EXCLUSIVE: GOP Insiders Have “Zero Confidence” in Pete Hegseth

This is a music for your audience. Welcome back to TerraPullMerry Show.

“Over the weekend, I called my sources on Capitol Hill in the White House in the administration”

to get a feeling for what they really think about this war in Iran, especially now that president Trump

is asking them to sign a $200 billion supplemental bill to pay for it.

What they say and how they really feel often are not the same. That is something that I have learned from covering Washington. And what I heard from these Republicans is that they have zero confidence in Pete Hanks' In fact, Senators, they regret voting for him, even more so than RFK. And that is saying something that's supporting to its source.

In fact, they don't see an exit plan in pat, they're worried about the way that Israel is going about this, they see the more expanding rather than getting any, you know, more narrow. And they're seeing gold states, Lebanon being bombed. And they just want to be reassured. And all they're getting is the pugnesious Pete Hanks' death, basically attacking reporters

for trying to find out what's happening on the ground is not presenting a calm front in

“this time of uncertainty and they want someone who is a leader right now.”

They also want President Trump to sell the war to the people. They want an oval office with us. They want to make sure that they vote that they take. It won't backfire on them in a few months. I mean, it's, it's a tough space spot to be in and there are regrets.

There's also different factions and things going on. I wrote all about it in the red letter. It's my newsletter that you can find by going to tarra palmary.com. It's exclusive reporting, the kind of stuff you can only get from me. It is unvarnished, really what people are saying behind closed doors, no corporate sponsors,

nothing like that, no corporate bosses. It is independent journalism and it's how you can keep me in business to take a look at my reporting.

“I go on the Jim Acosta show, though to talk about it and we traded notes on all of this”

and more. Of course, Jim wanted to ask me about the latest news on Jeffrey Epstein because he knows I am so plugged into that story and we talked about Julie K. Brown, the Miami-Herald Journalist who reopened the Epstein story about her latest reporting that there was large, large quantities of documents that were shredded at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan where

Jeffrey Epstein was being held. In fact, Officer Michael Kerns reported on August 16th, 2019 that an inmate was removing an unleared, unusually large volume of shredded paper. Yeah. That's a little suspicious, don't you think?

Add on top of that all of the other suspicious things that happened around that time, which we get into in the show. According to one inmate, even Lopez, they were shredding everything. Okay. Why would you shred everything around the time?

Jeffrey Epstein's alleged suicide. So take a listen to the show. We start with Epstein, and then we get into my reporting on how they're feeling enwashing

to about Pete Hexf and this war and the pressure to sign $200 billion bill to keep it going.

Let's go quickly to a reporter who has been, you know, leading the charge on this reporting front. That's Tara Paul Mary. Tara, your excellent sub-stack also focuses on things besides Epstein. We'll talk about that in a second because you've got this great story out on Pete Hexf.

And how Republicans up on Capitol Hill, they're not so impressed. Maybe if you put a camera in a microphone in front of their face, they might say something, but if you ask them privately, they'll say something very different. But since we're on this subject, and there's your story right there in the red letter in Sub-Stack, but I was just talking with Congressman Rokana about Epstein.

And I know you were getting connected and so on. So maybe you might have missed this part of the conversation. But Congressman Kana was just saying a few moments ago about that, you know, that Julie Kay Brown's story about the shredded documents that were, I guess there were found or talked about around the death of Jeffrey Epstein.

Congressman Kana said that he has concerns as to whether or not Epstein actually committed suicide, which I hadn't heard of saying maybe he's already said that. But what do you think about all of this? So to him, you and I, we're not conspiracy theorists, we're real reporters, we've been

at the very least that Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself.

“You know, obviously his brother Mark Epstein has been trying to prove this, he's tried to, you”

know, hire doctors to run autopsy reports to prove that there are so many things that went off that were wrong around the time of his death, the fact that the guards were missing, the fact that there's the missing minute. Now we see there was a little, you know, orange blob that walks through past his cell, essentially. And that was in the same minute that we didn't see, you know, there were just so many

coincidences around the time of his death, and he was actually complaining days earlier that he was afraid of his, of his cellmate, that his cellmate might kill him. That's not really a man who wants to kill himself.

