14,313 --> 00:23:19,376
And the reinforcement by the president saying, see, crime has dropped to zero.

247
00:23:19,376 --> 00:23:22,798
First of all, it's certainly not true in any of those cities.

248
00:23:22,798 --> 00:23:27,740
And secondly, there was not a whole lot of crime in those cities in the first place in
most parts of them.

249
00:23:27,740 --> 00:23:29,209
uh

250
00:23:29,209 --> 00:23:44,415
But the fact that he is deploying first the National Guard from one state into another and
then reinforcing with military uh troubles me, especially the first tranche of these when

251
00:23:44,415 --> 00:23:52,547
he mobilized the Guard, but he also mobilized not the Army, but the Marines.

252
00:23:52,547 --> 00:23:57,319
because there is a different culture in the Marines in terms of taking orders.

253
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:02,983
There is a different culture in terms of what they train for and what they don't train
for.

254
00:24:02,983 --> 00:24:09,607
I mean, the Army has a human, usually a humanitarian aid mission as part of their skill
sets.

255
00:24:09,607 --> 00:24:11,828
The Marines mostly do not.

256
00:24:11,828 --> 00:24:15,050
I mean, other than in very unique circumstances.

257
00:24:15,050 --> 00:24:20,533
So when the first unit he called was a Marine unit out of 29 Palms, California,

258
00:24:20,644 --> 00:24:27,337
That sent a signal to me as a military guy that this is beyond what we're thinking it
should be.

259
00:24:27,337 --> 00:24:42,395
But as we see uh the increased militarization of border patrol and ICE with just what
they're wearing as an intimidation tool, just how they're approaching US citizens tells

260
00:24:42,395 --> 00:24:47,528
me, and I've been in a lot of fights, they're looking for a fight.

261
00:24:47,528 --> 00:24:50,609
They are looking to provoke and intimidate.

262
00:24:50,635 --> 00:24:54,468
And pretty soon that dam may break.

263
00:24:54,468 --> 00:24:58,852
uh And we're seeing more protests, more people on the street.

264
00:24:58,852 --> 00:25:08,019
And whenever you have more of a crowd being increasingly intimidated, uh you're going to
need a relief valve somewhere.

265
00:25:08,019 --> 00:25:16,205
uh And I'm hoping, as all of the governors and the different elected officials have said,
don't take the bait.

266
00:25:16,226 --> 00:25:17,227
That's the key.

267
00:25:17,227 --> 00:25:20,009
Because if he doesn't have a reason,

268
00:25:20,205 --> 00:25:24,331
to invoke the Insurrection Act.

269
00:25:24,331 --> 00:25:25,132
He can't do it.

270
00:25:25,132 --> 00:25:28,987
I mean, he can do it on his own if he wants to, he can't.

271
00:25:28,987 --> 00:25:33,503
I mean, he can say, I'm invoking it now, but then the courts are going to say, why?

272
00:25:33,503 --> 00:25:36,226
And it's going to take a long time to pull people back.

273
00:25:36,226 --> 00:25:37,523
But I think the pro-

274
00:25:37,523 --> 00:25:44,907
this is a huge, mean, know, Posse Comitatus, all of this has a long, long legal history.

275
00:25:44,907 --> 00:25:47,139
It has a long political history.

276
00:25:47,139 --> 00:25:50,921
You know, we have police powers, they're given to police.

277
00:25:50,921 --> 00:25:55,604
We have oh external people who protect us against external threats.

278
00:25:55,604 --> 00:25:58,666
And those lines are getting blurred, in my opinion.

279
00:25:59,186 --> 00:26:02,528
I want, go ahead, go ahead, General.

280
00:26:02,572 --> 00:26:17,649
If I am a young soldier in a unit somewhere in Texas or Georgia, and suddenly I'm
mobilized, the thing that these politicians are not considering is I've got to go out with

281
00:26:17,649 --> 00:26:25,432
a weapon as part of an insurrection act and face my fellow citizens who aren't doing
anything wrong.

282
00:26:25,434 --> 00:26:30,598
You know, they're protesting and peaceful protests are part of who we are.

283
00:26:30,598 --> 00:26:39,364
So you're asking me as a human being who's wearing a uniform to face my fellow Americans
and potentially use force against them.

284
00:26:39,624 --> 00:26:46,879
Unless it's truly an insurrection where people are trying to tear down the government, I
don't think we want to put our military in that role.

285
00:26:46,919 --> 00:26:49,491
I think that's a really important definition.

286
00:26:49,491 --> 00:26:52,213
Are these people trying to overcome?

287
00:26:52,213 --> 00:26:55,345
there's a boogeyman that they're gonna find in every corner.

288
00:26:55,345 --> 00:26:58,848
They're domestic terrorists, they're this, they're that.

289
00:26:58,848 --> 00:27:03,451
It's the same thing of the Venezuela and boat people are bringing in fentanyl.

290
00:27:03,451 --> 00:27:04,642
No, they're not.

