There may be a surprising reason why President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called an in-person meeting of America's top military brass this week, according to a former Trump-world insider.
Lev Parnas, who worked as a political operative during Trump's first presidential campaign, wrote in a recent Substack essay that Trump and Hegseth were looking for signs of dissent during the meeting. That could help explain why there were so many obviously choreographed moments.
"After breaking fast tonight, while preparing for dinner and catching up on the flood of missed calls and messages, I heard from sources I trust," Parnas wrote. "And what I heard stopped me cold."
"The reason Trump and Pete Hegseth gathered all those generals in one room was not just about a loyalty speech or a pep rally," he continued. "I’m hearing that the Trump team used artificial intelligence and facial-recognition technology during those briefings to monitor the generals’ reactions in real time."
"Every eyebrow raise, every flicker of doubt, every moment of discomfort was scanned and analyzed by an algorithm designed to detect who would obey orders without question—and who might resist," he continued.
Parnas added that the Trump administration appears to be using the technology on its own people as well.
"This same technology is being used as a tool inside Trump’s orbit — a quiet weapon of power, deployed by his loyalists to identify and weed out whistleblowers and anyone who isn’t completely obedient," Parnas wrote. "This is how authoritarian power consolidates itself — by quietly monitoring every reaction, every hesitation, every private doubt, and turning it into a scorecard of allegiance."