Donald Trump Has Zero Respect for the Military with Daniel Barkhuff 39:55

Hey everyone, it's Reid. Before we get started, I think it's important for us to understand exactly why there is an expression, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Guys, so much of our trouble, yes, it's political. Yes, it's personal. Some of it's economic. But really, it all comes down to two things, I think. A lack of imagination and a lack of will. Guys, we must have the imagination to understand what American democracy failing means, and we must have the will to say, not on our watch.

I want to say thank you to all of you who listen, all of you who work on a daily basis out in democracy, and all of those of you who will help us in the next seven months make sure that this great American experiment continues. And now, on with the show. Welcome back to The Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Reed Galen. Today, I'm joined by Dan Barkoff.

friend of the Lincoln Project, former Navy SEAL, and founder of Veterans for Responsible Leadership, a veteran-run super PAC that supports local, state, and federal candidates committed to principle leadership. He's a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and Harvard Medical School, so he's already way, way, way beyond me in both accomplishment and education, and is now an associate professor and emergency medicine doctor at the University of Vermont.

Dan is an executive producer for the newly released documentary film Against All Enemies, which is now streaming on Apple Plus as the number one documentary and climbing the overall charts and is also available on Amazon Prime. Dan, welcome back. Reed, thanks for having me. Super excited to chat today. So let's talk a little bit about the movie. And so, you know, I saw this a couple of months ago when you and I were together in California. And so I had your colleague, Kim,

Ken Harbaugh on to talk a little bit about this. You know, you were part of an elite unit. Obviously, the Navy SEALs have become part of American lore really since probably 9-11 and beyond.

So give us a little sense from your perspective, as someone who saw multiple deployments and I assume a great deal of combat, give us a little bit of your perspective as to why there are men and women who are coming back from the military or leaving the military and are so susceptible to being radicalized to extremism and how, from your perspective, these groups sort of sniff these people out. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

So, I mean, this is mentioned in the movie and, you know, it's really a core theme in the movie as well. But one of the things that happens when you return from military service is, you know, you take off the uniform for the last time. Many people end up going back to, you know, either the place they grew up or a place close to where they grew up or a similar environment. And all of a sudden you go from essentially being part of a team.

Right. And whether it's wartime or peacetime, you're a part of a team. You have a purpose. You know, you're always kind of training. You're always planning. You're always getting ready for that next thing. Back when I was in, that was the next deployment. That was the next deployment to Iraq, Afghanistan, places like this.

But even today, where we don't have as many active combat commitments, although there still are several, you're kind of always sort of looking towards the future. And you're always sort of a valued member of this tribe, right? This unit, this military unit that then the second you take off the uniform, that doesn't exist anymore. And...

it is not the same to be a member of the 82nd Airborne and to, you know, work at the, you know, be the manager of the local Safeway, right? These are different things. There's nothing wrong with working at the local Safeway, but it would be completely intellectually dishonest to say that you're going to find that same sense of self-worth working a civilian job that oftentimes you find as a member of a military unit. And so,

So what these groups do, these radical veteran groups, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys to a lesser extent, these groups that have particularly focused on Donald Trump and latched onto Donald Trump and the big lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

They're giving people a sense of purpose. Now, it's misguided purpose. It's wrong purpose. It's based in fraud. But it's giving them a sense of purpose. And some people find that attractive. Let me ask this. Why is it that if intellectually we know and we have documented evidence of such

that this was Mr. Bonespurs that avoided military service in Vietnam, has consistently looked down on and or ridiculed members of the military, specifically those that gave their lives, like John Kelly's son, were injured, like the soldier that was singing at Mark Milley's investiture, or like the late Senator John McCain, who was shot down in Vietnam and spent several years

Gosh, if there was an easy answer for that, Reid. But you hit the nail on the head right there. So, you know, one thing to understand about Trump.

is he has no respect for the military or veterans. And he views everything transactionally. He respects what his sort of facile, simple version of what the military is. You know, the three groups of people that you just mentioned there are sacred within the military and in the veteran community, right? Gold star families, people killed in action are sacred. Right.