291
00:27:04,642 --> 00:27:10,226
They're probably bringing in marijuana like we know, and they're probably transporting
cocaine.

292
00:27:10,226 --> 00:27:14,489
And so, it's just so interesting to me.

293
00:27:14,577 --> 00:27:22,344
that we haven't heard a lot of discussion about the insurrection app because I think my
concern is that's the next escalation.

294
00:27:22,344 --> 00:27:26,918
But I don't wanna leave this conversation without talking a little bit about your book.

295
00:27:26,918 --> 00:27:28,509
Why did you write it?

296
00:27:28,530 --> 00:27:32,023
And what do you hope people take away from it when they read it?

297
00:27:32,022 --> 00:27:32,560
right.

298
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,992
The title of the book is If I Don't Return, a Father's Wartime Journal.

299
00:27:36,992 --> 00:27:38,552
It looks like this.

300
00:27:39,131 --> 00:27:51,002
if I can tell a short story, this was a journal that I wrote in 1990 and 91 uh because
when we were sent off, when I was sent off to Desert Storm, I was in a cavalry squadron.

301
00:27:51,002 --> 00:27:53,765
We were going to be out in front of the division at the time.

302
00:27:53,765 --> 00:27:57,178
And I know Desert Storm was a huge success now looking back on it.

303
00:27:57,178 --> 00:27:59,668
But when we deployed, we were told

304
00:27:59,668 --> 00:28:02,039
We're going against the fourth largest army in the world.

305
00:28:02,039 --> 00:28:06,221
have chemical weapons and they've just come out of about eight year war with Iran.

306
00:28:06,221 --> 00:28:08,902
So this is a pretty tough force you're going against.

307
00:28:09,062 --> 00:28:17,046
And we were told, our unit was told we're likely to suffer 50 % casualties, dead and
wounded.

308
00:28:17,046 --> 00:28:26,943
And so I said, what do I leave as a legacy to my eight year old and 10 year old boys and
to my wife, if she's a widow, how are they gonna remember me?

309
00:28:26,943 --> 00:28:38,263
So I started writing thoughts before the war started, just when we deployed there and we
had some time before we went into combat, about every life sort of emotion that you can

310
00:28:38,263 --> 00:28:44,278
have, fear, love, uh anxiety, friendship, uh the chaplains that were with us.

311
00:28:44,278 --> 00:28:45,619
So I wrote a lot.

312
00:28:45,619 --> 00:28:48,341
Each day I wrote a short journal entry.

313
00:28:48,542 --> 00:28:51,764
Well, when I came home, the spoiler alert, I survived.

314
00:28:51,945 --> 00:28:53,520
And when I came home,

315
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:56,913
know, our boys were still relatively young because it was a fast war.

316
00:28:56,913 --> 00:28:58,915
They didn't want anything to do with this journal.

317
00:28:58,915 --> 00:29:00,737
So it was thrown into a footlocker.

318
00:29:00,737 --> 00:29:02,158
Well, now the boys are older.

319
00:29:02,158 --> 00:29:06,482
And our youngest son actually asked my wife about it a couple of years ago.

320
00:29:06,482 --> 00:29:13,729
And he painstakingly took that journal and typed it up into a Word document and gave it to
me for last Christmas.

321
00:29:13,729 --> 00:29:19,474
ah And when he gave it to me, he said, Dad, reading through this, I realized

322
00:29:19,506 --> 00:29:22,830
having served himself now, he said, I realized what you were doing.

323
00:29:22,830 --> 00:29:25,633
You were preparing for us if you don't come home.

324
00:29:25,633 --> 00:29:27,205
I said, that's exactly what I was doing.

325
00:29:27,205 --> 00:29:30,126
He goes, okay, well, that was 30 years ago.

326
00:29:30,126 --> 00:29:32,130
He says, now you have to continue.

327
00:29:32,130 --> 00:29:33,922
You've served in a couple more wars.

328
00:29:33,922 --> 00:29:38,327
You've served in the military with the uniform and you've served in the private sector.

329
00:29:38,327 --> 00:29:41,410
Take all your journal entries and expand them.

330
00:29:41,438 --> 00:29:43,959
from what you've learned over the last 30 years.

331
00:29:43,959 --> 00:29:51,621
So I don't think he expected me to do it, to be honest with you, but I immediately started
working on it as kind of a secret.

332
00:29:51,621 --> 00:29:54,462
The only person that knew that I was working on it was my wife.

333
00:29:54,462 --> 00:30:01,158
And she just loved seeing me go in my office for a couple hours a day and work on this
journal.

334
00:30:01,158 --> 00:30:05,845
I sent it off to a publisher just to see what he thought about it.

335
00:30:05,845 --> 00:30:09,626
And he actually told me, he said, hey, I'll get back to you in a couple of weeks.

336
00:30:09,626 --> 00:30:11,401
Let me get a chance to read it.

337
00:30:11,401 --> 00:30:15,053
And he called me the next morning and he said, I was up all night reading this thing.

