Kennedy family files suit to block arch; 11 Democrats miss Hegseth impeachment vote

Welcome into the DMV zone. I'm Rita Morocco. It is three o'clock. Let's get to it in a very busy newsroom as it usually is as we kick off. This Wednesday, our big story of the night: nine members of the Kennedy family suing the Trump administration to stop construction of the Triumphal Arch near Arlington National Cemetery. The lawsuit warning the arch could cast a shadow over President John F. Kennedy's gravesite and the iconic Eternal Flame. The plaintiffs arguing federal officials approved the controversial project without required congressional authorization. Professor and attorney Alan Sanders joining us here for a breakdown of more. And the judge after this was passed by the eight to four vote on the committee. The judge pausing things for about 14 days here. This could restart. Of course, we know. Where do things stand right now in the construction? Well, I think the construction is halted right now because of the temporary restraining order that Judge Cheskin issued a few days ago. We'll have to wait and see. Arguments are going to be proceeding to see whether this temporary restraining order can be prolonged into a preliminary injunction. And now we have the Kennedy family joining the lawsuit and adding its claims as to why the arch should not be built. They are both important claims, realistic claims, but also emotional claims, and so this adds a new dimension to the entire proceeding. Yeah, this injunction will last through November 19th, so that'll be a week from today, and obviously we should point out that the Secretary for Health and Human Services for the administration of Kennedy himself, not part of the group that entered in on this lawsuit, but nonetheless, the fact that it's the Kennedy family, does this add more weight to the lawsuit? Yeah, I think it adds an emotional component to it. It also adds a realistic component to it. They are arguing that the entire gravesite of the Kennedy family was planned as a memorial and that the way the arch would impact that would hurt that memorial, so it would hurt the national memorial, but it will also impact them emotionally about how this arch would fit in. For one thing, it would obstruct the line of sight between the Eternal Flame of President Kennedy and the Lincoln Memorial. And also it would cast a shadow on the entire gravesite, so it would alter what that gravesite was meant to be, both nationally, but also what it was meant to be for the family as well. And that's the kind of real harm they want to argue. It's not just emotional, but it's a real harm. It changes the whole concept of the gravesite. The Washington Post has submitted their plans of what that shadow would look like throughout the year, given the position of the sun. The Department of Interior, however, came out with their own forecast, and they rebutted some of what the Washington Post had put out. On the congressional authorization piece here, we've seen this administration really push its executive power to achieve most of their agenda without the need for Congress. How much is true in this claim that there needs to be congressional authorization for this arch to proceed? And how much can the Trump administration continue to push its executive power to achieve the arch? Well, the judge and the preliminary, or I should say, the restraining order said that you did need congressional authorization and that did not happen. And that's one of the reasons that she issued the temporary restraining order. It's also important to note that Congress has the purse string, so it can refuse to fund anything having to do with the arch. It can also pass a law that indicates that the arch should not be built. Now, of course, the president would be able to challenge that in court, but the way Congress usually does things when it wants to halt the president from doing something is it includes whatever measures it wants and must pass legislation. And now that the Democrats, of course, have control of both chambers of Congress, they could add all kinds of restrictions to the arch or to the not building of the arch, as well to other projects that the president wants on must-pass legislation that the president would want otherwise to pass. All right. We will be watching to see what comes next. Once the temporary restraining order is lifted, is there a timeline as to what the judge has requested from, in this case, the Kennedys, from the Trump administration, and moving forward? No, I think the deadline, of course, is, as you pointed out, in a few days. And, of course, the parties have to now put in their motion papers to make the argument as to whether or not the temporary restraining order should be prolonged into a preliminary injunction. Okay. Professor Alan Sanders, always a pleasure speaking with you. We appreciate the breakdown. My pleasure. Take care, Marina. Topic number two here is a failed impeachment effort against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is now sparking frustration within Democratic ranks. Eleven House Democrats missing the key procedural vote that helped Republicans block the measure which accused Hegseth of abusing his power and conducting military operations without congressional authorization. The vote decided 11 to 204, and Democrats now facing questions about why. So many lawmakers were absent. We've got political reporter and blogger for Guardian, Shrey Popat, joining us here. And this is a push that is a heavily part of the new Congress that's looking to come in in January. And they were hoping to get at least something on paper before the end of the year. And they missed it because 11 of them weren't present. What happened? Yeah, there's been much sort of commotion about this in the hours since that failed vote. Eleven Democrats missed it. Several claimed they were stuck in traffic. Some had obligations back in their districts. Some said they had family commitments, and others said they had personal issues as well that stopped them from being at the Capitol to cast that vote. But it's really caused a lot of... Discussion about how Democrats plan to show up in the new Congress. Obviously, then they will have a much larger majority. Right now, they have a narrow minority. But there's been a confusion about, you know, why they didn't manage to make it to this vote and sort of what this signals about the actual effort to try and impeach Pete Hegseth and show up for the wider caucus moving into the new Congress. For the vote part, right, on the Democratic side, how much of a failed attempt is Hakeem Jeffries reporting it to his party? How upset is the party at large, given the fact that, to your point, there were some people who did not fly back for the vote. There were some people who alleged this traffic. But at large, what is the party feeling like right now? Could we