GOP branded ‘sinking ship’ as House Republicans block efforts to impeach Hegseth
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Republican representative Thomas Massie compared the GOP with passengers content to go down with the Titanic after colleagues thwarted his effort to impeach defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
The vote came a week after Republicans lost control of the Senate and House of Representatives in their worst midterm election in more than a half century, and underscored how lawmakers remain wary of crossing Donald Trump, who has signaled his continued support for Hegseth.
“They know it’s a sinking ship but committed to stay on board,” Massie, a Republican congressman who lost his primary after breaking with the president, said.
Top Democrats announced their support for the resolution, but Republicans moved to kill it by referring it to the judiciary committee. Their motion succeeded on Tuesday, by a 211-204 vote, largely along party lines. Massie was the sole Republican to oppose the motion, along with all Democrats.
Trump, who was twice impeached, celebrated what he hailed as the “EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot” and lashed out at Massie for forcing the vote.
“The Democrats continue to weaponize and abuse the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social. “They must be stopped!”
The Pentagon, meanwhile, declared “total victory”. “The referral of these baseless impeachment articles to the House judiciary committee marks total victory for Secretary Hegseth, the Department of War, and the American warfighter,” Sean Parnell, a department spokesperson, wrote in a social media post.
Some 11 Democratic representatives skipped the vote, the Daily Beast reported earlier this morning, causing the articles of impeachment to fail. Among those to miss the vote was Nancy Pelosi.
If eight of them had voted with fellow Democrats the measure could have proceeded.
House Democratic leader Hakeen Jeffries said he would talk to members about whether to mount a new impeachment effort in the next Congress in January when the Democrats who triumphed in the midterm take their seats. “We’ll have that conversation at the appropriate time,” he said.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican hardliner from Ohio, won the election to become the next House minority leader in Congress. Jordan beat Representative Steve Scalise, the current majority leader, by 106-73 in a closed-door vote to lead Republicans from January. He replaces the current House speaker, Mike Jonson, who said he would not run when the GOP cedes control to Democrats in the new year.
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Meanwhile, Republicans in the upper chamber, re-elected John Thune to serve as Senate minority leader in the next Congress. The GOP senator from North Dakota didn’t face a challenger in the closed-door vote, as Democrats prepare for at least a 10-seat majority in the new year.
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Nine members of the Kennedy family sued the Trump administration in an effort to block its construction of a 250-foot triumphal arch. The family’s complaint states that the arch, which is planned for near Arlington national cemetery, would obstruct the Kennedy gravesites, the JFK Eternal Flame and the sightlines of the cemetery, “permanently diminishing these memorials.”
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A federal judge has allowed Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the BBC to proceed. Trump is suing Britain’s publicly funded broadcaster for $10bn over an edited clip that made it appear that Trump told his supporters to storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Key events
Donald Trump celebrates federal judge’s decision to allow his $10bn defamation lawsuit against BBC to proceed
After a federal judge has allowed Donald Trump’s $10bn defamation lawsuit against the BBC to proceed, the president heralded the move on Truth Social.
“A Huge Victory against Fake News BBC, a terrible abuser of the truth, just handed down by highly respected District Court Judge, Jeffrey T. Kuntz,” Trump wrote. “We will continue fighting against, and defeating, all of those who try to deceive the American People!”
The president is suing the broadcaster over an edited clip that made it appear that Trump told his supporters to storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Donald Trump is in Washington today.
In honor of veterans day, the president will head to Arlington National Cemetery with first lady Melania Trump for a wreath laying ceremony and to deliver remarks at 11am ET. After, Trump will be back in the White House for meetings.
Sam Levine
If there was one obvious conclusion from Democrats’ sweeping victories in the mid-term elections on Tuesday, it seemed to be that the Republican effort to redraw congressional districts in their favor backfired.
Starting last summer, Trump and Republican allies undertook an aggressive effort to redraw congressional districts, reconfiguring the lines to give Republican candidates an advantage. Ahead of the midterms, Republicans redrew 15 seats to their advantage. After Tuesday’s election, they appear poised to lose all but two of them. “It was definitely the wrong move,” an unnamed House Republican told Fox News. “One of the truisms in politics is never to overreach. We did and that was part of the reason for the backlash.”
The Republicans losses included defeats in Texas, Florida and North Carolina where Republicans hoped to pick up as many as 10 combined congressional seats.
“The maps themselves did fail, and failed quite epically,” said John Bisognano, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a Democratic redistricting group. “I would also argue the idea itself was an even bigger failure. Allowing an environment to be created around you in which everyone begins to realize how deeply corrupt this administration is and how fearful they are of the American people in elections, so much so that their main tactical path forward is going to be to redraw maps to steal as many voters as they can.”
But even though Republicans failed to pick up nearly all of the new seats they drew, it would be misleading to say that gerrymandering did not work at all in this election, said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a professor at Harvard who studies redistricting. Republicans didn’t pick up the seats because Democrats had the strongest midterm elections in half a century.
Treasury chief Scott Bessent is reportedly latest Trump official to move to military base
The US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has relocated from his home in the Washington area to a military base after an Iranian threat against his life, the New York Times has reported.
Bessent has spearheaded a US push to cripple Iran’s economy since the start of the Middle East war, vowing “economic asphyxiation” of the Islamic republic through a web of sanctions.
He is one of a number of senior figures in the Trump administration including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the new chief of staff, Stephen Miller, to leave their home to live on a military base or protected housing.
The US national intelligence chief, Jay Clayton, said last month that Tehran had “substantially increased” its efforts to target Americans in the Middle East and beyond.