338
00:30:15,053 --> 00:30:15,693
This is great.

339
00:30:15,693 --> 00:30:17,114
We need to publish this.

340
00:30:17,114 --> 00:30:20,567
So ah a couple of months ago, we decided to publish it

341
00:30:20,687 --> 00:30:26,598
if you want to sign copy, go to ballastbooks.com and uh we'll sign a copy for you.

342
00:30:26,598 --> 00:30:33,281
And if you just want a regular copy, go to Amazon and you can get it in bookstores on the
10th of March.

343
00:30:33,281 --> 00:30:34,913
So I'm looking forward to that.

344
00:30:35,003 --> 00:30:36,464
So that's the story.

345
00:30:36,605 --> 00:30:38,826
am so excited to read this book.

346
00:30:38,826 --> 00:30:48,830
think, like I said, I think it's it, it so many people see the uniform and they don't see
the soul and the commitment behind it.

347
00:30:48,830 --> 00:30:49,860
They understand that.

348
00:30:49,860 --> 00:30:57,333
And I think the United States certainly where I came from, where I come from, rural
America, you know, serve at record numbers.

349
00:30:57,333 --> 00:31:00,895
My dad started and my dad was a world war two vet.

350
00:31:00,895 --> 00:31:02,595
He started a VFW.

351
00:31:02,595 --> 00:31:04,358
It was the smallest VFW.

352
00:31:04,358 --> 00:31:09,801
but talent ever to hold a VFW post, because he wasn't hanging out with the American
Legion, you know?

353
00:31:09,801 --> 00:31:20,837
Anyway, so, I mean, we grew up, em you know, with honor guards and we, my dad was a
commander of the VFW post for years.

354
00:31:20,837 --> 00:31:26,600
And um I have seen people in my generation take over that responsibility.

355
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:29,212
I have seen the kind of sacrifice.

356
00:31:29,212 --> 00:31:32,844
Now we're seeing all the Vietnam veterans that are,

357
00:31:33,304 --> 00:31:42,409
going to the VA, still struggling and struggling with diseases that they basically
contracted when in Vietnam.

358
00:31:42,409 --> 00:31:46,802
And so um it's just so important.

359
00:31:46,802 --> 00:31:52,025
And I just want to thank you because it's really hard to put yourself out there.

360
00:31:52,025 --> 00:31:58,178
mean, it's one thing to write a military history and talk about deployments and we did
this, we did that.

361
00:31:58,178 --> 00:32:02,160
It's another thing to put yourself out there and talk about

362
00:32:02,281 --> 00:32:09,465
how frightening, not probably for you, how, right, right.

363
00:32:09,465 --> 00:32:10,785
Well, well, for your family.

364
00:32:10,785 --> 00:32:12,666
I mean, I think people don't realize.

365
00:32:12,666 --> 00:32:16,248
And so I hope you have great success with this book.

366
00:32:16,248 --> 00:32:17,579
I look forward to reading it.

367
00:32:17,579 --> 00:32:24,672
I think everyone should read it and understand and appreciate the sacrifice of the men and
women in uniform.

368
00:32:24,793 --> 00:32:29,175
in the meantime, you know, people can read what you write on The Bulwark, right?

369
00:32:29,175 --> 00:32:31,568
You're affiliated there.

370
00:32:31,568 --> 00:32:43,263
Really important, think these are places where you're not gonna get the in-depth because
the Yak Yak Stations, and I know you and I both do talking head stuff, but you don't

371
00:32:43,263 --> 00:32:49,828
really get a real kind of, uh okay, that's what's going on.

372
00:32:49,828 --> 00:32:54,058
And so I would really recommend that people follow you there as well.

373
00:32:54,078 --> 00:32:56,779
I'm assuming you're on some social media.

374
00:32:56,779 --> 00:32:58,524
You wanna plug that real quick?

375
00:32:58,524 --> 00:32:59,544
don't want to plug anything.

376
00:32:59,544 --> 00:33:04,715
I've got enough people I'm talking to right now, but if, people want to read my stuff,
that's great.

377
00:33:04,715 --> 00:33:05,306
Or join me.

378
00:33:05,306 --> 00:33:06,246
It's it's Mark.

379
00:33:06,246 --> 00:33:12,128
It's @markhertling on Twitter and LinkedIn and, and, blue sky and a few others.

380
00:33:12,128 --> 00:33:22,081
So I I'm happy to talk with anyone, but it's, you know, one of the other reasons I wrote
the book Senator to be honest with you is, know, you tell the story about your father and,

381
00:33:22,081 --> 00:33:24,172
everybody has a story.

382
00:33:24,186 --> 00:33:28,680
but there's only 1 % of Americans that actually serve in uniform right now.

383
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:39,176
So it was hopefully something that will inform people about what soldiers do, what
military people do, and their families, and a little bit about combat too.

384
00:33:39,176 --> 00:33:49,683
Yeah, I think um just to give you a sense, every male in my dad's family wore the uniform,
mainly Army.

