Pete Hegseth begins press conference as he faces impeachment vote: ‘It’s a political spectacle’
Pete Hegseth has started his Pentagon press conference.
He took the podium and immediately blasted Thomas Massie’s articles of impeachment against him, that the outgoing Republican introduced on Monday.
“What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight, and it’s not accountability,” Hegseth said.
“It’s a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment. Time for one man’s final days in Congress to try to do damage to this president, this country, and most irresponsibly, the warriors who defend it.”
Key events
A point that Hegseth has repeated throughout his briefing is that Thomas Massie’s resolution is merely a “policy disagreement” that defense secretary said should be solved by legislation and debate.
Hegseth also used his time today to disparage the media for ignoring military successes. “You hate the president more than you love our country, or our troops,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.
During his press conference, Hegseth was resolute that the articles of impeachment are baseless, and that all attacks were carried out legally.
“As for the articles themselves, Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen, everyone was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief, then ordered by myself, notified to Congress and executed by American warriors who did their jobs,” he said. “We destroyed terror regimes’ capabilities. We sank the boats carrying poison into our communities. We put a narco dictator in handcuffs. These are not high crimes. This is the job, and it’s the job well done.”
So far, Hegseth has simply dismissed many of Massie’s impeachment articles, running through – what he describes – as a series of defense successes.
Hegseth, instead, deemed the effort to remove him from office as an act of “sabotage”.
“It tells them that a single rogue legislator, loaded with personal animus for the president, can attempt to veto national security decisions made by the duly elected commander-in-chief. It puts a target on the backs of American warriors by signaling that Congress will undermine their missions in real time,” Hegseth said.
In his opening remarks, Hegseth yoked himself to Donald Trump, who was impeached twice in 2019 and 2021 – during his first term.
“We’ve seen this show before. They impeached President Trump over a perfect phone call. They impeached him again in his final week in office. Both times they failed,” Hegseth said.
“Now they’re trying a third time. This time against a member of his cabinet. They will fail again. And if standing with President Trump puts me in that company, I’ll take that company every day of the week.”
Hegseth noted that it has been 150 years since the last defense secretary was impeached. That was William Belknap in 1876, who served under President Ulysses S Grant. Belknap was eventually acquitted by the Senate.
Pete Hegseth begins press conference as he faces impeachment vote: ‘It’s a political spectacle’
Pete Hegseth has started his Pentagon press conference.
He took the podium and immediately blasted Thomas Massie’s articles of impeachment against him, that the outgoing Republican introduced on Monday.
“What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight, and it’s not accountability,” Hegseth said.
“It’s a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment. Time for one man’s final days in Congress to try to do damage to this president, this country, and most irresponsibly, the warriors who defend it.”
The US military said it was taking “coordinated and appropriate” security steps after flight-tracking data showed it had withdrawn at least a dozen aircraft from a second British airbase.
The removal on Monday of the American refuelling tankers and other aircraft from Mildenhall Royal Air Force (RAF) base in eastern England followed a threat from Iran, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
Citing people familiar with events, the newspaper said the “precise nature” of the Iranian threat remained “under discussion” among United States officials, AFP reported.
A spokesperson for the US military’s European Command (EUCOM) declined to discuss “specific force protection measures”, noting various factors can affect them.
“In close partnership with our host nation allies, both RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath remain vigilant,” the spokesperson added, referring to another nearby British airbase.
Donald Trump said war in Iran would end soon as he played down concerns US would escalate military campaign against Tehran after midterm elections.
During a White House press conference, Trump said Israel and Gulf allies in the region were well protected from Iran and an escalation was not needed:
Hilary Beaumont
The Senate on Monday advanced bipartisan legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for datacenters and other infrastructure projects, in the first major action since last week’s election that soundly repudiated Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
It’s a bill that would make it easier to build big infrastructure projects in America – everything from fossil fuel pipelines to transmission lines that would add more clean energy to the grid. And it would roll back environmental and social protections to achieve this goal. That is why climate advocates are torn over the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs act (Baaja).
The Senate voted on Monday to open debate on Baaja in the first of several procedural votes. Senators voted 73-25 on the cloture motion, which did not result in the bill being passed, but pushed it another step forward.
Trump urged all senators to vote for the 417-page bill, which is sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats in the Senate, but after last week’s historic “blue wave” elections, some environmental and tribal advocates called on Democratic leadership to pump the brakes.
Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and the ACLU have come out against the bill because it would significantly weaken environmental laws including the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) and accelerate the construction of gas pipelines and ICE detention centers.
Majorities of Americans want the newly elected Democratic-majority US Congress to act to end the war with Iran and to repeal tariffs put in place by president Donald Trump, signalling demand for quick action to address the high cost of living, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The four-day poll, completed on Monday, showed 71% of Americans – including 93% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans – want US Congress to pass legislation ending the conflict with Iran that Trump launched alongside US ally Israel in February.