People who were maimed in the service of this country, who lost limbs or have traumatic brain injuries or have crippling PTSD, these are people who gave the lion's share of their life to their country and are suffering for the rest of their natural life because they did so. And Donald Trump does not understand that because he's a guy who only thinks about himself.

It's incomprehensible to him that people could act in an unselfish way. And so, you know, the military works in, there's duty and honor and commitment. And the reason that stuff exists is rooted in what the military does. So when a military unit goes into combat,

If everyone does what's best for the team, if everyone sublimates their own personal fears about the situation and does what's best for the team, the team is going to win and most people are going to live. If everyone does sort of, you know, what's best for them as an individual in any given circumstance and refuses to take risk, that team is going to lose. I often think of my combat experiences and sometimes people will ask, hey, you know,

What does it take to survive combat, right? It's like, that's the wrong question. I mean, it takes nothing to survive combat. You just get behind a big rock and wait till the shooting stops, right? Like what you have to do in the military is win at combat. And that requires taking risks. And, you know, sometimes those risks involve people being killed or maimed. And Donald Trump cannot imagine any circumstance where he takes a risk

or really does anything for anyone else that is not Donald Trump. Let me stay with your experience as a member of the military. So, you know, as commander in chief, and look, I know that you were an officer in the Navy. So, you know, you weren't

a general or an admiral or anything like that. But, you know, to your point about Trump and the military, he also seemed to have this almost cartoon-like version of what generals were supposed to be, right? You know, he's always had this thing, right? He's visual. He loves television. He wants his generals to look a certain way. He wants them to act a certain way. I think he watched the movie Patton with George C. Scott and assumed that that's how all generals would act. You know, Hitler had better generals. What is it...

And I'm going to ask you to put yourself in the shoes of someone maybe who's in a meeting with someone like that. But as a veteran, as a combat veteran, as an officer, what does that say about the commander in chief? And frankly, how is it that you serve?

under someone who seems so incapable of really understanding even just the realities of how the military is supposed to work, the idea of civilian control, but also the idea of lawful orders and, as you said, duty, honor, service. Yeah, there's a whole lot to unpack there. Well, I think that Trump, to your point, is a very visual person, right? Like, he wants things to be a show.

He wants generals to look a certain way. He wants soldiers to look a certain way. This is right out of the fascist playbook, right? And so is Donald Trump explicitly a fascist? I mean, you can make arguments either way, and I won't do that here, but I will say that this lionization of military service and kind of this idea that people in the military look a certain way, it just couldn't be further from the truth, especially on the modern battlefield, right? So

Sure, back in 1260 or whenever the Battle of Agincourt was, you have an advantage if your guys are bigger and stronger. Probably, right? But I mean, we're post-1260.

You know, we've had industrial warfare since, you know, essentially the Crimean War. The Civil War, even. The Civil War, right? It doesn't matter if somebody, you know, looks a certain way. What matters is your ability to shoot straight and be a team player. And if you can shoot and you're a team player, you're value added to the military, period. Donald Trump thinks like, you know, everyone needs to look like a bodybuilder.

If you go back and look at some of the photos, existing photos of Delta Force in the 80s, these are not dudes that look like Trump thinks they ought to look. I mean, they're skinny little nerds. There was a guy in my Bud's class who shot one of the pirates, was on the Bin Laden op. And if you saw him in the Wawa in Virginia Beach, you would not think that... It matters nothing. It's ridiculous. And only someone with just the most basic...