That's someone who's trying to preserve their own life.

Also, Jeffrey Epstein believed he lived above the laws. You could tell from the way he acted for decades, and actually did live above the law.

“So why would he think that suddenly the law had caught up with him?”

And so, you know, I, I think there are just so many irregularities. I mean, there was another interview with believe. There was a man who was working on the video tech, and he was a former Marine, or if someone who was, he was like a military officer of a pretty high rank, and he was working on gathering the footage from inside of the facility, the video tapes, and he was alarmed

by the way, they were handling the tapes as if they didn't care if the content would be wiped from it, and he, he testified about that. Sorry, I don't have that in front of me, but that was also really alarming to me. When I saw that, there was just, it was almost like a willful recklessness, or a real strategy to try to get rid of this person.

Obviously, he was dangerous alive. He helped a lot of secrets, and it's just every single day, we get more and more information. And, you know, Julie, I worked with her on a podcast called Broken Jeffrey Epstein, and she is long believed that Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself, and she was the one who actually kind of got me to opening, you know, my mind to that, because she has done such great reporting

on this story, and really knows it inside out. There's just, because it sounds crazy when you think about it, you know, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist either, you know, I just, you know, sometimes I just think these things don't add up, and so on, and on the Epstein thing for the longest time, I thought, well, how could they kill him in a jail, but it, that does happen, so people do get killed in jail.

“All the time, that's why I'm at the bottom, they're at the bottom, I mean, literally, they are”

killed all the time, because they're, frankly, disgusting people, and they discussed even other prisoners who killed them, and so it's the lowest of the low crime, and, yeah, so he, he certainly was not safe in there. We know that his former modeling partner, Jean Luke Bernel also mysteriously died by hanging in a prison in France. We know that Robert Maxwell, Galen Maxwell's father, mysteriously died off the side of his yacht, the Lady Galen in the Canary Islands, you know,

people like to say it was a suicide, but why would you go off on your yacht to kill yourself in the Canary Islands? Exactly. Yeah, I mean, in this happened during the first trumpet minister, I mean, you know, again, I don't want to be like Glenn Beck with the whiteboard, and all the squiggly lines going on these different directions, but I mean, they're holding back documents, and Rokana was just saying, if you want us to go, some of these documents are obviously

very important to their investigation, and I, just to me, that this is never going to be resolved.

If these documents aren't released. Also, just the way they handled it, like they purposely made it difficult to investigate this story, but early on, I mean, CBS was doing 60 minutes. They've been investigating this since 2019, how he could have possibly died in prison. I mean, he was a very valuable prisoner in a lot of ways. You know what I mean? It was where they put El Chapo. I mean, there are a lot of problems with this jail in downtown Manhattan, but still,

the guards don't just go to sleep. The tape doesn't just cut out. They don't, you know, this is the way he died, three breaks in his neck. I mean, a lot. Some say that's just not possible, you know, from hanging. So it's now bags of shredded documents. You know, what's that? It's just so insane when you think about it. It just doesn't add up. And so we're going to stay on top. I know you're going to stay on top of it, too, but let's talk about your reporting, because I, you know,

anytime somebody brings up Pete Hexeth, I want to dive into this. You know, this is somebody, when you see him at these Pentagon briefings now, the way he goes after the press, it's absolutely ridiculous. And, you know, recently, I guess they just had to

But I do want to get into, I mean, just what you're hearing up on Capitol Hill. This is what you

“wrote over the weekend. I spoke with Republican sources in the administration on Capitol Hill”

and on K Street about what they're saying behind closed doors about the war in Iran. What emerged was a picture of growing unease, no plan to end the conflict. And then you went on to talk about what people are saying about Pete Hexeth. One Senate source put it bluntly. There's zero confidence in Pete Hexeth. Everyone, everyone, this is my favorite quote. Everyone regrets that they had to vote for him, the source added. He's a bigger regret than RFK. Now, to be a bigger regret

than RFK, that's, that's saying a lot, because RFK was just in a creepy video with kid rock the other day. But let's not play that again, because I can't get that image out of my mind. But you're

reporting on Hexeth and what this has been like for a lot of these Republicans who I'm sure are

sweating behind the scenes. Yeah, they are. And I mean, one of another source said that they see the real chain of command actually laying out, flying outside of Hexeth. And while he's out there, fighting with the press and not really projecting a lot of confidence for the American people. I mean, he is literally a caricature of himself, like the one on SNL that's played by Colin Nost. But like, you know, this one source said that it's really between the president

and his generals and Hexeth has been really cut out of strategy in a lot of ways. But, you know,

