# Why I Don't Speak American

An episode of [Paul Krugman Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1877144831), 10 Mar 2026, 5:22.

Audio: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/190519163/82cf7bb28c5f5154ca9598b93e73b364.mp3

At a summit with Latin American leaders over the weekend, Marco Rubio said a few words in Spanish. Then Pete Hegseth popped up to say “I only speak American.” And that’s why we’re facing disaster in the Persian Gulf. Get full access to Paul Krugman at paulkrugman.substack.com/subscribe

## Transcript

[0:01] SPEAKER_00: What language am I speaking right now?
[0:04] SPEAKER_00: Pete Hegseth,
[0:06] SPEAKER_00: who calls himself the Secretary of the War,
[0:08] SPEAKER_00: though legally he's still the Secretary of Defense,
[0:11] SPEAKER_00: says that I'm speaking American.
[0:13] SPEAKER_00: And that is why gasoline,
[0:15] which was under $3 when President Trump gave the State of the
[0:19] Union address,
[0:20] SPEAKER_00: is now $3.55.
[0:20] SPEAKER_00: Hi, Paul Krugman.
[0:23] SPEAKER_00: Update,
[0:24] SPEAKER_00: not so much economics,
[0:26] SPEAKER_00: though everything is related now,
[0:27] SPEAKER_00: but I just wanted to vet a little bit
[0:30] about what I think is a crucial underlying piece of this
[0:35] horrible story in Iran and
[0:38] SPEAKER_00: the Persian Gulf.
[0:40] SPEAKER_00: Everyone,
[0:41] SPEAKER_00: pretty much everyone except loyalists looking at this keeps on saying,
[0:45] SPEAKER_00: what were they thinking?
[0:46] SPEAKER_00: How could they not have,
[0:48] SPEAKER_00: and then list of things,
[0:49] SPEAKER_00: how could they not have seen that Iran,
[0:53] SPEAKER_00: which produces the drones that have wreaked such havoc in Ukraine,
[0:57] SPEAKER_00: or that
[0:59] starting a war where Iran stands on one side of the narrow
[1:05] strait that links 20% of
[1:06] SPEAKER_00: the world's oil supply to world markets that would drive up prices,
[1:11] SPEAKER_00: it just all seems really hard to believe.
[1:14] SPEAKER_00: There are reports from allegedly knowledgeable sources that
[1:20] that the administration expected Iran to cave or they thought
[1:23] that decapitating the
[1:24] regime would lead to regime change as opposed to replacing an
[1:30] 86-year-old religious
[1:32] SPEAKER_00: fanatic who hates America with his 56-year-old son,
[1:36] SPEAKER_00: religious fanatic who hates America.
[1:38] SPEAKER_00: But in any case,
[1:42] SPEAKER_00: what I thought was really telling was really not about this at all,
[1:44] SPEAKER_00: but it was deeply revealing.
[1:46] SPEAKER_00: So there was a
[1:47] a summit meeting with 12 Latin American leaders in Miami over
[1:52] the weekend.
[1:53] SPEAKER_00: It was introducing the Shield of the Americas, which is whatever that is.
[1:58] It's what Kristi Noem is supposed to be doing in lieu of her
[2:03] job,
[2:04] previous job.
[2:06] SPEAKER_00: And Marco Rubio got up and said a few words in Spanish.
[2:11] SPEAKER_00: Okay, no, not an unreasonable thing to do.
[2:15] SPEAKER_00: Then Pete Hickseff got up and said, I only speak American.
[2:19] SPEAKER_00: So, okay, first of all, you know, actually I only speak English.
[2:25] SPEAKER_00: But I'm not proud of it.
[2:26] SPEAKER_00: I wish that I'd learned something when I was younger.
[2:29] It's kind of odd to be,
[2:32] you know,
[2:32] boasting about your lack of other knowledge.
[2:39] SPEAKER_00: It's also...
[2:40] This was a conference with Latin Americans and who consider
[2:47] themselves Americans.
[2:49] SPEAKER_00: The name might give you a clue.
[2:52] It's something that was to create an organization called the
[2:56] Shield of the Americas,
[2:57] plural.
[2:58] SPEAKER_00: That might give you a clue.
[3:02] SPEAKER_00: What the hell?
[3:03] SPEAKER_00: But this is exalting.
[3:05] SPEAKER_00: This is basically saying,
[3:06] SPEAKER_00: I'm ignorant,
[3:08] SPEAKER_00: and I'm stupid,
[3:10] SPEAKER_00: and that's what makes me effective and tough.
[3:12] SPEAKER_00: This is an exalting lack of expertise, lack of hard thought.
[3:18] SPEAKER_00: So why be surprised?
[3:21] SPEAKER_00: And of course, Hexeth is not there because he's an outlier.
[3:25] SPEAKER_00: He's there because he's the kind of guy that this administration likes.
[3:29] And you see the same kind of belligerent ignorance showing up
[3:37] on basically every
[3:39] SPEAKER_00: front in current policy.
[3:42] SPEAKER_00: And...
[3:43] SPEAKER_00: So why be surprised?
[3:45] SPEAKER_00: The war should have been, at least in part, Hegseth's domain.
[3:49] He should have been the one raising realistic questions about
[3:52] how it was going to go.
[3:53] SPEAKER_00: He should be the one making this work.
[3:58] SPEAKER_00: As far as we know,
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: there were,
[4:00] SPEAKER_00: in fact,
[4:00] SPEAKER_00: professionals in the military who did try to warn about this,
[4:05] SPEAKER_00: but they've been getting fired.
[4:09] SPEAKER_00: By the way, I have actually had dealings with U.S.
[4:12] SPEAKER_00: officers at various times in the past.
[4:14] SPEAKER_00: I've given talks at West Point.
[4:16] SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
[4:16] SPEAKER_00: military is very smart, quite intellectual, very well informed, or was.
[4:22] SPEAKER_00: There's a question of how much it's been degraded by current management.
[4:26] SPEAKER_00: It's pretty fast, but still.
[4:28] SPEAKER_00: But in any case, that's how we got to where we are.
[4:31] It's really this notion that being tough and swaggering and
[4:38] ignoring all of those
[4:40] SPEAKER_00: pesky complaints from people who claim to know something about a subject,
[4:43] SPEAKER_00: that that's how you get stuff done.
[4:48] SPEAKER_00: And of course, here we are.
[4:49] SPEAKER_00: And actually, I don't know where we are.
[4:51] SPEAKER_00: We're all very unclear about what the state of the war is,
[4:55] SPEAKER_00: although it's horrific,
[4:56] SPEAKER_00: and I have a feeling that we may have swung from
[4:59] SPEAKER_00: oh my God,
[5:00] SPEAKER_00: it's the end of the world economy,
[5:01] SPEAKER_00: which was overstated,
[5:02] SPEAKER_00: to,
[5:03] SPEAKER_00: well,
[5:03] SPEAKER_00: it's all over now because Trump says that we've won,
[5:06] SPEAKER_00: which I think is probably overstated.
[5:08] SPEAKER_00: See how that wears in the next 24 hours or so.
[5:11] SPEAKER_00: But anyway, my God, you know, deliberately being dumb is not good policy.
[5:20] SPEAKER_00: Take care.

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