I mean, frankly, only someone who's watched too many cheesy movies would think that that's what the military is. In the town in California, I used to live in the small beach town. There was a jeweler and a longtime family jewelry store. And the son took over for the dad. And I think he'd been on SEAL Team One. But again, you would never have known it.

if it hadn't been sort of town lore that, you know, he had gone to the military, he'd gone to the Navy, he'd gone to the seals and he now come home to your point, right? Like you guys sometimes look just like everybody else. And not even that read. I mean, you know, if you look at like what's happening in Ukraine now, you know, I mean, it's drone warfare. You know who I want on my team? Somebody who can fly a drone, man. Someone who can, someone who can, you know, is just the best drone pilot in existence. And I don't care if they're in a wheelchair or,

If they can fly a drone,

Right. That's where this is all going. The days of like someone like Ted Cruz saying, wow, look at the Russians with their, you know, their six pack abs. Like, who cares, man? There is nobody in the world who can take on the United States in kinetic action. I mean, we would just kick the shit out of everyone. Well, and let's be clear that, you know, to Senator Ted Cruz that, you know, in his fawning over the Russian military, they've lost something like 300,000 soldiers in two years, which is an outrageous number.

number of battlefield not just casualties but deaths to your point in modern warfare right i mean that's cannon fodder that's almost stalin like numbers against a smaller but far more determined country you know and far better trained as you could tell and also a lot of these russians nowadays right like they emptied the prisons they're like the penal battalions of world war ii like

You go that way, you get shot. You come this way, we shoot you. Right. It's these are not well-trained organizations, as I understand it. The Russian military between, you know, being basically sold off for parts by Putin and others. You know, the training is brutal. The experience is brutal. Training is minimal. And now these Russian men just go in and get killed, whether or not that's by a Ukrainian with an AK-47 or, as you said, a drone operator.

Absolutely. I mean, the Ukrainian who's probably killed the most Russians is probably some guy in some bunker 200 miles behind the front line who flies drones all day. And, you know, back to my original point, if you can shoot straight and you're a team player, there's room for you. And it just shows complete ignorance of, you know, what the military actually does.

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Officers enlisted non-commissioned officers. Is there a difference in who's more likely to be radicalized, who's more likely to be targeted by these people? That's a good question. I can tell you that anecdotally, and I don't have numbers for this, but anecdotally, there were plenty of officers involved. I mean, there was a Marine Corps officer on January 6th who was actually on active duty, like drove up from Quantico that day. There was an Air Force reservist famously walking around the rotunda with zip ties.

who was an officer. So I couldn't see that. I mean, what happens when these groups try to recruit veterans, there's a couple of reasons they do it. So one reason is obviously there's this theory that there might be practical skills that they could use, right? So if you're trying to create a paramilitary organization in the woods of Michigan, yeah, you need somebody who knows how to sight in a rifle and somebody who knows how to patrol and that kind of stuff. So there's that.

I think that's less of a reason. And the greater reason really is...

it offers legitimacy to whatever organization, right? So veterans, you know, when you look at sort of trusted groups in American society, right, you know, right up at the top, you've got like nurses, small business owners, way, way down at the bottom, you have like members of Congress. And 21% approval for chlamydia. Basically. But, you know, veterans are pretty darn close to the top. And so people trust veterans, right? You know,

There's this idea that, well, these people were willing to volunteer. We're past a draft now. We're 50 years past a draft. 50 years past a draft, right? There's nobody on active duty. The last draftee who left active duty was 20 years ago, right? There were one or two who lasted until the GWOD. But these folks are volunteers and they serve their time and rah-rah-rah.

They go overseas, they do their deployments, they come home, they get out, and people listen to what they have to say. And that is really why groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters want veterans is because it gives them credibility.

And so my organization, our organization, Veterans for Responsible Leadership, we're on the other side of that. We're saying, hey, okay, if you want veterans to give you credibility, well, we're going to give credibility to pro-small-D democracy forces who are pushing back against authoritarian impulses that exist in present American politics. So we're trying to use our credibility

to say, hey, we don't want to be here. We don't want to be doing this right now. I'm not running for office, right? None of the guys at Via Forel are running for office. We're here because we view Trump as a threat. And the other side is weaponizing veterans politically. And we need to be able to do the same and show, hey, not all members of the military are Republicans anymore. And not all members of the military are pro-Donald Trump by any stretch. So it's this weaponization of...