Democrats won their largest majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives since at least 2008 in last week’s midterm elections, in a sharp rebuke to Trump’s Republicans over high costs and a deeply unpopular war. Democrats will take power when the new Congress is sworn in on 3 January.
Chris Stein
On their first day back in the Capitol after comprehensive defeats in last week’s midterm elections, Republicans were divided into two camps: those who saw the catastrophe coming, and those who did not.
“I told you exactly what was going to happen. Over and over and over, I told you,” said West Virginia senator Jim Justice. “I said really and truly, if you weren’t concerned and you were a Republican, you were living in a cave. That was my exact words.”
“No one anticipated the magnitude,” said congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio. “I mean, you can’t tell me that the guy that ran as a Democrat for senator in Mississippi thought he was going to win.”
While Scott Colom hasn’t officially been declared the winner in Mississippi’s knife-edge US Senate race – a state that has not sent a Democratic to the chamber since 1982 – there was indeed plenty of evidence before the Tuesday vote that Republicans were in for it.
Not only does the party in power historically suffer defeats in midterm elections, but Donald Trump’s approval ratings had cratered with voters, even on issues that he had previously polled well on, while Democrats had surged in both special and off-year elections.
Nonetheless, few pollsters or political analysts were publicly forecasting the 54-seat Senate majority and 254-seat House majority Democrats won – both of which may expand even further as ballot counting continues.
“People are mad, and they have a right to be mad. They’re disappointed, and they feel like we haven’t delivered, and we deserve exactly what we got,” said Senator John Curtis of Utah. His state is deeply red, but last Tuesday Democrats managed to break the Republican supermajority in the state house of representatives by gaining at least 14 seats – a feat repeated in legislatures across the country.
Hegseth to hold first news briefing since May as he faces possible impeachment
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth is set to hold a rare news conference later today as he pushes back against congressional efforts to remove him from office for alleged misconduct.
Under pressure after President Donald Trump and Vice-president JD Vance blamed the Iran war for the Republican party’s sweeping losses in midterm elections, Hegseth now faces impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.
“There’s a lot of politically motivated people who… may have substantial policy disagreements but their disagreements are with success,” Hegseth told reporters on Monday when asked about efforts to remove him.
“I couldn’t be more proud of what our president has done, the decisions that he’s made, the courageous calls that he’s made, the bold nature of our… military leadership, the skill and courage of the troops on the ground,” he said.
The impeachment efforts are being spearheaded by representative Thomas Massie, an anti-Trump Republican lawmaker who is leaving office after losing a primary contest to a candidate backed by the president, AFP reported.
Several of the articles of impeachment – which Massie introduced on Monday – relate to the Iran war, accusing Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution, which requires congressional consultation on and oversight of US military interventions.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Massie accused Hegseth of using “our troops to go seize oil for large corporations in America” and derided the Trump administration’s refusal to acknowledge the bombing of a school in Iran.
“I mean, obviously we hit it, and you can determine what kind of missiles from the range and the kind of destruction there was. I don’t think they’re going to get out of that article of impeachment by saying, ‘oh, we don’t know who bombed that school’ – although I think the president tried that for a day or two,” Massie said.
It comes as the president said that the war in Iran is “effectively over” as he played down concerns that the US would escalate its military campaign against Tehran after the midterm elections.
During a White House press conference, Trump said that Israel and Gulf allies in the region were well protected from Iran and that an escalation was not needed.
In other developments:
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Donald Trump was joined by Dana White, the CEO of UFC, at a press conference. At the conference, Trump defended Hegseth, saying his defense secretary “won two wars”, and called Massie “a stone cold loser” and “sick”.
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After saying that his deportation policy was “too tough” and offering to strike an immigration deal with Democrats in an interview on 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, Donald Trump on Monday said his administration’s deportation policy was “very strong.” “Somebody suggested, will there be amnesty? No, but— they came in. They knew the law,” Trump told reporters during a press conference today. He added that he had not spoken with incoming chief of staff Stephen Miller about any changes.
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In its first major move since last week’s elections, the Senate has advanced bipartisan legislation to speed up permitting reviews for data centers and other infrastructure projects. The Senate voted 73-25 to formally take up the bill, which would shorten the timeline for approving both clean and fossil fuel energy projects.
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A Utah judge scheduled the trial of the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk for June 2028. District Judge Tony Graf allocated 105 days for the trial. Graf said the 2028 date balances the defense’s right to prepare with the Kirk family’s desire for a speedy resolution.
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The Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to resume border wall construction in the Big Bend region of Texas. The majority paused a lower court’s decision as the case plays out. The Trump administration had filed an emergency appeal, saying there are illegal border crossings and drug seizures in the region.
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After initially saying he would accept the results of the midterm elections, Trump has begun to cast doubt Democrats’ electoral wins. “Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” he wrote on Truth Social. Democratic senator Chuck Schumer responded to Trump’s statement, saying that the president’s “return to election denialism was inevitable”.
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