The MeidasTouch Podcast
The MeidasTouch Podcast

Trump Blindsided as Top Aide Quits Ahead of Midterms

2h ago17:492,336 words
0:000:00

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the news of anther top official who is quitting as the midterms approach. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https:...

Transcript

EN

Were there any questions from Athens?

Of course, in my opinion, Sarium's opinion was a question with the greatest knowledge of the world.

Many thousand questions were not seen, with the fact of the blood and the air that was found.

The Vivivos Aaryum de I. Donald Trump got blindsided as another senior regime official will be quitting. The rats are fleeing the sinking ship we've been covering here now. Day after day it seems another senior regime official is quitting. They see the writing on the wall.

They know there will be massive investigations into Donald Trump's criminality and the disaster Donald Trump has unleashed here at home in the United States and abroad destroying the United States alliances and security umbrella. The individual who will be quitting is Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who holds the top senior civilian position at the United States Army.

He was closely allied with J.D. Vance. They went to Yale Law School together. Driscoll was Senate confirmed. He was working with Randy George, the former Army Chief of Staff, who was forced out by Pete Heggsiff and Donald Trump.

George and Driscoll were focused on modernization

within the United States Army learning lessons from Ukraine

to build the United States drone and anti-drone capability,

including embedding a first of its type unit in the United States Army,

a cutting edge unit to focus on drone warfare, really learning all of those lessons from Ukraine. That pissed off Pete Heggsiff also apparently Driscoll was very angry that Pete Heggsiff would not promote women and black people and minorities within the United States military.

Driscoll apparently had called out that Heggsiff was behaving in a way that Driscoll believed was racist and Driscoll's like, "We can't be racist like this in the Trump regime." And Heggsiff was like, "Watch me, hold my bag, and watch what I do. They continue to fight."

And there would be lots of leaks from the Pentagon, and Heggsiff would be saying, "Discoll's leading the resistance within the Trump regime against Donald Trump. He's resistance 2.0 or 3.0." And so there would be all of these leaks.

And I think Driscoll just had enough, and he was like, "Goodbye.

I'm not going to be here anymore." So here's the reporting from the Hill and the Wall Street Journal. The Hill reported Army Secretary eyes exit around end of year amid Heggsiff tensions, and then the Wall Street Journal reports that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is expected to leave his post

by the end of the year or possibly sooner. My source to say he's likely to go before November. After months of reported attention with Secretary of War Pete Heggsiff, Driscoll served about 18 months. He developed a close working relationship with former Army Chief of Staff Randy George.

The two pushed the Army toward greater use of commercial technology and lessons from Ukraine, including integrating commercially available systems more rapidly into military operations. George was abruptly fired by Heggsiff in April, and has not been replaced by a Senate confirmed successor.

Also there was General Donnoe, the last soldier in Afghanistan also a beloved general was very close to Driscoll. Donnoe was false that it was forced out by Heggsiff as well. You have General Christopher Lenev currently serving as Army Chief of Staff and Lenev and Heggsiff got rid of the drone program

that Driscoll and George were working on. That seemed to be the last straw. And just to remind you, there have been numerous other senior officials who have been quitting lately. You had half of the Treasury Department over recent weeks

and months were leaving. The top Trump aide Emily Underwood leaving the White House. She's the top deputy to Steven Miller. Of course, you know, Caroline Levitt was leaving. You had Andy Baker, the White House deputy national security advisor.

He announced that he was leaving. You had James Bray, the main liaison, to Congress within the White House. He announced that he was leaving. So it's been person after person who have said,

right enough, we're going to go into the private sector. We are not going to be on the sinking ship. Come the post midterm investigation period. We're going to bail before that season takes place. So a reminder, US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll,

testifying in Congress. Here he was at the House Appropriations Committee, saying Ukrainians have fundamentally altered how humans engage in conflict. And the United States should learn from the Ukrainians.

Here's what he said over here.

To him under my title 10 authorities, I can't speak to the sanctions.

I can't speak to the United States Army has

stood by and stood with the Ukrainians from the very first day of the war. I've been to Kiev.

I've spent a lot of time with a lot of the Ukrainian leadership.

They have fundamentally altered how humans engage in conflict.

They have done an absolutely amazing job of innovating.

And I am publicly on record saying we are learning a lot from them. And we are changing to a lot of the lessons that they have taught us. And so I cannot answer your specific question, but I can say we do United States Army. You have stood with Ukraine from the beginning.

And then Army Secretary Dan Driscoll over here, talked about how he almost described the United States as like an old grandpa learning about the internet from a kid from their grand kid in Ukraine who actually knows how to do all of this stuff. And what's interesting about Driscoll is that when Driscoll took the job,

he was actually had the reputation as being someone who was not in favor of Ukraine. And so he grew over time actually to appreciate the Ukrainian war tactics and the Ukrainian resolve. Also just a background on Driscoll.

He was an officer in the United States Army as well.

And so he served our country abroad.

And here's what he had to say there.

Let's play this clip. I think that was not working for us. And this actually happened in Germany about 10, 12 weeks ago. We have the Ukrainians, and we invite them in to be our red teamer, and in being our training.

Because they are really, really talented as to all of you might have seen. On the battlefield, and we learn a lot from them. And so the day before I was in one of the other Eastern European countries, the Minister of Defense, and they had gotten a new counter-drone technology. And in their sector, and they were talking about how difficult it was for them

to sink in this new interceptor with their radars and their sensors and their command and control system. The very next day it was in Germany with the Ukrainians. And I asked them, do you all have trouble sinking your sensors?