“you remember the confirmation hearings around Pete Hexeth so much damaging information came out”

about him. Joni Ernst, who's a sexual assault survivor, really struggled and has military background struggled with, with confirming him. And they spent millions of dollars running ads against her in her backyard and intimidation campaign to get her to vote for Hexeth. Now, you might say, well, she's not exactly a red badge of courage, right, voting for Hexeth. But, you know, a lot of these Republicans, they just did what Trump wanted. They put this man in power. And now we're in a

war with no clear end in sight. And there's a lot of frustration with how Israel's handling it. There's worries about the widening escalation, you know, from the Gulf to Lebanon. And there's a lot of discomfort over the way the Pentagon is handling this wartime posture. It's quite a different thing, you know, to be berating press in normal times. But you can't enforce one single narrative on people. It's, you can't do that during a war. It's disturbing.

“And it's even to the same party. Like, and then at the end of that, the same time, President Trump,”

he hasn't done a very good job selling this war. He never did. It was like over the night,

overnight, there was no, you know, consultation with even the Congress let alone the American people. He hasn't held an oval office address, which is something that I was hearing from members that they want to hear before they sign up on a $200 billion supplemental package. I mean, this is the party that does half the government, not exactly half. But, you know what I'm saying? That is willing to cut jobs before. Yeah. Yeah, $100,000 jobs. But is now ready to write a blank check for $200 billion

for a war where they don't know the exit plan yet? Exactly. Well, and I mean, Adam Kinsinger was pointing this out the other day. That's more money than the U.S. has provided to Ukraine to go up against the Russians. I mean, so it's a huge amount of money. And it is going down a rat hole to some extent because I mean, the U.S. is not really in charge of events right now. I mean, you know, Pete Hexeth and General Kane can get out in front of the press and talk about all of

these military objectives that have been met and so on. But at the same time, you still have the Iranians firing missiles at Israel and at Iraq. They're they're now drawing trying to draw the Iraqis in into all of this. And now the rest of the Gulf states, there's some reporting the Wall Street Journal today that the rest of the Gulf states are now trying to figure out whether or not they want to join the U.S. and Israel because they're getting bombarded. And so, you know,

I don't see, you know, Trump tries to cool things off and says, well, I'm going to hold off and bombing these Iranian power plants of the markets cool down. But that's only, you know, a sliver of what's taking place. And I'm just wondering at what point, I mean, based on your reporting, do you get any sense that Republicans in the Senate may start to squawk about this because they mean, they've been marching at a lockstep with Donald Trump. They will not really defy him on

much of anything. Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McCartell and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post opinion called reasonably optimistic. And it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. I'm a colonist of the post and I've been writing about economics, technology, and public policy for decades now. So, everyone's day, I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward. I'm going to talk to inventors,

entrepreneurs, politicians, and probably some wonky types like me if I'm being totally honest.

When nerds get rich and powerful, they can't help but get involved in politics.

I want to talk about how we can get unstuck and live up to the country's many promises. But it does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are if we believe in this country. It's worth fighting for. Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. No, I think it's a really good question, Jim, because, well, you know, the White House,

they pointed to this poll, sorry about that. My dog had a moment. The White House pointed to this political poll that came out over the weekend that showed 40% of Americans approved the strikes, while 33% disapproved. And so that's their way of saying that they have public support.

And the truth is that Republicans are generally with President Trump on this war. He does still have

the maga, the libertarian wing of the maga party, they're struggling with it and you're seeing it

“through Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, and others. And I think it's only going to get louder, right?”

