reSee.it Video Transcript AI Summary
Brandon Newsom, a civil servant with the office of the Secretary of the Navy in the Pentagon, told an undercover interviewer while disguised with a mustache that he implements executive orders from President Trump affecting the Navy, overseeing corporate operations including HR, IT, and security. He said he reads executive orders, figures out how they will be implemented, and how they affect the Navy. Newsom also said he disagrees with certain Trump administration actions but plans to stay in his position until Trump leaves office so he can “undo whatever has been done,” describing himself as having “influence” rather than lawful authority.
Newsom told the interviewer he does not want the Pentagon to hold prayer service as it is currently implemented. Although he said he is a Christian, he argued against a specific Christian-only prayer service and said he would either remove it or implement a prayer service for all recognized religions. He claimed that the Pentagon’s leadership takes notice of who attends or opts out of the prayer service, “noticing who’s there and who’s not there,” and suggested this could lead to favoritism or discrimination. The transcript notes that the Pentagon Memorial Chapel is described as a 24-hour interfaith space and that Pete Hegseth said in May 2025 he intended a monthly volunteer prayer service there, and it states that critics raised concerns about government endorsement.
The interviewer and Newsom also discussed “schedule policy,” described as an executive order that moves career civil service classification into the “expected service,” reclassifying approximately 8,000 career civil servants largely at or above the GS-15 level. The transcript says this removes positions from competitive service, reducing job protections and making it easier to fire officials deemed unaligned with Trump priorities, with unions and critics arguing it enables political firing; Reuters reported unions sued over this policy. Newsom said he was “converted to schedule policy,” which he said sent away his employment protections, and he said he is negatively impacted but believes the policy is being used to slow-roll or enforce agendas.
Newsom said many Pentagon contracts being terminated were data-related, but that a larger data contract was later awarded to Palantir. He suggested this pattern was due to senior Pentagon officials being friends with contributors who donate to campaigns. The transcript says the interviewer’s team was unable to confirm donations directly to Pentagon officials, but it says Palantir acquired the largest overhaul of data-related contracts in the history of the US Army on 07/31/2025: 75 contracts worth $10,000,000,000, and that earlier Pete Hegseth and “DogE” cut $580,000,000 in contracts from the Pentagon for not being aligned with Trump priorities.
Newsom characterized Trump as a “textbook narcissist” and said the war in Iran is driven by “one man’s ego,” adding that the interviewer’s undercover encounter and Newsom’s comments about overturning policies while holding a GS-15 position were presented as noteworthy. The transcript also includes references to Hatch Act limits on partisan political expression by government employees and describes how Newsom acknowledged the undercover interviewer could be a reporter while also telling him what he did not want shared.