Hegseth calls effort to impeach him 'a political spectacle'

We have the latest now on the vote to impeach U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is denouncing it as a political stunt. An outgoing Republican lawmaker is pushing for Congress to remove Hegseth from office. In a news conference last hour, Hegseth compares what he is facing to Donald Trump's two impeachments. 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. Let's bring in Peter Armstrong from Washington. Peter, you were also listening in on that news conference. There are eight accusations in the impeachment resolution against Hegseth over the war with Iran, the capture of Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro, and the airstrikes on the alleged drug boats. How is Hegseth defending himself today? In quite a spirited fashion and not surprising at all. Right. The first inevitability after Tuesday's midterm win was that we would land here where we would see articles of impeachment and that Hegseth was probably at the top of the list. The next inevitability is that Pete Hegseth would find a way to to quite forcefully punch back. That's what he's known for doing. It's certainly what he did this morning because he's coming out. He's speaking to many audiences, but he's speaking to the American people, to be sure, soldiers and people in the Department of Defense. But he's talking to Republicans who are going to have to vote on this. And of course, he's talking to the president himself. Take a listen to his initial response. 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. It's a farce, and it's a stunt, and everybody knows it. So the issue he's dealing with here is, A, remember, Thomas Massie is a Republican. This isn't a Democrat that just came sweeping in trying to carry this out. He's a Republican who tried to put these articles of impeachment forward in September and was thwarted in that effort by the Speaker of the House, who recessed the entire House just to avoid this going to a vote, to keep it from happening ahead of the midterms. It's inevitable now that it'll move ahead. Hegseth is really framing this as something that is not just bad for him personally, and maybe not even just bad for the president, but that it's bad for the country and it's bad for the soldiers as well. Take a listen to that. Let's be clear about what this resolution actually does. It tells our enemies, Iran, the cartels, every adversary watching that the United States will actually punish its own warriors and its own civilian leadership for successfully executing lawful military operations. 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. This is not patriotism. This is sabotage. And thus, we have the stage set, right? We knew this would probably come. It came. We knew he would probably respond. He did. Now, we'll start to go through the process. And the thing to remember, of course, is that this is, we're on day two. They just got back here yesterday. None of those new Democrats are even going to be in place in the new Congress until January. What these next days... will look like are going to tell us an awful lot about what these next weeks and months and even these next two years of Donald Trump's presidency are going to look like. We know Republicans still control Congress. Hegseth will need them on his side. He also needs the White House on his side, too. So what is Hegseth doing, you think, behind the scenes? Yeah. So like I say, he is as much speaking to the American people as he is to Republicans that are going to have to vote in the House and in the Senate. And they probably have the votes It's in the house. They need 67 votes in the Senate to actually convict. The House would impeach. The Senate would convict. It's unlikely they get there. It's unlikely, frankly, we get there, even if we wait for the Democrats to come flooding back into Washington, the newly elected ones, I mean. But you're quite right that what he needs mostly is Donald Trump's support. And he has had it so far. On Sunday night, the president said that he does have his support. And he kept sort of saying, you know, that Hegseth has won two wars and that Thomas Massie is a stone cold loser. But again, in that appearance that he just made in Arlington, Virginia, there was really an audience of one that he was speaking to. And we've now heard from that audience of one, Donald Trump. Was posting to his social media site this morning saying Pete Hegseth gets an A++++ for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated former Congressman Thomas Massie, a total loser, President DJT. Now, that would be great news. He would be glad to hear that. It is worth noting that in these last tumultuous couple of years, Donald Trump saying that he is supporting somebody or standing by them is not always the vote of confidence that you think it might be. He is, I think it's fair to say, fickle in his support. And as soon as he gets the sense that he's got to spend his own political capital defending you, that can jettison pretty quickly. So that's the one to watch. I think the president's support of him. is probably more important than where we end up in the House and maybe a little bit less than in Congress or than in the Senate. But again, so far, President standing by him and Pete Hegseth both performs the way the president likes with that sort of forceful defense and is seen as a very, very loyal member of this administration. Peter Armstrong in Washington, thanks so much. Yeah, you bet.