But for now, they seem to think that they have the support of the people. But the thing is that these senators, these members, mostly senators who have been around for a long time, they've been around. They know what this is like. They know what it's like. They go vote like this. And how that can really backfire against them. And so, while they see the public support is there three weeks in four weeks into a war, they know that doesn't last forever, right?

Because people want this thing pulled up quickly. And the longer it lasts, the more public that flash there is. On top of that, they're paranoid and rightly so about gas prices. I mean, that's the one thing that they just keep coming back to. And they say, we are, you know, that was the first word that came out of most of their mouths. It's gas prices. I mean, and I got it because this is the affordability election as was the last one, as was the

“help before that. I mean, and it's something that everybody can understand. Everybody can”

understand gas prices. I keep going back to this amazing video that Johnathan Allen and NBC got last

week where he went to the gas station in Pennsylvania and he asked this Trump supporter, this lady, who's a Trump supporter. What she had to say to Donald Trump and she said something like, you're a worthless pile of shit. And she said, and I voted for Trump three times. I must be an idiot. When you took with gas prices, what you pay at the pump, the economy, the way it hits people in the wallet. I mean, it's not just gas stations. If the price of diesel goes up, that goes to trucking costs.

And trucking costs go up. That means grocery prices go up. That means restaurant prices go up. Just about, you know, Amazon prices may go up. Delivery prices go up. And so everybody can understand this stuff. And I saw CBS pull over the weekend that said 92% of the American people want this to be over as quickly as possible. I mean, Tara, this goes right to what you were saying a few moments ago. Donald Trump did not sell this war to the American people. He didn't say,

there's this imminent, I mean, he's been trying to say there's an imminent threat, but his own counterterrorism, official Joe Kets says there's no imminent threat. Tulsa Gabbard said to the same thing. She's like 10 years maybe. That's right. She was unwilling to, you know, she was being pressed on it was unwilling to agree with what her boss the president said. And so this is a fiasco for them. And you add to that the long lines at the airport,

which I know are unrelated, but I mean, in a way not if department of Homeland Security is not being fully funded in the middle of a war, that ain't good. No, you're totally right. I mean, especially when Iran is now saying they're going to attack holiday destinations around the world. It's just like, what have we done? I mean, it's, it's it's really something else. You know, I like to dive like deep into like the Washington

conversation to and what's going around. And and someone on K Street pointed this out to me. That cutter has spent so much money, by the way, in the U.S. on influence campaigns. Like, $260 million is according to the Kinsey Institute. And that's like just what we know of, but you know, they have bought real estate in Georgetown, the city center in DC, this glitzy city center. They had attorney general Pam Bondi on retainer before she, um, doing the industry.

And, you know, they're paying for America's 255th birthday party. They were in the sponsors, they're having a big party at the White House course fall in center at the fourth season. So like, this is a country that has paid so much money and influence to try to have a foothold in America and to have some influence on our foreign policy. And they have lost 17% of their LNG gas and natural

“fuel. So it's like, it just doesn't matter at all. And I think a lot of our allies are looking at”

that and they realize that it's not really worth it to play with the U.S. We're not exactly stable partners. And that's all to say that I think that these, you know, influence campaigns are

have to spend this money to have that kind of influence in the U.S. But for the for the Washington

“set, they're looking at, you know, how years of buying access, relationships and goodwill have”

basically been thrown away in the middle of a war and what that means and how much the entire region is being destabilized. Right. And I'm going to talk with our were Damon the long time workhorse bonnet for CNN and just a little bit. But I mean, this was predicted by so many experts Terry, you and I've been around Washington long enough to know that the LNG grams of the world,

they've been talking about hitting Iran for years. And it's always been, it's always

been warned that if you hit Iran, you could just unleash a quagmire in the middle east, you could cause a global energy crisis that the straight-of-horibous would be used as a weapon. All of those things are coming to pass. I mean, you know, for as much as we not case read, I think case read even was warning this. Everybody in DC was warning all of this. The think tanks were warning this on both sides of the aisle that if you go after Iran, that

why do I mean, has anybody asked the question Mr. President, you know, why is that no other president tried to do this in the last 47 years? I think maybe he liked the idea that it's been 47 years and he's the 47th president. So he just thought, oh yeah, naturally, I must be the one to