385
00:33:49,804 --> 00:33:54,737
But yeah, and on my mom's side, almost all of them wore the uniform.

386
00:33:54,737 --> 00:34:02,152
But then you got to remember this was Korea, this was Vietnam, um you know, one career
military.

387
00:34:02,152 --> 00:34:07,016
um The rest came home and started farming and ran small businesses.

388
00:34:07,016 --> 00:34:07,645
m

389
00:34:07,645 --> 00:34:24,479
The other thing I just want to impress upon people is I have had the distinct honor um
serving North Dakota in political jobs um to be able to watch and to be asked to attend

390
00:34:24,479 --> 00:34:26,940
various events.

391
00:34:27,081 --> 00:34:35,374
it is remarkable because the people who serve our country in uniform, when they take off
that uniform, they want to continue to serve.

392
00:34:35,374 --> 00:34:36,405
Yeah, they do.

393
00:34:36,405 --> 00:34:37,602
Absolutely.

394
00:34:37,602 --> 00:34:40,423
ways for them to participate in the community.

395
00:34:40,423 --> 00:34:45,825
And you're seeing record number of people running for office who wore the uniform.

396
00:34:45,825 --> 00:34:52,517
I think that's at one point we thought, whoa, there won't be anyone who actually has had
that experience.

397
00:34:52,517 --> 00:35:00,409
And now we see so many people who are saying, look, I agree with what's going on or I
disagree with what's going on.

398
00:35:00,409 --> 00:35:03,010
And they're looking for service in another direction.

399
00:35:03,010 --> 00:35:04,400
And you certainly.

400
00:35:04,454 --> 00:35:08,553
have been serving, continue to serve your country with the work that you're doing.

401
00:35:08,553 --> 00:35:09,765
Thank you so much, General.

402
00:35:09,765 --> 00:35:10,367
appreciate it.

403
00:35:10,367 --> 00:35:11,549
And thank you for having me on.

404
00:35:11,549 --> 00:35:13,684
This has been a great conversation, Senator.

405
00:35:13,684 --> 00:35:15,140
It's been fun talking with you too.

406
00:35:15,140 --> 00:35:16,312
Yeah, absolutely.

407
00:35:16,312 --> 00:35:17,974
Take care, General.

408
00:35:18,055 --> 00:35:26,704
And love to your wife and thank her and your boys for um enduring your service.

409
00:35:26,704 --> 00:35:27,852
Yeah, you betcha.

410
00:35:27,852 --> 00:35:28,657
Thank you.

411
00:35:28,657 --> 00:35:29,134
You bet.

412
00:35:31,946 --> 00:35:37,057
So Joel, um you're talking to Minnesotans every day.

413
00:35:37,057 --> 00:35:39,388
You're talking to people in our region every day.

414
00:35:39,388 --> 00:35:44,569
um Obviously the big news is what happened in Minneapolis.

415
00:35:44,569 --> 00:35:46,830
I have a son who works at a Target store.

416
00:35:46,830 --> 00:35:49,210
I called him yesterday and said, just be cool.

417
00:35:49,210 --> 00:35:55,892
um You know, because that's the latest place where they are going, where ICE is going.

418
00:35:56,073 --> 00:35:58,163
you know, and people always ask this.

419
00:35:58,195 --> 00:35:59,484
So what are people talking about?

420
00:35:59,484 --> 00:36:01,434
What are you hearing, Joel?

421
00:36:01,685 --> 00:36:02,936
Well, here's what I'm hearing.

422
00:36:02,936 --> 00:36:11,261
uh I'd like to say it's 50-50, uh but it's not in terms of uh people just outraged.

423
00:36:11,261 --> 00:36:17,765
uh You know, the one thing that is very consistent is people want ice out of Minnesota.

424
00:36:17,765 --> 00:36:21,341
I mean, I am a very uh conservative show.

425
00:36:21,341 --> 00:36:22,813
No question about that.

426
00:36:22,813 --> 00:36:30,430
Most of the calls that I get, most of the text messages I get into the show, most of the
emails are all conservative by nature.

427
00:36:30,430 --> 00:36:32,341
I shouldn't say all, but most of them.

428
00:36:32,341 --> 00:36:35,405
uh And they've gone quiet.

429
00:36:35,405 --> 00:36:36,916
The conservatives have gone quiet.

430
00:36:36,916 --> 00:36:40,980
There's still one or two that are saying that she had this coming.

431
00:36:40,980 --> 00:36:43,472
She didn't follow the commands of law enforcement.

432
00:36:43,472 --> 00:36:46,595
But I've been making the argument on my show.

433
00:36:46,673 --> 00:36:57,203
that, you know, was it OK then for all those people, law enforcement officers, friends of
yours, Capitol Police to unload and start shooting people on the steps of the Capitol on

434
00:36:57,203 --> 00:36:59,535
the date of the uh attempted insurrection?

435
00:36:59,535 --> 00:37:04,399
uh you know, people kind of get it when you.

