From an Army SMU to Secretary of Defense | Chris Miller (throwback episode)
The Team House
dee takos
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2025
⏱️ 239 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you know one thing about Chris Miller, it's that he was President Donald Trump's final Secretary of Defense, elevated to that position in the days after the 2020 election. If you know a second thing about Chris Miller, it's that he oversaw the U.S. Armed Forces during one of the most controversial and tumultuous periods the military has experienced in decades, culminating in the shocking events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Yet Chris Miller is no political partisan. On the contrary, Miller has spent his adult life in the crosshairs of America's most dangerous enemies--from Middle Eastern deserts to the bowels of U.S. intelligence agencies--and emerged as one of the leading national security minds of his generation.
Needless to say, Chris Miller has stories to tell. In Soldier Secretary, he reveals for the first time everything he saw--in a book that is candid, thought-provoking, and like that of no Secretary of Defense before him. This book is not just the inside story of what happened during the Trump administration--it's the inside story of what happened to America, its military, and its institutions during the two decades after September 11, 2001.
Part badass, part iconoclast, Miller is an irreverent, heterodox, and always-fascinating thinker whose personal journey through war and the White House has led him to some shocking conclusions about the state of American power in 2021. With a perspective that will surprise and interest both Republicans and Democrats, Miller argues for a radical rethinking of U.S. national security strategy unlike anything since the creation of the joint armed forces in the 1980s. He offers a roadmap for how the United States can win in the era of unrestricted warfare by shedding the bloated defense bureaucracy, bringing American forces home from endless conflicts, renewing our national unity, and beating China at its own game.
Miller is a true American warrior whose incredible journey from Iowa to Afghanistan to Iraq to the White House endeared him to the troops, prepared him for the unprecedented crisis of January 6, and left him deeply concerned about the future of our military and the future of our nation.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Special Operations |
| 0:03.8 | Covert Ops, espionage, the Team House, with your host, Jack Murphy, Davis Park. |
| 0:21.5 | Good evening, everyone. |
| 0:22.8 | Welcome to episode 205 of the Team House. |
| 0:25.3 | I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park. |
| 0:27.2 | And our guest on tonight's show is the author of Soldier's Secretary, Christopher |
| 0:31.5 | Miller. |
| 0:32.4 | Chris served in Special Forces, went on to serve in ASD Solick. |
| 0:37.9 | People don't even know what that office is. |
| 0:39.6 | Yeah, everybody's like, what the hell is that? |
| 0:41.3 | But we'll get into the weeds on it. |
| 0:42.9 | Me being one of them. |
| 0:44.0 | I. |
| 0:44.5 | What's correct? |
| 0:45.2 | I or me. |
| 0:46.3 | Either is acceptable. |
| 0:48.8 | And Chris, of course, when went on to become acting secretary of defense. |
| 0:53.4 | So, I mean, you had this like amazing career, you know, rise through the bureaucracy in so many ways. |
| 1:00.2 | It is a bureaucracy. |
| 1:01.1 | That's a really good description. |
| 1:03.1 | I would say hacked the bureaucracy. |
| 1:05.5 | Especially when you get to the Pentagon level that you talk about in your book. |
... |
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