Pete Hegseth 'gets a proper telling off'

You mentioned the midterms there. I understand we finally have a result in Mississippi. What was going on there, remind me? We certainly do. Look, Sheila, I mean, American, not only presidential elections, but midterm elections tend to be dominated by the same clutch handful of states. One of the most remarkable things about what the Democrats achieved last week was the expansion of the electoral map to include places like Kansas, to include places like Texas, from which I was reporting last week, South Carolina. No one had Mississippi in mind. Now, for people who don't know the United States, Mississippi, at the heart of the Deep South, at the heart of the old Confederacy, that was the secessionist movement in the 1860s that started the Civil War, a bunch of white, a state that has been dominated even before the Civil War, but right up to the 1960s, dominated by white supremacists, dominated by segregation, dominated by Jim Crow laws, dominated by the KKK at various points. That's despite the fact, of course, that Mississippi... It has a very large black population. In fact, it's got the largest black population in percentage terms of anywhere in the South, largely the descendants of slaves. It was a state which until, just to give you a sense of the kind of politics of the place, until 2020... And the George Floyd protests, it had the Confederate flag as part of its state flag. Still, the Confederacy, an organization that was dedicated to slavery and to white supremacy. They've just elected, for the first time since Reconstruction, since the 1860s, since the end of the Civil War, their first black senator. Indeed, it's the first time they've ever elected a black senator because the senators back then were appointed. A guy called Scott Cullum. It wasn't until the last days of the campaign that people started saying, maybe this guy's got a chance here for reasons we can get into. Part of it, of course, was the same trends that we were seeing across the rest of the country. People very dissatisfied about high gas prices, the Iran war, tariffs, what they were seeing in terms of grocery prices and all of those sorts of things. He managed to, as I say, first black senator there since the 1860s, he managed to... ...coalesce or bring together the different trends that were going on across the country, some of which I've just described, and one of them, of course, as well, has been that even though Mississippi has got the biggest black population anywhere in the South, historically speaking, they've tended to turn out less than whites in the state. Different reasons that wasn't true this time. Whites voting for Democrats in greater numbers than in the past, partly because Donald Trump has alienated so profoundly his heartland base. Rural voters, as a result of tariffs, as a result of the Iran war and high diesel prices and all those sorts of things, and black voters turning out in record numbers, Sheila, partly because the... Trump-packed Supreme Court decided to gut something called the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act was a 1960s piece of legislation that was designed to give access and make sure that black voters in the South had access to the polling booths and were able to vote. That was gutted recently by the Supreme Court. Black voters coming out in record numbers to express their dissatisfaction about that. And what this means is actually... This is the way to do it. And what this means now, Sheila, of course, is the Dems look like they're going to get 56, 57 seats maybe in the Senate. This is a large number of seats of the hundred in the Senate. And it means, for example, that as a result of the fact people might not know, but senators are only elected every six years in the United States. These senators elected from these unusual, usually ruby red Republican states. They're going to be there until 2032, right? And that makes it harder for the Republicans to get the Senate back any time soon. In fact, probably until the 2030s is their next opportunity, which means that even if you had a Republican president, the Democrats will have a lot of power. So these are very, very important, significant elections which are going to be felt for years to come. That's fascinating. I wasn't that familiar with the detail of Mississippi. That's fascinating. Now, I mentioned Pete Hegseth have got himself into trouble. Telling off yesterday, didn't they? Have a listen before we discuss it. This is a moment that a soldier guard in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in America issued a verbal reprimand, and then some, to a group of advisers and staffers accompanying the Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, on the Veterans Day ceremony just after it at Arlington National Cemetery. Have a listen. Turns out frat boy Pete ain't always the most diplomatic. The warrior. Brill cream Pete ain't always. Look, even, it takes something, doesn't it, Sheila, when even the unknown soldier makes his position known. I mean, seriously. I mean, you know, a place of absolute silence. Even Pete Hegseth can manage to somehow screw that up. Unknown soldier manages to sort of maintain his silence for over a century, but Pete Hegseth really manages to wind him up the wrong way. But it's interesting, isn't it, Hal, because what's certainly been characterised by Pete Hegseth, but also, I think, by the Trump White House more generally, is this anything goes, we're here now, we're in charge now kind of vibe about them. And yet... Whoever was doing the shouting there, the guy who told them off, he understood his mission and his mission was to protect the respect of that too. Well, look. And he didn't care who he had to tell off. Look, these guys, I mean, again, for people who don't know, it's a bit like our own, you know, these guys, these soldiers who spend all day, every day in their finest dress uniform. Guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier and everything that represents of all of those lost and fallen, in this case, American soldiers in war after war, whose bodies were never recovered, who were never found. I mean, in our own case, we have the cenotaph. Cenotaph in Greek literally means empty tomb to represent that emptiness, to represent the fact that absence, that absence, that they were never found, that they could never be found. Rightly so. I mean, we should all take that seriously. Seriously, wherever we're from, Whatever we think about war, because these sacrifices were made with nobility in mind. But of course, for a soldier, I can't imagine how much that must mean. Thinking about one's comrades and thinking about one's friends. And then the guy who is supposed to be in so many ways the custodian of that. And I think that's what many people find objectionable. You know, there have been some pretty dodgy characters. Who have been Defence Secretary of the United States. Who've done some pretty dodgy things. Everyone thinks about Donald Rumsfeld or McNamara. Lots of these sorts of people through history have made some questionable decisions. I can't think of any who seem to have such. There's a phrase that's small something energy. You know, that seems to apply with Hegseth. It's he seems to be playing a part of the tough guy. All of those other men had a respect. And they've all been men. Respect for sometimes been ex-soldiers themselves in many cases. respect for the office they held and a certain decorum about it. And Hegseth instead is trying to pretend that he's something that he isn't. And he probably knows that deep down. And so those things sort of come through. Look, the guy was a Fox News host. And the way he speaks, you know, those press conferences in the early months of the war in Iran, he was gleeful. And no soldier is gleeful. No true soldier is gleeful about war because they know the cost of it. Thank you. Can I just a bit of trivia? Do you know who the last black senator from Mississippi, do you know his name? The last black senator... I mean, it'd be remarkable if you did at this point. I'm going to... Was it a long, long time ago? 1875 to 1881. No, then. Blanche K. Bruce. That's a great name, isn't it? He was himself born into slavery. He was a slave and he became the first black senator to serve a full six-year term. So shout-out to Blanche. Shout-out to Blanche. That's not what I expected to be saying this afternoon. Lewis, thank you. Lewis Goodall, host of the Newsagents podcast.