436
00:37:04,425 --> 00:37:09,158
put it in the context of their life, you know, their daughter, their granddaughter.

437
00:37:09,158 --> 00:37:10,719
What if they were doing that?

438
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:13,702
uh Then they back off.

439
00:37:13,702 --> 00:37:17,965
They immediately go to some other uh subject on my talk show.

440
00:37:17,965 --> 00:37:19,636
And so I don't know.

441
00:37:19,636 --> 00:37:20,345
It's there.

442
00:37:20,345 --> 00:37:21,267
It's playing out.

443
00:37:21,267 --> 00:37:25,590
I think that the issue uh is going to get worse.

444
00:37:25,690 --> 00:37:31,424
We all knew it was going to happen, but it's going to get worse and it's going to get
worse because Donald Trump wants it to get worse.

445
00:37:31,424 --> 00:37:32,935
And you just heard why.

446
00:37:33,241 --> 00:37:41,953
Yeah, I had a wonderful conversation with the general about the seriousness of invoking
the Insurrection Act.

447
00:37:41,953 --> 00:37:49,255
And I think a lot of us are watching this thing, that the Border Patrol and ICE have
already been militarized.

448
00:37:49,255 --> 00:37:51,556
You look at how they're dressed.

449
00:37:51,556 --> 00:37:54,527
mean, these are not police uh uniforms.

450
00:37:54,527 --> 00:37:56,937
These are paramilitary uniforms.

451
00:37:56,937 --> 00:37:58,738
And what does that mean?

452
00:37:58,738 --> 00:38:02,607
um The next step is the next step, deploying

453
00:38:02,607 --> 00:38:05,548
Marines on the streets of Minnesota.

454
00:38:05,548 --> 00:38:22,494
And, um you know, I think it's just so interesting because the chaos that all of this is
creating, there's, I mean, what Donald Trump told us is that he was going to deport and

455
00:38:22,494 --> 00:38:25,635
basically apprehend the worst of the worst.

456
00:38:25,901 --> 00:38:33,614
And we're hearing stories about 17 year old American citizens being thrown to the ground
who are just trying to work at the Target store, right?

457
00:38:33,614 --> 00:38:39,417
And then finding out, I mean, finding out that they're American citizens and dropping them
off at the Walmart.

458
00:38:39,417 --> 00:38:40,397
Really?

459
00:38:40,491 --> 00:38:45,079
I mean, you know, it's just, and that's not done, that's done on purpose.

460
00:38:45,119 --> 00:38:50,322
That's done to intimidate, that's done to basically, it's a power move.

461
00:38:50,322 --> 00:38:53,977
you know, I've obviously, know, former attorney general.

462
00:38:53,977 --> 00:38:56,778
spent a lot of time talking about law enforcement training.

463
00:38:56,778 --> 00:39:07,731
And one of the things that has really, since George Floyd and since, you know, all of the
unrest, there's a mechanism on de-escalation.

464
00:39:07,731 --> 00:39:10,171
You know, law enforcement's trained on de-escalation.

465
00:39:10,171 --> 00:39:10,752
Guess what?

466
00:39:10,752 --> 00:39:13,973
There was no de-escalation in this circumstance.

467
00:39:13,973 --> 00:39:20,775
And so is that our expectation or is there our expectation that you tell someone to move a
car and when they don't move a car, you shoot them?

468
00:39:20,775 --> 00:39:23,145
Is that the expectation we have now?

469
00:39:23,847 --> 00:39:28,083
Well, and take that to exactly what the president said.

470
00:39:28,083 --> 00:39:31,437
You mentioned that he said he's only going to take the worst of the worst.

471
00:39:31,678 --> 00:39:36,664
Number one, a lot of employers are starting to speak up and say, we need these employees.

472
00:39:36,925 --> 00:39:39,037
But aside from that.

473
00:39:39,135 --> 00:39:40,076
He's not doing that.

474
00:39:40,076 --> 00:39:41,218
He's looking for a fight.

475
00:39:41,218 --> 00:39:42,960
He's always been looking for a fight.

476
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:49,648
You know, he said in an interview recently that the only judge that he has is his own
mortality.

477
00:39:49,648 --> 00:39:52,692
uh I'm sorry, his own morals.

478
00:39:52,692 --> 00:39:55,956
ah And he doesn't have morals, Heidi.

479
00:39:55,956 --> 00:39:57,317
I mean, he doesn't.

480
00:39:58,697 --> 00:40:03,690
I mean, wouldn't that be easy if there were no referees in the football game?

481
00:40:03,690 --> 00:40:13,435
Being a former college football referee and people said, well, the only the only issue
that we need referees for is if we don't cheat and we don't break the rules.

482
00:40:13,435 --> 00:40:14,555
Well, you know what?

483
00:40:14,555 --> 00:40:15,335
He's cheating.

484
00:40:15,335 --> 00:40:20,398
He's breaking the rules and he's doing it all in the name of I can.

