More heads on a pike for anyone that dared to defy Trump and tell the truth to Congress during the House impeachment hearings. The hosts of Fox & Friends brought on a military veteran this Sunday to go after the highly decorated Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and smear him for supposedly being a selfish attention-seeker that they tried to "peer out" during his time in Army Ranger School now that Vindman has been ousted from the NSC in retaliation for testifying by Trump.
This is a claim that was first made on Twitter by so-called men's rights activist and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, who accused Vindman of being a "lazy chow thief" but said he didn't want to "out his sources."
It seems Fox managed to track down someone to attack Vindman with an aid and assist from host Pete Hegseth. According to Petry's Wikipedia page and a profile at the Office of the Command Historian, he was training to be a Ranger from 1999-2000, but he's certainly willing to pass along hearsay info from the likes of Mike Cernovich from the Ranger class of September, 2003 anyway:
PETE HEGSETH (CO-HOST): No, Leroy, I appreciate your candor, because wearing the uniform doesn't make you immune from criticism, especially if you're on the National Security Council and you've -- it's now been identified that you're probably a part of leaking, you certainly were part of a concerted effort to hurt the president, you testified against him, and then the Democrats are outraged that the president takes his prerogative to say, you serve at my pleasure, you're moving on. He's still in the military, he's just moving out of the White House. So why the outrage from people that want to hold up Vindman and say he's such a big hero?
PETRY: I think a lot of the folks that I know, when this all started, those that knew him, when he was going through Ranger School, said that he was a chow thief in Ranger School and couldn't be trusted, and they tried peering him out. And they said well I guess it hasn't changed much. And usually, folks that tried to make a big statue of something are what we call spotlighters in the military. Trying to highlight themselves as a hero, or doing something great, and you could do something great just doing your job.
HEGSETH: Leroy, let me translate that a little bit. "Chow thief" meaning when there's limited food, you're taking some so that you can have some and your buddies don't. "Spotlight ranger" is someone who, when the spotlight's on, you do a great job; when it's not, you're not necessarily helping your buddies. And to be "peered out" means your fellow peers are voting against you to graduate from that particular school. I've also heard his political allegiance, he always wore it openly. Like, we all are allowed to have political views, but he's been a left-winger his entire career, and now the president has a prerogative to get rid of him.
PETRY: Hey -- and then he'll have to accept the title of Mr. Vindman.