“I mean, that's, you know, that's how he thinks about some of these things. Yeah, you know, he”

gives it about five seconds of thought. And now this country's going to be paying for this for a

very long time. And it may not even happen during his term where he's the one who pays the political price. This could be something that blows up in another president's face years from now. It's, it's a good point, Jim. And yeah, Trump is in greatness mode, right? He wants to prove that he can do all the things that other presidents could not do. And I think he really both little high on himself after the Maduro, you know, I guess you call it raid. That's where everybody

keeps coming back to. Exactly. And so I think he was trying to prove I can do the things that others can't do. He's thinking about it's legacy. He can't run again. And he's more interested in that Nobel Peace Prize in geopolitical politics for an affair. But he's really letting his, this country falls the way side in a lot of ways and his party. And it's really, no, it's so true. I'm not adding up JD events very well. If he wants to run again, because certainly, I know. I know.

We'll carry this with him. And he's the one who's a non-interventionist. And he's a young guy. So, and JD events, he's not out there as quite as much as he had been in previous months. Marco Rubio, not out there quite as much as we've seen in the past. And I mean, all of the sudden, we're talking about Jared Kushner and Steve Wittkov being dispatched that they're the ones who are going to go and solve this problem. Two unelected officials, by the way. Yeah.

And guys who have no expertise with their real estate guys, I mean, I mean, Kushner's just a netbo baby. I mean, that's, that's his career background. He's a netbo baby. And, and buddies of the Trump royal court. And so these are the, these are the guys who are going to get us out of this. And I get the sense that Marco Rubio and JD events that they, maybe don't want

“anything to do with this. I think Rubio has his eyes on reshaping Latin America. But I, you know,”

I wonder if you sat Marco Rubio down on room for 30 minutes and asked him about this. If this is what he want, I mean, I don't know. Maybe he was pushing for this. But some of the reporting lately was that that it was others who were really pushing Trump to do this. Yeah. I mean, it's funny that you talk about Wittkov and Jared Kushner who haven't just been deployed to the Middle East, but also Ukraine. And yeah, who were Wittkov, the Qataris, they bought a hotel from Wittkov

in the, I think it's called the Park Palace in Manhattan for 135 million dollars from him.

I mean, there's so many conflicts of interest going on, especially since these two are real estate, you know, tycoons are so much Trump property in the Middle East. There are so many reasons for this war that are not what they seem, right? Yeah. And Kushner is making money in the Middle East as he's being used to negotiate or being asked to negotiate all of this. And I don't even get the sense that they know who exactly did negotiate with Trump was out in front of the cameras yesterday saying that

they're not even sure that the current Iowa is alive. And so they're talking to members of the Iranian parliament. And it seems to me that the real, you know, the guys who are really in charge of this driving the train on this are in that Iranian Republican guard. And so I, you know, this just seems to be a real fiasco terror. And I'm not surprised that you're hearing from sources up on Capitol Hill who are a little cool on Pete Hexath right now. Yeah. I mean, there's,

yeah. He is really something else this guy. Yeah. And that's time of war. They are supposed to

state. And that's not very reassuring. So, never a good place to be. Yeah. Well, terror, great,

“great reporting as always. And always great to talk to you on Epstein. Let's do this again really soon.”

Thanks so much, Jim, for having me. You got, thanks, Terapol Mary of the red letter great stuff

in the Terapol Mary show. Really appreciate it. Thanks again, Terapol. That was another episode of

“the Terapol Mary show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please like, subscribe, rate, follow, share”

this with all of your friends, head to TerapolMary.com. Read my exclusive reporting. I really

get into the nitty gritty details. I spent my weekend calling around trying to find out what's

“really happening in Washington. And I want to deliver to you, but you can help support me and my”

mission by going to TarapolMary.com, signing up for the red letter newsletter. It's a way to support my internalism. I want to thank my producer, Dan Chiffmacher, Abby Baker, who does my booking production. She does social media. She's everywhere. And Adam Stewart, who handles my thumbnails. And Dan Rose and my manager. Thanks again for tuning in. Krass, I don't feel like I'm going to be scared. Stay and I love you. Save.

With Visa, stay.