485
00:40:20,491 --> 00:40:26,971
And Hyatt, you know, you're an attorney, you're a former attorney general, you're former
chief law enforcement officer.

486
00:40:26,971 --> 00:40:29,451
There's a lot of things that are intertwined there.

487
00:40:29,451 --> 00:40:32,151
Let me ask you this with what the court ruled.

488
00:40:32,571 --> 00:40:34,011
Isn't he right?

489
00:40:34,715 --> 00:40:49,248
But I mean, that this idea that you can profile anyone who's brown and stop them and the
Supreme Court sanctioned that, um you know, and if they don't, if you have the right to

490
00:40:49,248 --> 00:40:53,603
stop them and they resist you, do you have the right to throw them on the ground?

491
00:40:53,603 --> 00:40:55,043
Do you have the right to bloody them up?

492
00:40:55,043 --> 00:40:57,855
Do you have the right to injure them?

493
00:40:58,236 --> 00:40:59,417
Well, shoot them.

494
00:40:59,417 --> 00:41:00,357
Yeah.

495
00:41:00,618 --> 00:41:01,839
You know, the...

496
00:41:02,099 --> 00:41:10,707
The other thing that the general and I talked about is the more global ramifications of
the uh activity in Venezuela.

497
00:41:10,707 --> 00:41:18,073
uh And you and I have had conversations about the oil industry and about domestic
investment versus foreign investment.

498
00:41:18,073 --> 00:41:24,598
I think he got schooled a little bit by uh some of these oil executives who said, you
know, it's uninvestable.

499
00:41:24,598 --> 00:41:28,622
But I think the bigger thing is, what does this mean for Taiwan?

500
00:41:28,622 --> 00:41:30,483
What does this mean for

501
00:41:30,587 --> 00:41:33,427
for Greenland, what does it mean for Cuba?

502
00:41:33,427 --> 00:41:47,387
I I think that the secondary benefit for Trump on doing what he did is that he now has
people believing that he'll take Greenland.

503
00:41:47,387 --> 00:41:49,707
He has people believing he'll take Cuba.

504
00:41:49,767 --> 00:41:56,787
has, I mean, he has NATO countries planning for what they're gonna do when he basically
moves on Greenland.

505
00:41:56,787 --> 00:41:59,467
because, you he did it in Venezuela.

506
00:42:00,265 --> 00:42:03,966
Yeah, well, you know, I posted that question on my Facebook page.

507
00:42:03,966 --> 00:42:11,580
I have 15,000 people that, you know, watch what I say and do and comment on my Facebook
page here at work.

508
00:42:12,481 --> 00:42:14,061
yeah, yeah.

509
00:42:14,501 --> 00:42:19,483
boy, folks, if you want to see, just go to my Facebook page and friend me.

510
00:42:19,644 --> 00:42:22,225
You're going to see there's love in the air here in the upper Midwest.

511
00:42:22,225 --> 00:42:27,147
But, you know, these people, I asked them how they could justify.

512
00:42:27,619 --> 00:42:31,340
us, the United States taking over Greenland.

513
00:42:31,340 --> 00:42:34,481
What was it that empowered us, that allowed us to do it?

514
00:42:34,481 --> 00:42:38,002
Again, it went back to Donald Trump's morals.

515
00:42:38,002 --> 00:42:50,435
And it didn't matter if the argument was made by the pro-Trumpers that it was military, it
was all military interests and all this, that if you mentioned to them that we have

516
00:42:50,435 --> 00:42:54,687
military bases on Greenland, we haven't been denied spots on Greenland.

517
00:42:54,687 --> 00:42:55,527
Yeah.

518
00:42:55,527 --> 00:42:56,567
And so

519
00:42:56,939 --> 00:42:59,040
That didn't matter then then it was OK.

520
00:42:59,040 --> 00:42:59,800
How do we switch?

521
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,281
Well, it's all their natural resources, OK?

522
00:43:02,281 --> 00:43:05,422
uh What makes those ours?

523
00:43:05,943 --> 00:43:08,104
I mean, cause we want them right?

524
00:43:08,104 --> 00:43:11,655
I mean, we want them and so then I asked this caller that called into my show.

525
00:43:11,655 --> 00:43:14,386
I said OK, here's a scenario.

526
00:43:14,386 --> 00:43:15,847
I like your car.

527
00:43:16,067 --> 00:43:16,827
I do.

528
00:43:16,827 --> 00:43:24,260
I like your pickup and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to come in your driveway and
I'm going to look at you and say, you know, I want to make a deal on that pickup.

529
00:43:24,260 --> 00:43:24,600
I want to.

530
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:25,481
I want that pickup.

531
00:43:25,481 --> 00:43:26,603
I want to buy it.

532
00:43:26,603 --> 00:43:32,003
And when you tell me no, I'm to look you in the eye and say, I'm going to take it.

533
00:43:32,103 --> 00:43:34,383
So which one of those two do you want?

534
00:43:34,383 --> 00:43:38,143
Do you want me to give you money for it or do you want me to just take it?