status really in society. So January 6th, Ken mentioned in our interview, you know, these stacks of guys. And I think folks for you listening, you remember there was a certain group of people who were like hands on shoulders moving up, you know, through the crowd up the steps of was I guess it was probably the east front of the Capitol. But how do you as a veteran understand

other veterans or even active duty members who participated that day. And what does it mean to you when you see someone like a Donald Trump who, A, is...

promising to pardon all of these people, but also has his own sort of anthem to these people. He calls them hostages, like some sort of, you know, horse vessel song from the Nazi days. Like, what does it mean to a veteran like you to see that, you know, playing out? And let me just say this, too, about what happened on January 6th as I was listening to the radio before we got started this morning, Dan. You know, 60 percent of Republicans in a recent NPR survey said that they still believe Donald Trump won in 2020.

So I throw all that together. I know it's sort of a witch's brew, but give us a sense of, you know, that day and, you know, the days that have followed, you know, you as someone who did put your life on the line. I hope that all of your former officers and sailors survived, you know, safely. But how does that feel to you?

This is mentioned in the movie in Against All Enemies. The thing that kind of blows my mind is how there are veterans on the other side of this who genuinely feel that they're doing the right thing, that they are honoring their commitment to the United States Constitution by trying to attack Congress when it's certifying electoral votes. So I don't question at all

their sincerity and their beliefs, but they've all been misguided and misled by Trump. The big lie is a lie. So how does that make me feel? I mean, let's be real for a second. There's a lot of talk on social media and knuckleheads like Marjorie Taylor Greene, we're going to secede and we need a national divorce and all this crap.

So first of all, I'm 45 years old, man. And you know what?

not leading IADs in the woods, right? The veterans who fought the GWAT are middle-aged. The global war on terror. The global war on terror, right? We're middle-aged guys and gals now, right? It's this weird, violent fantasy that I'm going to get an AR-15 and march down to DC if Donald Trump doesn't win and we're going to launch into the Turner Diaries, right? This is just

It's really, truly a fantasy, but that doesn't make it not a dangerous fantasy. And so seeing those guys on January 6th, I was kind of disgusted, just disgusted. And then that gave way to, how do we stop that? How do we walk back from this? Let me take a slight left turn on you. And I want to come back to something you talked about.

And we saw this back in 2020 with the Boogaloo Boys, right? These fat guys in their Hawaiian shirts with the AR-15s, you know, menacing people. One of my guests, you know, a couple of weeks ago, Dan talked about how in his small town in Indiana, there was a Black Lives Matter protest, right? And all these locals, you know, basically made a cordon on either side of the street, you know, all brandishing weapons. What is it about so many people

people our age, men our age, right, mid to late 40s, that I now call the f*** you white guys. Like, what is it that they're missing in your mind as someone who has served

his country in good times and bad and continues to serve your community as an ER doctor. What is it that you think this group of men, our cohort, maybe some of our friends, what are they missing? Right. What's missing from their lives that when push comes to shove, they get that fantasy of picking up a rifle. We've seen some of the, you know, they'd be goofy if they weren't scary because they're carrying live weapons, live ammunition. What are they missing?

Do you think? You know, this is, we're getting philosophical here. Yeah, for sure. So I think that what America has done, and not even like sort of maliciously, right? Almost accidentally. But when you think about kind of our national ethos, right? Our national mythology. And I mean, going way back to the West, right? You know, going out on the frontier and the rugged individual and,

you know, that kind of became this sort of trope that's been reinforced by books, by Hollywood, you know, forever. Liam Neeson and Taken, right? You know, John Wick, right? Like,

And then you combine it with, you know, kind of this anti-hero stuff, right? I mean, I don't think you get Donald Trump without Tony Soprano. I literally do not think you get Donald Trump without Tony Soprano or Walter White, right? You've got these characters who are white men who are, you know, I'm going to break the rules to get by and, you know, kind of make my way in the world and

And that's attractive. But they're not good people like they become your point. They're the anti-heroes. They become the people you root for, but they're not good people. They're bad people. They're bad people. So there's an element of that that appeals to white males, right?

