The Final 5: November 10, 2026

Of pushing the famous bean sculpture seven inches to the left, to the left. The joke was that a man was trapped inside and moving the sculpture would help set him free. But of course, the 110-ton landmark didn't budge. Now, you might be wondering, why? But why, though? I don't have that answer. But I do hope you have a good night. Here's the final five with Jim Lokey. Right now in the final five, Pete Hegseth's job is safe for now. Democrats disagree over who gets to lead them next year. And President Trump with some kind words for former President Biden. That's your final five. Let's do this. Let's see. Welcome into the final five on this Tuesday night. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will remain in his post for now after the House voted today to refer his impeachment to a committee. In Congress, referring an issue to a committee is a lot like saying, we'll get back to you, we'll circle back, or don't call us, we'll call you. There's no timeline for when the issue could resurface, nor is there a promise it ever will. Before the vote, many said Hegseth's departure seemed to be inevitable. Either Hegseth is going to step down, either he will resign voluntarily or Trump will fire him, or if that does not happen, I think it is extremely likely, if not certain, that the House will impeach him, because on the face of it, the votes are there. Hey, did you know Ted Cruz had a podcast for Republicans, though? The clock is ticking right now. They still have the majorities in the House and Senate. But last week's election ensured that will not be the case in January. This time around, outgoing Republican Thomas Massey was the one who introduced the efforts, among other things. He's accusing Hegseth of violating congressional war powers by continuing the war in Iran. Well, first of all, impeachment is is actually kind of a polite thing. I'm not I'm not proposing he go to prison. I'm not proposing that he be exposed to civil liability. We're just saying you need to be out of a job right now. And when the Democrats get control in January, they are not going to be as polite as I am. Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson has dismissed the impeachment push so far. Thomas Massie is a disgruntled congressman, and the impeachment effort is is a political gambit. for attention, I think Secretary Hegseth did an extraordinary job. The idea that you would impeach the Secretary of War at a time of international conflict sends a terrible message to our enemies and our allies, and we are not going to play that game. Hegseth, who still identifies as Secretary of War, even though Congress never actually changed his title from Defense Secretary or changed the department from Department of Defense to Department of War, gave a press briefing about the impeachment push this morning. And by the way, this was the first such briefing at the Pentagon in about six months. You see, 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. Both times he came back stronger. And the American people sent him back to the White House. And that's true. But if Hegseth does wind up leaving office, when it happens, could weigh heavily on his replacement. Because if it happens now, President Trump's next pick would likely breeze through the Republican-controlled Senate. If it happens in the new year, the pick would have to be approved by a Senate controlled by Democrats. The tantrum Pete Hegseth threw at the Pentagon this morning only further weakens Americans' confidence in his ability to lead our brave men and women in uniform. The Senate needs to put Hegseth on trial and remove him from the Pentagon for his management of this disastrous illegal war. He must be put on trial. This morning, Pete Hegseth had the audacity to declare a, quote, historic military victory in Iran. Can you believe it? What the hell is he talking about? Something we ask about all politicians, Democratic or Republican, these days on The Final Five. But exactly how things play out in the next Congress is up to those in congressional leadership. That is an exclusive club, which Schumer there seems dead set on staying in. House and Senate Democrats will hold their leadership elections later this month. Minority leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Schumer both want the top jobs. No other Democrats have stepped forward to challenge Jeffries for speaker, but Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen. Who last week told us he was not interested, according to Politico, is now testing the waters for a bid against Schumer, something that Schumer doesn't sound too concerned about. I'm confident I will be elected majority leader and our caucus is really united. In focusing on bringing down costs, on ending the corruption, on ending the chaos, on ending the war. We have great unity in our caucus, and I'll be proud to lead it as majority leader. But Schumer's had several open challenges in recent days, including from the likes of Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders. And I like Chuck, nobody who works harder than Chuck Schumer. But in my view, the time is now for change and I will not be supporting Chuck to be reelected as the Democratic leader. And I think as Senator Slotkin is gonna get to in a moment, we need a process. We need a vigorous debate about the direction of the Democratic Party. Several of the progressive members of the Democratic caucus have echoed that sentiment. But on the other end, there's Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. Senator, there's growing calls for Chuck Schumer to step aside as leader, where do you stand on that issue? I absolutely stand with Schumer, I'm gonna vote for Schumer. He helped recruit a great class and I can't imagine why you would vote for someone like Van Hollen with no record of doing anything. Meantime, Republican leadership elections are now over and done with. Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan will take the reins in the House after his colleagues overwhelmingly selected him for minority leader over Steve Scalise. Mike Johnson wasn't interested, but in the Senate, current majority leader John Thune will indeed become minority leader. Well, I mean, I think that this election was largely about. It was about the war in Iran and the economy. Inflation, most specifically fuel prices. And so obviously that is an issue that the administration is going to be clear-eyed about and focused on. But I think as we've always said here at home, our goal has been to get more money in the American people's pockets, to keep our streets safe, to keep our borders secure, and to give American families new opportunities to get ahead. So let's talk more about today's impeachment push in the state of Congress today. With my first guest tonight, he is our pal Andrew Donaldson, the editor-in-chief of Ordinary Times, up late with me live tonight here on The Final Five. Good evening, sir. Good to see you, my friend. How's things? We're hanging in there here. It's been a busy couple of days here. It seems like nothing's slowing down here in Washington. But here's the deal. Today, it sounded like Democrats and maybe even some political observers thought it was a fait accompli, that Pete Hegseth was going to face the wrath of Congress. In the end, only one Republican sided on impeachment vote. And by the way, 11 Democrats didn't even show up to vote. If they did, we may have had an impeachment. Yeah, it's kind of weird, especially when we're talking about this super majority that they're getting ready to get in here in a couple of weeks. They couldn't get enough people there, and some of them said it was traffic. Go figure that, D.C. traffic of all things. But, yeah, there was a lot that went into this. There were some people who, on principle, thought the Macy 8 articles were really badly written and kind of haphazard, didn't like them on that. And remember, Macy himself is very unpopular, even amongst his own party. So there was a lot of different things in this. But strategically, long term, I don't know that we actually gained any ground or Pete Hegseth should feel very safe. Considering that now, like a lot of people are saying the Democrats are just going to come in, they're going to investigate this and they may do it the right way, not the haphazard way that Macy's been trying to shove through. I want you to I want to put yourself or put you in the shoes of as an Air Force veteran, somebody who's who served our country before you heard the argument from Pete Hegseth and others that if you would impeach the leader of the military. Well, I guess the president's officially the leader of the military, but when you punish the defense secretary, it sends a message to our enemies abroad. Is that accurate? Not really, because what the problem here is, is that this Department of Defense has been not well run. And I just mean on a practical level. Remember, Pete Hegseth has not been able to maintain a senior staff, a senior staff to run the largest department of the American government. It's just kind of shockingly bad. One of the reasons Congress people are so upset about this, and the senators as well, is they don't even know who in the building to talk to about things. Communication has broke down. On a practical level, before you get into any of the comments or any of the AI slop videos or any of the personal politics, or if you like him or don't like him personally, it's just not really well functional. And then you put on top of it the unpopularity of the Iran war. You got the drone strikes in the Caribbean, which still need to be legally processed out and vetted. You've got a lot on top of a lot of things, but the department is just not working the way it needs to work. That falls on the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. So, there is likely going to be another impeachment effort once the Democrats take over. They're going to have the votes. No doubt they will have the votes going in. You mentioned that supermajority. We're looking at like 260 seats. There are still some races outstanding. But a lot of people have looked at the midterms and said, Democrats, the message wasn't about exacting revenge. It wasn't about punishment. It was about cost of living. It was about focusing on the issues that they believe the Republicans in Congress and the Republican president. Hadn't focused on, do you think that there's a way to thread that needle going ahead? Yeah, and the way they are talking about threatening it is not going after President Trump himself, but they're going to go after these cabinet officials. They're going to go after Pete Hegseth, obviously, is the one, because we're already talking about him. They're going to look at the DOJ real good and hard. They're going to do investigations because their base demands it. And they have, let's be honest here, they have a ripe field of fire of potential targets to go and investigate, and that's the Trump administration's own fault for laying those out there. But yeah, when they get into power in January, if they don't deal with affordability, If they don't deal with the economy... If they don't deal with corruption and all those sorts of things, they're going to be in trouble. Now, the corruption thing you can't investigate, but the economy, you can't investigate the economy back down. They're going to have to really balance this thing in order to keep this majority going into the next elections. Early on in the Republican leadership, I'm thinking back to Kevin McCarthy. There were people who were unhappy with his leadership, and we saw him deposed as House Speaker. In came Mike Johnson, but you also have progressives. On the Democratic side, once they get the majority, they want to see a lot of these these hearings. They want