535
00:43:38,143 --> 00:43:39,603
Because I can.

536
00:43:39,623 --> 00:43:44,263
And that conservative caller that called in, he said, well, you're not getting my pickup.

537
00:43:44,514 --> 00:43:51,754
I said, I said, well, maybe you should move to Greenland because they need you right now.

538
00:43:52,047 --> 00:44:01,312
the other thing is, he basically said, just because you landed a boat there, well, there's
a whole doctrine of discovery in kind of geopolitical terms.

539
00:44:01,312 --> 00:44:06,935
And certainly the United States believes in the doctrine of discovery, just ask Native
Americans.

540
00:44:06,935 --> 00:44:16,320
ah And what people don't understand is 80 % of the residents of Greenland are indigenous.

541
00:44:16,460 --> 00:44:17,501
They are native.

542
00:44:17,501 --> 00:44:19,650
um

543
00:44:19,650 --> 00:44:26,090
really relatives of a lot of Native Alaskans, a lot of the tribes in Canada.

544
00:44:26,190 --> 00:44:28,329
And so, yeah.

545
00:44:28,329 --> 00:44:29,200
for you.

546
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,834
What does NATO do when he goes after Greenland?

547
00:44:32,834 --> 00:44:34,565
Because he's going to go after Greenland.

548
00:44:34,565 --> 00:44:42,012
If there's one lesson that we all should have learned by now is when he tells you and
telegraphs exactly what he's going to do, he does it.

549
00:44:42,273 --> 00:44:43,815
I mean, he does it.

550
00:44:43,815 --> 00:44:46,170
blink Joel whether they blink.

551
00:44:46,653 --> 00:44:47,246
Yeah.

552
00:44:47,246 --> 00:44:47,526
do?

553
00:44:47,526 --> 00:44:53,439
Because if they don't stick up for Greenland and Denmark, then NATO is over.

554
00:44:53,441 --> 00:44:54,582
NATO's done.

555
00:44:55,490 --> 00:45:03,610
But you know, you see a lot of dialogue coming, mostly very, very critical of the
president.

556
00:45:03,910 --> 00:45:07,710
So it'll be interesting to see.

557
00:45:07,710 --> 00:45:14,770
I mean, what is what his next move is and all of this and, you know, we're going to have
to move, move on.

558
00:45:14,770 --> 00:45:17,750
But all of this, guess what we're not talking about?

559
00:45:18,590 --> 00:45:20,930
The Epstein files, Joel.

560
00:45:22,210 --> 00:45:24,558
Yeah, divert, divert, divert.

561
00:45:24,558 --> 00:45:29,763
There was a rumor that the helicopters that flew into Venezuela had those banners.

562
00:45:29,844 --> 00:45:38,332
You see at the Super Bowl behind them hooked to the helicopter as it flew that said,
Forget Jeffrey Epstein, Forget Jeffrey Epstein.

563
00:45:39,093 --> 00:45:41,376
But apparently that's not true.

564
00:45:41,376 --> 00:45:43,767
I found out that that was just an AI image.

565
00:45:43,767 --> 00:45:48,988
think that was an internet rumor, but you know, it doesn't mean that you can't repeat it.

566
00:45:48,988 --> 00:45:52,254
well, no, it doesn't mean that I couldn't start it.

567
00:45:54,721 --> 00:45:55,407
But that.

568
00:45:55,407 --> 00:45:57,031
you-know-what stirrer.

569
00:45:57,380 --> 00:46:00,071
Yeah, but but that's what he wanted, right?

570
00:46:00,071 --> 00:46:02,812
He wanted us to not talk about that anymore.

571
00:46:02,812 --> 00:46:11,816
And, you know, there's a lot of talk talking about rumors, talking about, you know, social
media that's been bringing up his wife and her role with Epstein and all of that.

572
00:46:11,876 --> 00:46:13,096
I don't know.

573
00:46:13,337 --> 00:46:13,947
I don't know.

574
00:46:13,947 --> 00:46:27,366
The only thing I know about the Epstein files is that those young girls that were raped
and abused deserve what the law requires him to do, which is to release

575
00:46:27,366 --> 00:46:28,628
the Epstein files.

576
00:46:28,628 --> 00:46:35,275
And again, Heidi, I go back to the court system that you loved dearly, that you lived in,
that you work in.

577
00:46:35,275 --> 00:46:40,363
I don't see this Supreme Court doing what it needs to do to save our democracy.

578
00:46:40,363 --> 00:46:41,003
I just don't.

579
00:46:41,003 --> 00:46:43,200
I'm not a big believer in the Supreme Court right now.

580
00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:48,354
Well, and Joel, we haven't even gotten to the Jerome Powell taking over the Fed.

581
00:46:48,415 --> 00:46:50,107
So talk about more diversion.

582
00:46:50,107 --> 00:46:51,898
Anyway, we're going to have to cut it off there.