I always chuckle when I see these people posting, all this stuff, stack up and come take my guns. We're going to use our guns and we're going to stop Biden or whatever. And it's like, bro, you had 20 years, man. They flew airplanes into towers and a whole bunch of us went over and were in lengthy combat for long periods of time. And you had your chance. So please don't live your Liam Neeson fantasy 20 years too late. It's

It's really kind of this perfect storm of just like the natural course of the American mythology combined with this group of men who, you know, some of them serve, but many, you know, I would say the majority of these, you know, boogaloo boy types did not. And, you know, they want to do something special. They're being told all you have to do to be special is be, you know, this warrior for Trump.

And it appeals to them. You know, they want to feel like they're doing something. And, you know, it's almost incidental that Trump's the one who has inspired them. This lives side by side with all of this. You know, I'm not a fan of expressions like this, but you call it toxic masculinity or the idea of like, you got to be roided up. You got to be a liver king or Joe Rogan. You know, you got to give a big middle finger to the world because no one can tell you what to do.

But to your point, it's all a fallacy because with the exception of a few weirdos on TikTok or on podcasts.

The average dude, even if he's going to the gym and getting ready, I've got to go to work. Right. And there used to be, you know, the idea of being a real man was also sort of taking care of your business, keeping your side of the street clean, looking after your family. If that meant defending your family in whatever context that might be, that was true. But it wasn't like to your point about some like.

weird fetishization of I'm going to have 800 guns in my house. And I asked Ken this too, Dan, and I know it's an unfair question. Like I only have two hands. So if I had more than two guns, I could only use two of them. Even if I had 50 of them. And if somebody, you know, whether or not it's law enforcement or bad people want to get you, they will get you despite however many guns you have. Right. So it's this weird,

fantasy that's continuing. Not only that, we also know that people who have guns in the home, especially who probably have a cavalier attitude towards them, also have much higher rates of death by suicide or accidental shootings or all the other things. So, you know, that's the weird part is like you have to cross into this never, never land and

of I'm going to go do the, you know, quote unquote Navy SEAL boot camp or I'm going to swim the English Channel like the guys on D-Day did who they didn't swim the English Channel. They went over in landing craft and most of them, at least the first ones out of the boats, got shot. Right.

Right. So like they could claim it's to honor people like you or honor those that came before. But the truth is, it feels like trying to fill some sort of void that either their job doesn't give them, their family doesn't give them. Maybe they're disconnected from their community. I don't know. You're right. We're deep into philosophy. But the reason I ask is because they are guys that they look like me, but they want to be like you. Sure.

So I got out, right? You know, I got out in 2009 and I'm a physician and all that stuff. But I understand the attraction to doing quote unquote, you know, manly things. But where I philosophically differ with, you know, many of these people is to me, it's okay to be an ass kicker.

Right. That's fine. But what is that used for is the question. So if you think that, you know, because you have an AR-15 and, you know, you shoot testosterone in your ass and you can, you know, deadlift a lot. Right. Like if that's your, you know, all right, fine, man.

But does that make you better than, you know, I don't know, a 73 year old lady who is walking on the treadmill because her doctor told her to wait? Or like my grandmother, the 73 year old lady who volunteered at the local hospital until she was like 85. Exactly. So, I mean, I think strength is only ethically used when it's used to help someone who does not have strength.

And there are plenty of people like Trump and his minions who value strength as a means to personal enrichment or personal status or the like. So I see the argument that it's important to be good at things like shooting guns, triangle chokes, whatever. But you

you have to think about what that is for and why it's important to be able to defend someone and what's the ethical use of power and

We fundamentally disagree with people who would use power for kind of their own purposes. Right. I mean, listen, I mean, the bar is very low for me, Dan. My wife calls me, quote unquote, Utah Reed when I fix something around the house or I'm able to get the trailer to the back of the truck without the trailer or the garage or the truck. So, like, you know, we all have our manly moments. There you go.

