The Final 5: November 09, 2026

Another fan took to the court and did the exact same thing. Two fans, two miraculous shots, $20,000 won. The Cavs say this is the first time this has ever happened in the history of this promotion. The Cavs are now 5-6 on the season after an embarrassing loss to the Hornets tonight. So they could use whatever those fans got. That's enough sports talk from me tonight. Here's the Final Five with Jim Loke. Right now, the final five now entering the briefing room, UFC's Dana White, the effort to impeach Pete Hegseth and a lawmaker whose office was moved to the basement gets revenge. This is not office space. This is the final five. Let's do this. Let's go. Hey, welcome into the final five on this Monday night. We're going to start on the White House press briefing room, which I think is safe to say. Is that some interesting turnover as of late? The most recent spell, of course, started when Caroline Leavitt stepped down from the role after coming back from maternity leave. In her absence, a string of high-ranking Trump administration officials have given occasional White House briefings, up until, of course, last month, when we got Katie, Sharon, Zachariah. She's not dead. She just served as White House press secretary for five days or a little less than half a Scaramucci. But then, then, then, folks, this weekend, the president said, quote, I am pleased to announce the great Dana White, a violent fighter and warrior, has been offered the job of press secretary of the United States. Yeah. That Dana White, the CEO of UFC and the founder of things like Power Slap and something called Zuffa Boxing, because who better to share the message of the President of the United States in these tough, trying times? Sure enough, guess who showed up in the briefing today? I've always wanted to do this. Who has the first question? I have zero political aspirations. I was in a fight for Zuffa Boxing in London when he called me and told me that he had done this, and the last 24 hours of my life has been insane. But, yeah, good to see you. So with Dana White in the press briefing room, what better time than to check in on Final Five Sports? This time... Because a reporter asked White a burning question in the hearts of Americans far and wide. Will President Trump pardon Pete Rose, that Major League Baseball star whose career spans decades but was banned in 1989 for gambling on the Cincinnati Reds while managing the team? White said he would support it, and the president offered his response as well. I'd give Pete Rose a pardon. All right, let's make it happen. I think Pete Rose was very mistreated. He was, you know, 4,200 and some odd hits. way ahead of anybody else. A record can never be broken. And he was caught gambling. Now it's legal, right? But he was gambling on his own team, Dana. He wasn't gambling against. That's different. He was gambling. He shouldn't have done it, but he went through 40 years of hell and they never, and they should have given him a pardon. They should have given him into the baseball hall of fame. Now, here's the thing. The president has a point because gambling is rampant throughout sports. Now everything's brought to you by DraftKings or FanDuel, or whatever. Before he died in 2024, Rose, who became a Fox Sports baseball commentator, also pleaded guilty to felony charges of filing false tax returns and a lawsuit accused him of having sex with girls as young as 12 when he was a player. But never mind all that. So let me ask, wait, wait, wait. So let me ask you the big question. Dana, would you like to be press secretary of the United States of America? Look at the sign. You'd have this behind you all the time. The White House, Washington. Would you like that? Or do you just want to stay with this ridiculous UFC? I've seen it. Thank you for the offer, sir. For the offer, I have no, I do not want to be in politics. I am devastated to hear this. Okay, so that's all been put to rest. Let's talk about Congress being back in town. They are officially in the lame duck session after taking several weeks off to let members campaign ahead of the midterms. And one of the first orders of business is another attempt to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. This morning, outgoing Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced eight articles of impeachment. Some topics they cover include the war in Iran. Hegseth is accused of violating the War Powers Act by... Carrying out a war without approval from Congress, he's also accused of kidnapping a foreign leader in the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Others include suppression of free speech. Remember last year when the Pentagon required reporters sign an agreement to do things like not even ask about classified topics or turn in their press badges, which many reporters decided to do? Hegseth's also accused of doing that, but he doesn't seem too concerned. So here's the thing. Massey introduced the articles of a privilege resolution, which means the House has to take a vote within the next two days. We are expected to hear a rare press conference tomorrow from the Pentagon. Hegseth behind the lectern. Massey seems to be looking forward to that one. Since we saw the secretary scheduled his own press conference, that they're gonna let him deliver a rebuttal. And to that point, I hope he addresses the eight articles and doesn't get up and misquote the Bible in Quentin Tarantino fashion and do some pull ups and call everybody fat and gay for being for this impeachment. Like, I may have just given you half his speech, I don't know. A couple of things Massey might be referring to there. One, the Pentagon has changed rules on things like PT tests. Hegseth brings that one up a lot. Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. The other thing Massey mentioned was a reference to Quentin Tarantino's 1994 epic Pulp Fiction. That goes back to a prayer Hegseth made during a worship service at the Pentagon last year. And the best we could tell, he was quoting the book of Ezekiel in the Bible, which reads, quote, and I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes, and they shall know that I am the Lord, and when I shall lay my vengeance upon you. That's from the King James Version of the Bible. But as many people pointed out online after Hagseth's comments, he seemed to be using the Quentin Tarantino version. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. Impeaching Hegseth would be historic. It would require a great deal of bipartisanship because if the House impeaches him, it would have to clear the Senate with a supermajority or Hegseth would be acquitted and nothing would happen. That's one of the same reasons impeachment rarely ever leads to someone being removed from office. Both times President Trump was impeached, the Senate acquitted him. But what impeaching him now would do would also give President Trump a chance to pick his replacement and approve that replacement in the lame duck Congress in which Republicans still control the Senate. So if the president... Once a new defense secretary without having to compromise with the Democratic Senate, something has to happen before January, and newly elected Democrats may not play ball with him then. I'd like to impeach Pete Hegseth. I'd like to impeach Kash Patel. I'd like to impeach RFK Jr. They've all sold out the American people. I know you won't have a vote this week, but do you think Pete Hegseth should be impeached? Absolutely. Pete Hegseth at this point has proven, in my opinion, that he's not the man for the job. If America is going to make another 250 years, we have to be able to do course correction. And right now, the best course correction would be impeachment of PXA. So I don't know what the equivalent is in the House. Remember senioritis, you were in high school last couple months of your senior year and you really didn't care much? Well, that could be where Thomas Massie is because as he forces a vote, it would seem like he's acting without the blessing of Republican leadership. So reporters asked him today if he discussed it with anybody. They even asked him if he discussed it with former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who did not show up for work for about three months straight earlier this year. And when he returned, He was wheeled into the Capitol to take part in votes and barely ever spoke to reporters. To either of them or to Senator McConnell's team or Senator McConnell himself about this effort and where they stand on this issue of impeaching Pete Hegseth. I have not. But if it were possible to have a conversation with McConnell, I would like to know why he didn't vote to confirm Hegseth. Massey lost his primary this year after remaking his identity over the last couple of years. Also, last winter, and this could have been the straw that broke the camel's back, he was the one who forced a vote on the Epstein Transparency Act, which ultimately passed Congress and was signed by President Trump. It said the DOJ has to release all material they are still sitting on in regard to the Epstein files, and many still claim today they have not. So the president endorsed Massie's challenger in what became the single most expensive house race in American history, and now President Trump calls him a loser. I I love this game. Okay, okay, because when in doubt, you blame the media, right? Has he been fighting us in the war? Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you this question. Who are you with? Who are you with? MSNBC. MSNBC? That's a fake... There's a piece of it. MSNBC gets the worst ratings in their history. Used to be MSNBC. It's one of the worst... You're a fake network. Go ahead. By the way, we should point out that MSNBC, in terms of ratings on election night, outdrew CBS, the network that President Trump sat down with last night. Back after this in the Final Five. Black voters showed up in a big way in the midterms, helping Democrats reverse some of the gains that President Trump made with them in 2024. But was this a return to the Democratic Party? Our warning that black voters are willing to move when they don't see results. Brandon Tensley covers national politics for Capital B News. He's up late with me tonight here on the Final Five. Hey, Brandon, welcome to the show. It's good to see you tonight. Hi, thank you for having me. We appreciate it very much. So black voters moved back towards Democrats after the president made those gains. Black men especially. We saw a big shift back there. Is this a one-off? Is this an anomaly? Or do we think that there are some material changes we saw in the last couple of years? Right. I think it might be a couple of things. I think on the one hand, we do have the fact that, you know, this the midterms were occurring under an administration that has become extremely unpopular. So I think that's one thing. But then I think the second thing is that black voters historically have gravitated toward the Democratic Party. And so not unlike how, you know. In presidential elections with like Barack