to see this move ahead. And there seems to be it's a thankless task when you're in leadership because you have to get everybody in line. But, you know, there's going to be people on the on the fringes, whether it be left or right, who are who are not going to be happy unless you check everything off their list. It seems to be a priority. Sure. But one thing that actually helps them is having such a large majority actually kind of helps them out on that where you're not going to get in a situation like Mike Johnson, where he only had a majority in name only really when you only have a couple of seats. So you have a 30 member House Freedom Caucus throwing a wrench in everything and you have three or four members of Congress stopping absolutely everything. You've got a lot more wiggle room now. Hakeem Jeffries is an unproven leader. He's going to have to learn this stuff on the fly, although he's had a long Period of preparation thing. And of course, we've already seen in the Senate and you talked about in the lead in. Are you going to have Chuck Schumer be able to hold his caucus together in the Senate? I think he will. I think this is a lot of noise and he will be the leader there. And Hakeem Jeffries will be the speaker. There's no denying that. But now they got to do the job. It's been time of them talking about being in leadership. Now they're going to have to show it. And they're going to show it in short order because we know with these majorities coming in, you get a couple of months and then it's right back to politics as usual and on to the next election, especially in Congress. Politics as usual. And I never imagined seeing that in Washington. But here we go. And we'll be watching all that as it plays out. Andrew, I'm out of time. Always appreciate you taking time and sticking around with us and especially putting a tie on for me this late when I when I can't be bothered to do the same myself. Well, it's the closest I can do because you're so much better looking to me, so I got to at least dapper it up. Appreciate you, my friend. Flattery gets you everywhere. Andrew Donaldson for us tonight here on The Final Five. Good to see you, my man. We're back after this. Paul Mercurio, you may know him. He's been on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show. He's coming to Annapolis. We're going to break from politics and talk with him next. White Wedding. Nice day to start again. has made a career of talking about Vaseline on national television. He's also won an Emmy. You may remember him from The Daily Show or from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Paul Mercurio is on tour. He's coming to Annapolis, but he's up late with me tonight here on The Final Five. Good to see you, my man. Welcome back. What's up, buddy? It's good to see you again. Last time I saw you was in New York City. You were gracious to welcome me up to the late show, the late, lamented late show. Yeah, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Now I'm totally depressed, got it, out of a job. I'm living in a van, so, you know. I I got to tell you, first of all, I want to talk about the show, but again, and granted. don't That show aired opposite this show at 11.30, but the reality is there's a void. And I know a lot of people say otherwise about the state of late night comedy, but there are so many moments where know. you wonder what Stephen Colbert, what the writers, what you would say about what's happening in the world right now. You don't have that. And that really speaks to what we're seeing with network television and CBS in particular. Yeah, I think actually Stephen and I were talking about this backstage when he wasn't crying like, my God, it's over. I'm like, Stephen, stop, I can't do this anymore. No, I think that genre is gone. The traditional late night, big, shiny studio band. I think when Kimmel goes and Falun goes, they're not gonna come back because it's just the economics of it and And he did. the ratings aren't there maybe. I mean, there are other reasons we got canceled, but It's it. We actually felt like kind of gratitude to be part of it still before it ended. And then you were there and you're amazing. By the way, everybody, he comes to the show. He's in the audience. You know, I get him a nice seat up front. What does he do the minute Stephen comes out? It's me. It's my chest. I'm like, what are you? Come on. You're killing me. You're killing me. I did ask him, I got a question. And by the way, I jumped out of my seat to ask him a question before the show. And he's like, whoa, somebody's rehearsed. But I got a laugh in the Ed Sullivan Theater, man. I got a laugh. And I feel like, to me, that's what I was. That was a life ambition right there. As long as that happens for you, I'm happy, buddy. I'm happy for you. The last time you came on the show, you were doing a show where you spoke with people in the audience and you really got people on stage and tried to find some common ground. And I think that's what your comedy has been rooted in. I know you're doing a bit of a different show, Ramset, coming up next week. But in terms of what people can expect, I mean, what? How are you approaching this right now? Now that you're out of the late show, now that you're doing your own thing, what's been the approach for you? I've been, you know, I'm coming back out on tour because I was doing the late show. I've been on CNN MS now a lot too as a commentator, but I just like talking from my life and this, it's going to be a standup show at Ramstead on stage. I've, I've been there before, sold it out before. It's coming up November 14th, hope people can come out. Cause you know, I'm out of a job and I am dog walking by the way. If anybody needs a dog walker, I am your guy, Shrubs. I'm really good with the trimmer. Just life, because I'm not shy about bringing my life into my act. I think it connects with people, relates, and I