These include intensifying the targeting of current and former US officials such as Bessent, the NYT reported on Tuesday, citing three sources familiar with the matter.
Iranian plotting against US officials has reached a “more advanced stage”, according to the anonymous sources, but the severity of the threats against Bessent was unclear.
Washington ordered non-essential US embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia last month, after increasing attacks from Tehran-backed Houthi fighters.
The US military has also removed some aircraft from two British bases in recent weeks amid reported threats from Iran.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff will travel to Moscow on Thursday, then meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Dublin after their trip to Russia, Kushner said.
Kushner, US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law, said talks between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi were a “first good step“.
Sanders says he will not support Schumer for Senate Democratic leader
Senator Bernie Sanders has confirmed that he will not be supporting senator Chuck Schumer as the Democratic majority leader in the new Congress, setting up a confrontation after the party’s sweep to power in the midterm elections.
Sanders was joined by Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan at a news conference at the Capitol, and together they said there needs to be a new generation of leadership and a vigorous debate about the party’s direction and future, AP reported.
A number of incoming Democratic senators have echoed the call, signaling that they would support another candidate over Schumer.
“The time is now for change,” said Sanders, the independent from Vermont and essentially the father of modern progressivism in the US. “And I will not be supporting Chuck to be reelected as the Democratic leader.”
Slotkin, who said she is not actively seeking the job herself, explained that she wants to see potential Senate leaders present a full plan about the priorities for the new majority. “I’m a no until and unless I see that from anyone,” she said.
The showdown has been building as Democrats swept across the Senate map to flip Republican-held seats far beyond those that were initially competitive, including in Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.
Schumer recruited high-profile candidates that helped secure the majority, including senator-elect Sherrod Brown in Ohio and senator-elect Roy Cooper in North Carolina.
But his preferred candidates also lost primaries in Michigan and Maine, with the progressive candidates prevailing and then going on to win their general elections.
Nancy Pelosi was one of 11 Democratic politicians to miss the Pete Hegseth impeachment vote.
If just eight of them had turned up to vote with their colleagues, the motion would have passed and the articles for impeachment would have moved forward.
The other Democrats recorded as not voting were Julia Brownley, Lou Correa, Laura Gillen of New York, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, Stevens of Michigan, Marilyn Strickland of Washington and Frederica Wilson of Florida, the Daily Beast reported.
House Republicans blocked an effort to impeach Hegseth, rejecting allegations that the defense secretary had repeatedly violated the constitution through his handling of the Iran war and other conflicts globally.
A motion to refer Thomas Massie’s eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth to committee passed in the House, 211-204.
The Pentagon declared “total victory” after the vote and Donald Trump celebrated the vote as an “EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot”.
GOP branded ‘sinking ship’ as House Republicans block efforts to impeach Hegseth
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Republican representative Thomas Massie compared the GOP with passengers content to go down with the Titanic after colleagues thwarted his effort to impeach defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
The vote came a week after Republicans lost control of the Senate and House of Representatives in their worst midterm election in more than a half century, and underscored how lawmakers remain wary of crossing Donald Trump, who has signaled his continued support for Hegseth.
“They know it’s a sinking ship but committed to stay on board,” Massie, a Republican congressman who lost his primary after breaking with the president, said.
Top Democrats announced their support for the resolution, but Republicans moved to kill it by referring it to the judiciary committee. Their motion succeeded on Tuesday, by a 211-204 vote, largely along party lines. Massie was the sole Republican to oppose the motion, along with all Democrats.
Trump, who was twice impeached, celebrated what he hailed as the “EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot” and lashed out at Massie for forcing the vote.
“The Democrats continue to weaponize and abuse the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social. “They must be stopped!”
The Pentagon, meanwhile, declared “total victory”. “The referral of these baseless impeachment articles to the House judiciary committee marks total victory for Secretary Hegseth, the Department of War, and the American warfighter,” Sean Parnell, a department spokesperson, wrote in a social media post.
Some 11 Democratic representatives skipped the vote, the Daily Beast reported earlier this morning, causing the articles of impeachment to fail. Among those to miss the vote was Nancy Pelosi.
If eight of them had voted with fellow Democrats the measure could have proceeded.
House Democratic leader Hakeen Jeffries said he would talk to members about whether to mount a new impeachment effort in the next Congress in January when the Democrats who triumphed in the midterm take their seats. “We’ll have that conversation at the appropriate time,” he said.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
-
Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican hardliner from Ohio, won the election to become the next House minority leader in Congress. Jordan beat Representative Steve Scalise, the current majority leader, by 106-73 in a closed-door vote to lead Republicans from January. He replaces the current House speaker, Mike Jonson, who said he would not run when the GOP cedes control to Democrats in the new year.
-
Meanwhile, Republicans in the upper chamber, re-elected John Thune to serve as Senate minority leader in the next Congress. The GOP senator from North Dakota didn’t face a challenger in the closed-door vote, as Democrats prepare for at least a 10-seat majority in the new year.
-
Nine members of the Kennedy family sued the Trump administration in an effort to block its construction of a 250-foot triumphal arch. The family’s complaint states that the arch, which is planned for near Arlington national cemetery, would obstruct the Kennedy gravesites, the JFK Eternal Flame and the sightlines of the cemetery, “permanently diminishing these memorials.”
-
A federal judge has allowed Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the BBC to proceed. Trump is suing Britain’s publicly funded broadcaster for $10bn over an edited clip that made it appear that Trump told his supporters to storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
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