You know, I was thinking about this. I've actually been thinking about this a lot, going back to the beginning of Trump as a political figure. And I go back, I think it was

Los Angeles. It was Simi Valley. It was the Reagan Library the summer of 2015. And Trump is on the stage with all these other, you know, Republican candidates. And he's just eviscerating them one at a time, right, in his own unique way, right? You know, low energy Jeb, little Marco. He makes fun of Rand Paul's hair. And I'm just thinking to bring in what would be considered,

certainly in politic and probably inappropriate, is that if any one of them, Dan, had gone up and put their finger in his chest and said, try it again, try it again, see what happens. Maybe we'd be in a different place.

Yeah. You know, the great Stuart Stevens said, you know, something to me once that, you know, kind of stuck with me. And this was back in around this time. He was like, listen, if one person on stage said, all right, Donald, you know, what is the eighth amendment to the constitution? Right. Like what are the three major branches of government?

You know, the Republicans, the personal moral cowardice that they displayed. And, you know, I think maybe in 2016, you could argue it was a political strategy. They weren't trying to piss off the base and all that kind of stuff. But like, this would all be over. We would not be having this conversation. You wouldn't have to do a podcast at 7 a.m., Reed, if...

if somebody on the Republican, you know, if a few people on the Republican side had the courage to, you know, vote for impeachment the second time, right? Like these are tangible things. He could have been stopped so many times. And, you know, you and I, I know you and I are on the same page. The only thing that's going to stop him is voting to reelect Joe Biden. Let me just say this. So, you know, I work for President George W. Bush. And I just I said, if you had traded out, I mean, leave aside for the fact that his brother was also on the stage. But

If you had traded George W. Bush for any of the other people on that stage and Donald Trump had made front of his wife, there's a probably 80 percent chance Bush would have knocked him on his ass right then. Right. Like or at least threat. He said, Donald, this is going to happen now or it's going to happen after. But you decide when you want it to happen.

And that's where sort of this, you know, going back to the idea of, you know, the American traditional view of masculinity. Right. And look, a lot of this was a mythology created on purpose in the 1950s. Right. With John Wayne and the Westerns and everything else. And we all see ourselves as Americans, as rugged individuals. The truth is, without all of the things that we all take for granted, you know, we're all naked and afraid. At least most of us are. Maybe you aren't, but the rest of us are.

And so that's the kind of thing, too, which is for all the people who, you know, espouse the, you know, manliness and masculinity.

to your point, have all displayed their lack of it, as you called it, their moral cowardice, right? When the time has come and there have now been, by my count, four, five, six, seven opportunities for these men to, you know, whose pronouns are kiss my ass or whatever, right? Or Josh Hawley, who gives the fist up and then runs away. You know, in another time, Dan, we would have said he ran like a girl.

He ran away, right? He ran away. He caused something or he at least induced it or he at least helped it along. And then he ran away from the fight, from the ugliness he created. And to me, that's the antithesis of masculinity because it's the antithesis of decency and morality. You know what you should do. You know what you shouldn't do. And time and again, these people have said, I'm going to do the wrong thing because to me, it's the fastest way to money, to fame, to power. And none of this is new.

Right. Like none of these are new phenomenon amongst, you know, humanity. But as someone who grew up a Republican and spent years working in the party to see a bunch of people, I'm not going to call them men creatures like Holly and Cotton and Cruz and Trump and Graham. And I mean, the ritual humiliation that Tim Scott is continually willing to put him through doesn't look manly to me.

No, totally. And I mean, I would take it even one step further. I mean, you think back to the McCarthy era, right? And the famous moment, the one that's stuck in the history books is, you know, the army hearing where someone finally says, sir, have you no decency, right? Right. At long last, sir, have you no decency? Yeah. At long last, have you no decency, right? And so

I don't understand why there isn't a Republican who wants to be that guy. Well, so far it's been Liz Cheney. So far it's been Liz Cheney, right? But, you know, take somebody like Hawley who, let's be real, Hawley probably has, you know, 30 years in the Senate ahead of him, right? He could start it all by being this truth teller who stood up to the orange Cheeto man and saved the Republican. Where is that person?