like talking to audiences even in my stand-up show, so I'll engage them. And like we mentioned off-air, I just went through some surgery, so I've been home a lot recovering. Oh my God, Amazon, when you're home and recovering, it's like crack. You are on, Am I right? Like, you're on there, like, and then you're justifying, like. Like stuff that you don't need. Oh, my God. I totally need a Nicolas Cage sequined pillowcase. They actually sell them. And then I turned into like a hundred and five year old man because I'm tracking my shipments like on an hourly basis. It's like, what? This is ridiculous. What are my socks doing in Albuquerque? This is. Totally wrong. Hey, Paul, again, the show is Saturday, November 14th, Ram's Head on stage in Annapolis. Where do you want people to go to get tickets? They can go to paulmecurio.com, one R in my last name, M-E-C-U-R-I-O, or they can go to Ram's Head on stage website. And, yeah, we sold it out before. We want to sell it out again. Annapolis is beautiful. Hope you all can come out and support a man that, you know, is out of a job and living in a van. And has a friend who has a dog who finds him annoying. My dog, whenever I walk into the room, immediately gets up and walks into the other room with a dirty look. I am not making this up either. She's like, oh, this idiot again. And she walks into that room. So you're going to be in the room with an annoying human being. But I think it'll be worth it, everybody. What kind of dog is it? It's a mutt, you know, and we saved the dog's life. She doesn't preach. They should have a lemon law because it turned out the dog has a weak sphincter and they didn't tell us that. So she can't control. And they don't tell you can't put the dog up on a lift and check it out like a car. And no one said anything. And now it's like it's everywhere. You know, looks like an assisted living facility in my house is weeps everywhere. Paul, it's good to see you again, man. Good luck. And thanks so much for taking time. Yeah, absolutely. Great to see you, buddy. Got to come to New York. I hope to get up there soon. All right. I'll buy you a slice of pizza. That's about all I can afford. I'm looking forward. Oh, man. Thank you. Welcome back. Time now for the third block here on The Final Five. In his retirement, former President Joe Biden has spent some of his time writing a memoir. It's set to be released next week. The book is titled Promise Me America, and it focuses on some of the critical moments of his presidency, as well as the thinking behind his decision to pull out of the 2024 race. But it also shines a light. On the rather unique relationship between he and President Trump, specifically, it includes the full text of the letter President Trump left President Biden behind after leaving the White House in 2021. In part, it reads, to 46, many presidents have come and gone who simply govern as Republicans or Democrats. Largely, they did not change history. They were just swept along in its relentless tide. This will not happen to you because I know how much you love the American people. May God bless you and Jill, and may God bless America. That is from President Trump to the man he claims stole the election. President Biden commented on the letter saying it was, quote, as if there were two Donald Trumps saying, quote, Trump deeply destabilized our democracy and had not offered the traditional meeting between presidents. But here he was offering his best wishes in warm language that sounded like it was coming from an old friend. But apparently that language was short-lived because after publishing excerpts from the book, the New York Times reached out to the White House for comment with a spokesman saying, quote, Biden is a disgrace and America is better off with him no longer as president, which sounds a lot more like the comments we're used to hearing from President Trump. Sleepy Joe Biden. Sleepy Joe. He's sleepy. Sleepy Joe Biden. He used an auto pen. He's a very sleepy person. He's exhausted. Joe is exhausted. Sleepy Joe Biden, the worst president in the history of our country. I call him Crooked Joe because he's crooked, he's a terrible president. Crooked Joe Biden. Under Crooked Joe Biden. Crooked Joe Biden is a crook. So which Trump do you believe? Talk amongst yourselves. Back after this, you're on the Final Five. Pete Hegseth is something to be thankful for this month, Republicans who still have his back. Today, the House voted 211 to 204 to send his impeachment to committee, effectively putting on ice through the end of the year. President Trump is standing by him, and enough House Republicans followed along to keep him safe for now. But, of course, January brings that Democratic majority, their promised investigations. Hegseth has the support to survive this Congress. The next one might require more than just a presidential endorsement. Meanwhile, we haven't talked about Kerry Lake in some time, so let's do it right now. The former news anchor's plans for Jamaica may need some travel insurance. Today, a federal appeals court unanimously upheld a ruling that she illegally fired Voice of America director Michael Abramowitz when she was heading up Voice of America without the required board approval. Meanwhile, her nomination to be ambassador to Jamaica is still sitting on ice, awaiting Senate approval. If Republicans can't get her confirmed before Democrats take control in January, that trip gets considerably harder. Senators could also have questions about sending her overseas, starting with how she handled the international broadcaster back home. That's your Final Five. We're back at it again tomorrow at 11.30. Glenn Ivey is set to join us, the congressman from Maryland's 4th District. We'll talk about the midterms, the FBI headquarters, and so much more when you join us tomorrow. In the meantime, the morning crew is here at 4 a.m. Hope you have a good night. Go to bed.