Obama or someone like that, we might see these like huge sort of like shifts of black voters turning out for the Democratic Party. And then afterwards, people are like, oh, is this sort of, you know, the numbers died down a little bit. Is this going back to are they peeling away from the Democratic Party, going toward the Republican Party? And I think what we've actually been seeing is sort of like a leveling out with black voters sort of favoring the Democratic Party on the whole because of the policy stances of a lot of the candidates. And so I think we have that combined with the fact that the administration isn't polling very well in terms of its popularity and the fact that I think a lot of voters did see Donald Trump on the ballot. I think those things influenced the turnout that we had on Tuesday night. Yeah, you mentioned turnout. I mean, that is the key here, because we saw it just all factors. You saw all sorts of voters showing up, many people who sat out previous elections. And I know midterms aren't necessarily they aren't always the marquee races, especially on the state level. But on the state level, we saw a monumental shift as well with with now we'll have five African-American governors serving at the same time. So we saw voters turn out. And by the way, both Democratic, we have four Democratic governors and a Republican governor in Ron DeSantis, Florida. Yeah. And I think one thing to me that's very interesting about the turnout conversation is that when I have been talking with residents, with organizers in a lot of these different communities, a lot of them told me that they have not seen the level of enthusiasm around a midterm election in a very long time. And the fact that these were midterm elections that got the kind of attention and got the kind of seriousness as a presidential election. And so I think that, again, sort of like goes back to the political climate that we find ourselves in right now, where we had a lot of different issues that were animating people, black voters in particular, to turn out last Tuesday. But then also the different stances of a lot of the candidates that, you know, they were and were not resonating with black voters. I saw a graphic out of Georgia where you have these eight statewide races. And it was a view of who holds those offices now. And then after inauguration, you will have seven of these eight offices, top offices. filled not just by African-Americans, African-American women. And that has been a group that many people, many African-American women believe throughout the years, maybe the Democratic Party took them a little bit for granted. We saw that happening here in Maryland a few years ago when we had a congresswoman by the name of Donna Edwards running against Chris Van Hollen in a primary. But fast forward to two years ago, and Maryland sends Angela Also Brooks to the U.S. Senate. So is the Democratic Party, have they learned lessons from the past now? I think it's a combination of learning lessons from the past and then just really sort of almost like a perfect storm of issues that are just causing people to turn out. But then also... I think one thing that we're seeing is like a lot of sort of like an influx of different kinds of Democrats who have been running. Right. You know, one of the biggest conversations of the past at least six months has been DSA candidates, more progressive Democrats on the ballot. You know, who are the kinds of candidates who you know, which kind of candidates do black voters think can sort of be fighters for this particular. political moment. And so I think we're seeing this sort of like influx of, you know, black women in particular who are running for these offices, who I think are bringing the kind of fire that really resonates with black voters. And this is the kind of. Um, politicking, uh, that I think a lot of people want to see at this moment. There was a term, uh, that I've seen, I've seen used in, and I believe capital B is used this term, the backlash. And you look at, look at how you mentioned the topics, the affordability, but also in the last two years, we saw the, uh, the voting rights act eviscerated. We've seen attacks on programs. And I know a lot of Republicans like to use the term DEI as a pejorative, but there were, there were programs here, uh, that, that were, that, that had a noble cause. To open more doors for more Americans that have been closed traditionally and systematically through the years. When you look at all of that, it seems like this, as you said, it is a perfect storm right now that got the base excited and got the base out there. Yeah, and I think you're spot on to bring up the Voting Rights Act. You know, I think there are so many issues that were top of mind for black voters this election cycle, but definitely one was just access to the franchise generally. I think after the Supreme Court decision April 29th that struck down Louisiana, second majority black congressional district, we sort of saw the floodgates open and we saw a lot of other Republican-controlled state legislators try to do something similar. We saw that in South Carolina, where I'm from. We saw that in Georgia. That didn't come to pass, but there were those attempts. I think Alabama was a was a huge surprise for a lot of people when they for Shemari Figures district, when they shrunk the black voting age population from, I think, 49 percent to 40 percent. And he still won. Yeah. You know, a similar narrative with North Carolina, with Don Davis's district, even in Tennessee, where