Talking Feds closes out 2025 with a close look at the institutional damage and lawlessness Trump has imposed on an essential arm of the U.S. government: the Department of Defense. CNN's Natasha Bertrand, the Washington Post's Alex Horton, and retired Major General Steven J. Lepper take Harry inside a Pentagon transformed by cowboy-in-chief Pete Hegseth. Why is the U.S. blowing up boats near Latin America? Did Hegseth oversee a war crime in the Caribbean? And what are the potential domestic dangers of the legal reasoning powering Trump's new uses of the military?  

Mentioned in this episode:

Natasha's reporting:  https://www.cnn.com/profiles/natasha-bertrand-profile#about

Alex's reporting:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/alex-horton/

General Lepper's analysis:  https://www.justsecurity.org/author/leppersteven/

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