Mark Hertling: War Criminal, Cosplay Commandant, or Both?

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

Politics, News

4.8 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John welcomes retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling to discuss the Trump administration’s air strikes against alleged Venezuelan drug boats and the mounting charges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may be guilty of a war crime – or just plain murder. Hertling, who served as commander of U.S. Army Europe among other posts, offers a withering perspective on Hegseth’s explanations of his role in the disputed strike and his leadership of the Pentagon writ large; a stark assessment of where the metastasizing story is headed next; and a fraught view of the fragile state of civilian-military relations in Trump 2.0. See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ . To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Impolitic with John Heilman is presented by BP.
0:05.1	See all the ways that they're investing in America.
0:08.1	Get ready to ramp it up.
0:11.1	Atlassian Government Cloud is now FedRamp moderate authorized.
0:15.1	That means popular team collaboration apps like Jira, Confluence, and Jira service management are now on a FedRamp
0:23.0	moderate authorized cloud platform, and just in time, as you think about your mission priorities
0:28.0	for the new fiscal year. Now that you have the all clear to ramp up to Atlassian Government Cloud,
0:34.1	you could ensure teams, tools, and data work better together to streamline collaboration,
0:39.0	break silos, and access agency-wide intelligence much more easily. The result? Modernized
0:45.7	workflows and greater efficiency, all with built-in security on one compliant platform. Someone
0:52.1	call procurement. It's time to ramp up to Atlassian Government Cloud.
0:56.8	Find out more at atlacian.com slash gov cloud.
1:06.2	Aloha and namaste, everyone, and welcome to Impolitic with John Howlman, a puck and
1:10.0	Odyssey Joint,
1:15.5	featuring lively, in-depth conversations with the people who cruise the corridors of power in America,
1:19.2	sculpting and shaping the ebb and flow of our politics and culture.
1:26.7	From the moment in January, January 23rd, my birthday, to be precise, Jesus,
1:37.3	that the United States Senate against a backdrop of deep, profound, sometimes public, more often private, but widely bipartisan skepticism.
1:41.8	From that moment when the United States Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth
1:44.7	to be Donald Trump's Secretary of Defense by, it should be noted, the narrowest possible
1:50.5	margin, 51 to 50, with freshly minted Vice President J.D. Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
1:59.4	The pertinent question in Washington, D.C.,
	...

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