The American system of civil-military relations is built on the expectation of a principal behavior by the Congress and the president.

And we are seeing norm-shattering behavior by the president.

Welcome to the Mona Charon Show. Delighted that you could join me. Today's program is being brought to you from a different location. We are downtown at the bulwark headquarters. And I'm thrilled that Corey Shockey, who is the director of political and military studies at the American Enterprise Institute, was able to come

and join me in person. So, Corey, thanks so much for being here.

It is a great pleasure, my friend. Thank you for having me.

As I was telling you right before we began recording, when we had scheduled this a few weeks

in advance, but as the date got closer, I was saying to my colleagues

on Slack, is this the greatest possible week to have Corey Shockey or what? And everyone agreed.

And so, among your many other accomplishments, you are known as one of the experts on civil-military relations.

And I understand that you actually have a book coming out very soon on that topic,

The State and the Soldier.

Yep, that's absolutely true.

It comes out in two weeks, I think.

Well, congratulations on that.

Maybe we'll get a copy and have you back

to talk about, you know, the in-depth history. But it is relevant to what I want to talk about

today. Because what we are seeing, so you had some harsh words in Foreign Policy Magazine for

the circus that took place last week where Hegseth required 800 generals and admirals to abandon their posts and come back to the U.S. at Quantico for what he called a pep talk.

And then Trump, of course, couldn't resist also

horning in on the occasion.

So he had to strut around or didn't quite strut

because he was a little low energy that day.

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