And the look they gave me the only way I can describe it is the way like a 13 year old

looks at their 85 year old great-grandparent when they can't zoom in on a phone. And basically the Ukrainians were like no sir as long as it moves data through a wire and can access the network, we can hook anything up. And he talked over here about the modular open architecture and just how advanced things were in Ukraine, here play this clip.

Senator, I talked to the Ukrainians reasonably frequently and definitely through SACU. The United States Army has had a present helping Ukraine since day one. A lot of our leaders have developed very long-term relationships. And it's been a two-way street we have learned and enormous amount from them.

When I talked about Operation jailbreak, that was because two weeks ago we were in Germany running a joint exercise. And the Ukrainians actually sent some of their most talented people to help us learn how they would do the fight. And it was in that instance that we learned this. But now, Driscoll had to deal with people like Laura Lumer trying to get him fire.

Hexis was always leaking out.

Stuff as Dan Limuth of the Washington Post, right? New line of attack on Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. A single anonymous Pentagon official tells the hell that Hexis's team believes they've uncovered proof that Driscoll has become a resistance figure within the Pentagon, not only against Hexif, but against Donald Trump himself. And I'll show you over here.

This is how state regime media posted it. Described it. Multiple sources told us that the removal of Randy George has to do with Hexis rivalry with Dan Driscoll. This was back a few months. This was back in April.

I believe you're playing this clip. Yesterday Hexif surprised the Pentagon and White House by firing the Army Chief General Randy George. A respected close ally of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. This sources tell us the removal has to do with Secretary Hexis rivalry with Dan Driscoll who is a close ally of Vice President, JD Vance, and was considered a short list on the short list to replace Hexif at one point, Laura.

And Driscoll was also opposed to things that Hexif would do. Like Hexif blocked the promotion of forearm officers to be one star generals, two of which are black and two women on a list. I've roughly three dozen officers up for promotion. Hexif had been pressing senior Army leaders, including Driscoll for months, to remove the officer's names, military officials said. Secretary Driscoll citing the officer's decades-long records of exemplary service had repeatedly refused.

Earlier this month, Hexif broke the log jam by unilaterally striking the officer's names from the list because they were women in because they were black. He did not want to promote women in black people. I mean, as I want to promote other minorities either. And so you have that taking place.

You know, there were just open fights between them as well.

In addition to U.S. Army Chief of Staff Randy George being forced out defense secretary Hexif removed and forced the retirement of General David Haudenee, former Army Ranger.

I believe the Army transformation and training command and major General William Green Jr. The Chief of the Army's Chaplain Corps as Hexif and his team escalates their long-running feud with Secretary of Army Dan.

Driscoll who reports indicate may soon be reporting, may be departing from the Trump regime. And I will remind you about this, you know, odd story about Driscoll as well. So Driscoll grew to actually like Zelensky and appreciate the tactics of Ukraine.

But that wasn't always the case. So Driscoll was the guy back in November of 2025 or in that period.

Remember when Wittkov basically took the marching orders from Russia, from Dmitriyov and Lavrov and others about what the Russian ideal would look like with Ukraine and remember like they met in Miami. And then remember there was a meeting that took place then with Zelensky. It was actually Driscoll who took the proposal that Wittkov claimed that he drafted, but it turns out the Russians actually drafted it. And then Driscoll took it, met with Zelensky and Ukraine. Zelensky is like, "I'm not signing this. What the hell is this?"

And then they actually developed a good relationship or a decent relationship, Driscoll and Zelensky. And obviously right now we know that Trump and Hexif are depriving Zelensky of the Patriot Interceptors, depriving Zelensky of the Interceptor licenses. They're also refusing to allow Zelensky to get access to Starlink, to strike the ballistic missile launchers, right? Zelensky was like, "Alright, you're not going to get me interceptors."

And that's the only way to stop the Russian ballistics, which are just crushing Ukraine right now. You're not going to give us the license so we can make our own.

So can we at least just access Starlink so we could be able to strike down the ballistic missile launchers just in a defensive posture? Nope, we're not going to let you do that either. And so I just think Driscoll's like, "Alright, I've had enough for how to see you later." And again, you've seen all these people quitting, and it'll be interesting to see what they say. It should also be noted by the way that the former senior civilian Navy leader. Feeling, he was fired and forced out as well. US Secretary of Navy John Felen, he a few months back, right? He was basically fired by the Trump regime, because he was in building for Trump and heads at the Trump battleships, quick enough.

And he's like, "Why are we doing the battleships?" Like, and that doesn't really make any sense in modern warfare. So he's gone. I just want you to think about, though, you take a step back, all these senior Trump officials who have quit. But also think about these senior civilian and military officials who have been quit. All these generals, all these admirals, all these top civilian officials, all gone. And a lot of it happening during the catastrophic war with Iran. And the ultimate irony is, right? You know, Donald Trump's like, "Aron does, we don't know who their leadership is. They don't know who their leadership is. It's so chaotic there. There's no real leaders."

It's always projection with Donald Trump. He's talking about his own regime, right?

We hit subscribe, let's get to 7 million subscribers, get your copy of WTF America, the book I wrote in my book. Okay, we're with my brothers. Thanks for watching everybody.

Breaking news right now, my brothers and I wrote a book. It's called WTF America. And well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre-order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below. [Music]

Compare and Explore