Justin Pearson did not win. It was a very close race. And so I think we saw this gerrymandering not having the effect. That I think a lot of people thought it would have a lot of the prognosticators, a lot of those races, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee. They had those as almost lost causes to the Democrats. You're right. They all were very close in the last couple of in the last reads of those results. Hey, Brandon, I got to leave it at that. I really appreciate you having us tonight. Brandon Tensley here on the Final Five. Good to see you again. Thanks for having me. And we're back after this. Welcome back to the Final Five. Time now for the third block. And last week's midterms will change the game in Washington for years to come. But they also brought some certain things to a close. Among them, an apparently petty office politics battle for the ages out of North Carolina. The combatants? North Carolina Republican Congressman Tim Moore. He was elected last year, but previously House Speaker in the North Carolina State House. And he had some dirty laundry. Former North Carolina state legislator Terrence Everett, back in 2023, he asked local prosecutors to open up an investigation into Moore, citing a lawsuit, quote, alleging Moore abused his power and had a sexual relationship with a state government employee. Moore's response was straight out of the movie Office Space. For more on that, let's check in with our chief Red Stapler correspondent and producer of the Final Five, Loretto Cruz. Jim, thank you. Yeah, if you've seen the movie Office Space, you know that a not insignificant chunk of the movie focuses on an employee who inexplicably has his office moved to the basement of the office building. He also spends a good chunk of the movie trying to get back his red stapler, which is a lot like the one I have here, which is totally unrelated. But anyway, for Everett, weeks after he publicized Moore's dirty laundry, he used his power, Moore did, as speaker to do the same thing. Everett's office to the basement of the Capitol building. He informed him with a very formal letter, and Jim, I think you have a copy of it. Yeah, I do. Let me read this. Dear Representative Everett, you are being assigned a new member office that will provide greater security. It is somewhat removed, has multiple points of ingress and egress, and is closed to the General Assembly Police Office. I hope you find the office to be a good fit. Yeah, and that wasn't the end of it, Jim. Over the weekend, Everett chimed in on Moore's midterm election loss last week with a letter of his own. It read, quote, Dear Congressman Moore, It has come to my attention and the voters of North Carolina's 14th congressional district have decided to relocate your office. Losing a district you helped draw for yourself is quite an accomplishment. And the letter also acknowledged the old dispute, telling Moore, quote, Your decision to move my office to the basement proved helpful in my successful campaign for Senate, and I don't believe I ever properly thanked you for that. I hope you find your new accommodations to be a good fit. Moore, by the way, was elected to the North Carolina State Senate in 2024, but stepped down this year for a job in the private sector. Still not clear if that means he now has a bigger office. Again, you've got to love the pettiness of state offices there. I believe you have my statement. Maybe. You are the Milton. No, you're not the Milton. I feel like that would be an insult if I called you Milton. Well, yeah, it probably would be, but whatever. It's a nice stapler. Can we call Director Sean the Milton? He gave a thumbs down. Oh, I can't do that. All right. We can't do that. All right. That's okay. Well, you'll be my Michael Bolton. We'll go beat the hell out of a printer. A printer. Yes. A fax machine. Oh, was it a fax machine? I think it was. I don't know. Oh, it was old tech. Anyway, Loretto, thank you. Still to come here tonight on The Final Five. Who's sleeping? Actually, I got one more thing to talk about tonight. Stick around. So in any normal time, the president of the United States sowing doubt on election results might be a big deal. But we're talking President Trump here, so it shouldn't be a surprise that six days after he told reporters he was absolutely willing to accept the outcome of the big Democratic victories and work with them, today he took to social media to say, quote, does anybody really believe this election was honest? How could the polls be so wrong? Some early voting dumps were so large it was impossible to win no matter how many people went to vote. So here's the thing. The polls all along showed Democrats were likely to seize the House and in striking distance of the Senate. If anything, the polls the president was looking at, maybe the ones that Natalie Hart printed out for him that might make him happy, were wrong. Then again, would you expect anything less for the man who even suggested the 2016 election, which he won, was still rigged so he wouldn't win the popular votes? The reality is there were no major signs of voter fraud, and these big wins in Republican strongholds like Texas and Kansas and Iowa? ...are still run by Republicans. So in the end, he plays the hits to make his base happy when it comes to accepting the election results for the president. Acceptance has about a six-day expiration date. That's your Final Five. Thanks so much for watching. The Morning Crew's here at 4 a.m. Please keep your eyes on your red staplers. Go to bed.