Former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall expressed his alarm on MSNBC's "The Weeknight" over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's mass meeting with generals, who have been summoned from all over the world.
But he also had a few words of optimism that, whatever the Trump administration is doing to put political pressure on the military, the generals are professional enough to serve their country.
"I've had a couple of conversations with folks in the military space the past few days about this meeting," said anchor and former RNC chairman Michael Steele. "And to a person, they were stressed. And you know that it takes a lot to get a general stressed about stuff. They were really concerned about a couple of things. One was this idea of fealty that in this moment, the expectation would be a sort of a culling of those who were supportive of the president and what he wanted to do, and those who weren't supportive of the president."
"What have you heard from your conversations?" Steele said. "Is that a legitimate expectation or concern that these generals should have going into this, particularly being used politically and forced to take a side when that's not their mission?"
"Michael, I think that the concern about being used politically is very real," said Kendall. "Perhaps there has been a culling of a sort. I mean, generals have been let go without cause. Never seen that before. Quite a few of them, a couple dozen now. And it is not clear exactly why that's been done. Loyalty seems to be what they're after."
That being said, he continued, the meeting itself may not be quite as big a departure from tradition as some fear.
"So the originalreporting was that Secretary Hegseth would talkabout fitness. He talked aboutgrooming. He talked aboutwarrior ethos, which is reallysort of the code of puttingthe mission first, neverleaving anybody behind, thingslike that. Well established, bythe way, not something new withSecretary Hegseth."
The issue, he said, is that "now President Trump's going to speak."
"Also,it's hard for me to imaginethat President Trump will givea talk that isn't political," he said. That being the case, he added, "Ithink our officers areprofessional. They will sitthere. They will, you know,stone-faced probably, and listento this, you know, clappolitely when it's time to clapand, you know, go about theirjobs and get back to work. They all got to get home andwherever they are, work andprepare for potential shutdown."