have gotten this done? Or are they just thinking, you know what, we'll wait till January? Well, there are reports that this morning, Katherine Clarke, the House Minority Whip, And would was sort of said to the wider caucus that the American public is disappointed in the party and that they need to make sure that they are all present moving forward. They obviously have hedged that because if all Republicans had been there and all Democrats had been there, the measure would still not have passed because Congressman Thomas Massie, who introduced those articles, was the only Republican that ended up crossing the aisle. But nonetheless, there's still a pushback because so many. Many Republicans, outgoing Republicans, didn't come back to Washington. In many ways, had the Democrats all shown up, they would have had a significant advantage and been able to make sure that this vote for impeachment ended up on the House floor. Hakeem Jeffries was asked about this last night. He said he hadn't really discussed the wider issue just yet with members of the party. But there is severe pushback against why leadership wasn't able to make sure that all members were on the floor to vote. And obviously, that comes as Hakeem Jeffries is Poised to become the next House Speaker and has launched his leadership bid as well for that. Yeah, a huge failure, especially when we saw what happened for the midterm elections where the American people said, come back, get to work. And we even heard from Michigan Senator-elect El Rashid yesterday say, you need to work, get to work. And that clearly did not happen on the Democratic side. As it relates to the eight articles of impeachment here for Pete Hegseth, this seems like this will happen at some point come the next Congress here. What is the Pentagon trying to do right now? Even the Trump administration, are they trying to do anything to get ahead of what looks like will likely happen come 2027? Well, today we saw that Will Scharf, the White House general counsel, sent a letter to Congressman Robert Garcia, who's set to become the chair of the House Oversight Committee, that key investigative body within the House, essentially threatening the House Oversight Committee, which will be led by Democrats, to say that, you know, Any investigations that sort of verge on quote-unquote blatant criminality will result in criminal investigations against those lawmakers. It's obviously a huge overstep in many ways, considering that this is the body that is in charge of holding members of the administration, but also members of different parts of civil service accountable to scope out waste, fraud and abuse. And so they've really pushed back against that. You know, Democrats seem to be unfazed. They said that, you know, we will be continuing to push ahead with that sort of sweeping oversight that we promised going into the next Congress. All right, Shreya Popat with The Guardian. We so appreciate that. And of course, we'll check with your reporting coming up to see what else comes of all this. Thank you. Topic number three here is residents across the DMV may see or hear drones flying overhead in the middle of the night. Local, state and federal agencies conducting an overnight exercise to test technology that detects and tracks unauthorized drones. The tests are scheduled between midnight and 4 a.m. through Thursday with Friday as a backup date. We've got Washington Post reporter Liam Scott to tell us all about this. What's going on here, Liam? Yeah. Thanks for having me. So just like you said, this is, you know, this isn't in response to any, any threat. Um, I think that's probably the most important thing, um, to, to emphasize here to, to viewers that this is, you know, this has been, been in the works for. For months, that local, state, and federal public safety agencies are testing this technology, which is designed to detect and track unauthorized drones. So they're, like you said, they're doing that this week. And if residents are woken up in the middle of the night, perhaps, by a strange noise, that might be what it is. And there's been a huge push in funding for this counter-drone assessment, if you will. For the possibility, right? I mean, I think there's always, you got to be proactive as opposed to reactive if something were to happen. And it seems as though this is part of the plan. Absolutely. Yeah. So FEMA gave the awarded twenty eight point five million dollars to to the region last year to engage in this this, you know, counter drone exercises to, you know, be able to detect and track unauthorized drones. You know, what I think is really interesting to note here, I spoke with some aerospace experts about this development and. And... They told me that, you know, unauthorized drones would be a concern in any urban environment because if it crashes, there are lots of buildings, there are lots of people. But what makes D.C. unique is obviously the presence of... Government buildings, government officials, you know, information that could have stakes for, you know, national security. So they told me that's why this is particularly important to, you know, engage in these exercises to be able to, you know, detect and track drones in case they are, you know, operating in the D.C. area unauthorized, potentially, you know, trying to gather. I would rather Confidential information do we have any clarity on like what these drones look like because there's more drones that don't really look like what you and I envision as like the typical Amazon delivery drones and then there's you know the usual like commercial not commercial but the ones that people have like the amateur ones which are very different what are we talking about here because I think that's important also if people look up to the sky sometime in these out in this time frame and they're like what's going on. Yeah, so officials have actually not been, you know, haven't wanted to share that many details about the specific drones, but I think it is worth noting that, you know, people shouldn't expect to see huge swarms of drones. You know, D.C. officials tell me that at most they would see a small group of drones at a time, but more likely it would be just one. Yeah. And, you know, I guess also, you know, worth noting that D.C. has some of, you know, obviously some of the most restricted airspace in the country and in the world. That extends to drones. It's very difficult for people to get permission to fly drones in the D.C. area. They need to get special permission from the FAA. So. So, you know, it is likely that if people see drones, you know, I guess tomorrow morning, early tomorrow morning, that it is related to this exercise. All right, Liam, thanks for the update, and of course, check out Check out all the details there with The Washington Post and Liam Scott. Stay with us here for a quick break on the DMV, so we'll be right back.