right? Like, why doesn't that, I mean, even if you just go off self-interest, there's got to be some self-interest in telling Trump, you know, calling him the charlatan that he is. It really baffles me. I mean, if I was a Republican lawmaker, you know, what's the best way to have a brand that, you know, is going to stand the test of time? Because Trump is, we are going to beat this guy in the fall and Trumpism is going to fizzle out. And so if you're

cynical and just self-interested and you're a Republican lawmaker. I mean, get on the right side, man. You know? Well, you know, I think about this as we start to wrap here, Dan, you think about a guy like Winston Churchill, right? Churchill was in the woods for many years, right? Was considered a has been, you know, obviously Gallipoli in World War I, you know, he, he made some pretty disastrous decisions, but you know, he was in the woods for

But when he saw the looming storm, the gathering storm, I guess I think the name of his first book was, he started to say, this isn't something we should be with. We should be against this. And everybody else is saying, Winston, you're a loser. Winston, you've never known this. You're too old. You're on the outs. Nobody likes you. And he's like, nope.

We should say no to this guy. We should not put up with this. We should not put up with this. And Chamberlain and Halifax and everybody else is like, you don't know what you're talking about. You're a loony bird, everything else. And then the time comes where September 1st, 1939 happens. And they're like, oh, then, you know, it keeps happening, keeps happening. And finally they go, Winston, it's your turn. Right. But nobody wants to wait their turn, Dan. Right. And the threat from Trump.

is, you know, some of this is sort of a bias towards, you know, an individual bias towards just kind of complacency, right? Like nobody wants to think, hey, maybe the United States of America goes away, right? Like we're all kind of wrapped up in this. We're all Americans. And

there's a little bit of head in the sand. But I mean, this is serious times. This is the election in 2028 is not going to be as important at this one. Well, it might not happen if the wrong guy wins. It might not happen, right? Exactly. So I mean, you know, this is it, guys. This is the, to use a naval analogy, this is like the clash between capital ships of the line. This is Mahanian. This is for all the marbles. Alfred Thayer Mahan for you history nerds out there.

That's right. And so the thing I would say is don't wake up on the morning after the election and be like, I should have done something. Right. Because we've all been there in 2016, right? We've been, we've seen this show before. Like let's not rerun it. Exactly. I mean, you gotta, if you're listening, you know, please check out the Lincoln project, check out veterans for responsible leadership, work for a down ballot candidate in your district, you know, become a poll watcher. Do anything.

Do anything. Donate money. Do something. But don't wake up the morning after and be like, I can't believe this happened. Right. Because this is a winnable fight. We can win this. We're going to win it. But it's not going to happen if we sit on our asses and you have to get up and you have to do something.

All right. Well, first of all, Rob, let's clip that and make sure we run it eight million times. All right, Dan, thank you so much for joining me. Before I let you go, where can we find you if you dare to be online, which if I were you, I would not.

And where can we find out more about VFRL? So VFRL.org. We're also on at Vets4RL on Twitter. A shout out to Mike Smith, who's been handling our social and absolutely killing it. And we've got some stuff in store, guys. If you're a veteran and you want to get involved in the anti-Trump movement, please reach out. We've got something up our sleeves for after Labor Day. So, yeah.

We need all the help we can get. Well, amen, guys. Go and check that out. And thank you, Dan, for all you and Ken and everybody else and Abby and everybody else over there, what you're doing. As always, gang, you can find me on Twitter and TikTok at Reed Galen on threads and Instagram at Reed underscore Galen USA. New handle. And over at Substack, the home front. Dan Barkoff, thanks for joining me. Thanks, Reed. Pleasure to be here. Everybody else, we'll see you next time. ♪♪♪

Thanks again to everyone for listening. Be sure to follow and subscribe to The Lincoln Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or however you listen. Don't forget to leave a five-star review. To connect with us, follow us on Twitter, at Project Lincoln. And for more information on our movement, to join our mailing list, subscribe to our newsletter, or make a contribution to our efforts, visit lincolnproject.us.

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