583
00:46:51,898 --> 00:47:03,479
um It's always great on the hot dish to hear, especially Joel, your perspective from
people who talk to you every day, because a lot of people look at what's happening in

584
00:47:03,479 --> 00:47:07,172
Minnesota and say, who could possibly think that's a good thing?

585
00:47:07,961 --> 00:47:13,575
One thing that I want to add before we close out was I get a lot of calls into my show
from Canada.

586
00:47:13,595 --> 00:47:18,138
A lot of Canadian listeners uh call into my show.

587
00:47:18,259 --> 00:47:20,020
you know, I broach the subject.

588
00:47:20,020 --> 00:47:22,622
know, Canada is rich in natural minerals.

589
00:47:22,622 --> 00:47:24,223
I mean, what if we want it?

590
00:47:24,223 --> 00:47:25,984
Can we just go take it?

591
00:47:26,004 --> 00:47:29,617
And one of the Canadians that called into my show, said, Joel, I'm a conservative.

592
00:47:29,617 --> 00:47:32,039
If I was across your border, I'd be a Republican.

593
00:47:32,039 --> 00:47:33,750
He said, this guy's an idiot.

594
00:47:34,066 --> 00:47:43,186
I mean, this guy's an idiot and people are literally tipping over everything up here to
see if it's made in the US of A and if it's made in the US of A, we won't buy it.

595
00:47:43,437 --> 00:47:48,023
I'll tell that to the bourbon industry in Kentucky.

596
00:47:49,386 --> 00:47:50,307
Yeah.

597
00:47:50,386 --> 00:47:55,067
Sad stuff, but it's what he brought us and it's what the majority of Americans voted for.

598
00:47:55,151 --> 00:47:58,423
And we didn't even get a chance to talk about football.

599
00:47:59,285 --> 00:48:02,126
Yeah, well, you know, here's the deal.

600
00:48:02,126 --> 00:48:04,227
You've been a Steeler fan.

601
00:48:04,387 --> 00:48:05,728
You've been a Steeler fan.

602
00:48:05,728 --> 00:48:07,029
You've been a Packer fan.

603
00:48:07,029 --> 00:48:10,010
I had one of our cousins, our nephews.

604
00:48:11,051 --> 00:48:11,491
yeah.

605
00:48:11,491 --> 00:48:12,361
Oh, yeah.

606
00:48:12,361 --> 00:48:13,972
It's just whatever the wind blows.

607
00:48:13,972 --> 00:48:16,553
OK, here's the test, ladies and gentlemen.

608
00:48:17,394 --> 00:48:20,895
Here's the test of Heidi and her football.

609
00:48:20,895 --> 00:48:21,896
Being a fan.

610
00:48:21,896 --> 00:48:24,807
Name me five players for the Bears, Heidi.

611
00:48:25,058 --> 00:48:26,430
We have to go now.

612
00:48:26,790 --> 00:48:29,192
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

613
00:48:29,312 --> 00:48:32,154
And you know what time the Packers play next week?

614
00:48:32,215 --> 00:48:34,297
The same time the Vikings do.

615
00:48:34,297 --> 00:48:36,118
That's when the Packers play.

616
00:48:36,299 --> 00:48:39,143
listen, it's all in good fun, Joel.

617
00:48:39,143 --> 00:48:39,703
All good.

618
00:48:39,703 --> 00:48:40,484
Okay.

619
00:48:40,484 --> 00:48:42,346
And go Indiana.

620
00:48:42,597 --> 00:48:45,956
Yeah, you know, I think that's the one thing we can agree on.

621
00:48:45,956 --> 00:48:47,400
Go Hoosiers.

622
00:48:49,020 --> 00:48:51,261
Well, listen, thanks so much.

623
00:48:51,581 --> 00:49:03,288
you know, the book Joel, the that the general wrote sounds fascinating, a good
conversation, and an important conversation for for our listeners to hear.

624
00:49:03,288 --> 00:49:12,973
Thanks so much for uh kind of continuing to work with me to bring these voices to um our
listeners.

625
00:49:13,437 --> 00:49:17,352
Well, and thanks to all the people that are following us here on the hot dish.

626
00:49:17,352 --> 00:49:20,365
The numbers are getting to be absolutely fabulous.

627
00:49:20,365 --> 00:49:25,952
uh know, Heidi, most of it's because of me, but it's good you come on each week.

628
00:49:26,937 --> 00:49:30,387
I don't dispute that, Joel, I don't dispute that.

629
00:49:30,812 --> 00:49:33,405
Hang in there, talk to you next week.

630
00:49:36,115 --> 00:49:38,278
Thanks everyone for joining us on The Hot Dish.

631
00:49:38,278 --> 00:49:41,813
I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.

632
00:49:41,813 --> 00:49:47,831
Brought to you by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard
in Washington.

633
00:49:48,082 --> 00:49:51,184
Learn more at onecountryproject.org.

634
00:49:51,184 --> 00:49:54,386
That's onecountryproject.org.

635
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We'll be back next week with more hot dish comfort food for rural America.