The Rule of Law and Military Deployments: A Critical Clash in the Senate

This segment centers on a heated exchange between Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA officer, and Senator Shehy (R-MT), a former Navy SEAL officer, during a Senate committee hearing. The primary conflict revolves around the President’s use of the military domestically and the legality and political implications of that use, specifically concerning National Guard deployments and the controversial topic of military personnel being instructed on how to handle orders deemed “illegal.”

The host, Brian, frames the discussion with a highly judgmental and partisan tone, accusing Slotkin of “nonsense” and “sedition,” while portraying Senator Shehy as the voice of reason and adherence to the law.

The Debate on Illegal Orders and Sedition

The core political tension is ignited by Senator Slotkin’s reference to a video she and other veteran lawmakers, dubbed the “Seditious Six” by critics, released. This video reportedly urged service members and intelligence professionals to refuse orders they deemed “illegal.”

Slotkin’s View (The Authoritarian Playbook): Slotkin argues that the President’s rhetoric—calling for the military to go after the “enemy within” and floating the idea of using “uniform military surrounding polling locations” (0:26)—sends a “shiver down the spine of every American.” She frames this as following an “authoritarianism playbook” she has seen “over and over and over again in other countries.” Her concern is centered on the principle of using the military in a way that undermines democracy and trust.

Shehy’s Counter (The Legal and Policy Reality): Senator Shehy immediately dismisses Slotkin’s legal posturing as an attempt by “constitutional scholars and law of the sea scholars [to] parachute from the rafters” during a political debate. He gets a Pentagon attorney, Mr. Young, to confirm that, to his knowledge, the President has not issued any illegal orders related to National Guard deployments and that the Ninth Circuit has ruled in that favor. Shehy uses this to shift the focus from a theoretical legal argument to a policy argument about national security.

The Host’s Verdict (Sedition): The host, Brian, condemns the lawmakers’ message as “literal sedition” (5:07), even while acknowledging they may be “pedantically correct” (5:48) by defining their statement narrowly as urging the refusal of illegal orders. He argues that this rhetoric is an “undermining of our democracy” and claims that Slotkin and others are “actively telling soldiers, ‘Nah, you don’t have to do that’” (9:41), opening up service members to future prosecution if the party in power shifts.

It is important to note that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) does, in fact, hold that service members have a duty to obey all lawful orders but also a duty to refuse manifestly unlawful orders. The political controversy stems from the timing, context, and the perceived motivation behind the lawmakers’ public reminder.

National Security vs. Constitutional Threat

The argument pivots as Senator Shehy redefines the military’s current deployment as a justified response to a severe national security emergency:

The Border/Crime Emergency: Shehy argues that the influence of “transnational criminal organizations that fill our country with fentanyl, poison… human trafficking” is a national security threat being “fueled by foreign powers” (2:14). He claims that the annual death toll from fentanyl overdoses (70,000 Americans) and associated crime is a greater emergency than 9/11 (which killed 5,000), justifying the use of the National Guard for protection against mugging, carjacking, and other threats in cities.

The Political Choice: Shehy directly blames the administration for the problem, stating they “selectively opened our border. It was a choice. They made the choice to do that” (3:46). He accuses Slotkin of “imputing the integrity of our people in uniform” (4:14) by questioning the legality of the deployments, which he argues are what the American people have asked for.

The Running-Amok Judiciary

The host concludes his analysis with a highly critical view of the third branch of government: the judiciary.

Weakest Branch Now Strongest: Brian asserts that the Founding Fathers deliberately made the judiciary the “weakest branch of the federal government” (7:45). He claims the entire American judicial system is “running a muk” (8:29) and has become “the only truly functioning member of the three branches of our government” (8:35).

Hog-Tied Executive: The host argues that the executive branch is being “quite literally being hog tied by a judiciary system that has no… longer has been reigned in by Congress” (8:41), citing judges who “magically found a case that allows him to halt operations” (7:31) as a sign of this overreach.

The central takeaway for the host is that the government is dysfunctional, with the legislature failing to check the judiciary, while Democratic senators like Slotkin are engaging in “borderline sedition” (11:05) under the guise of the rule of law.