How Hegseth Escaped an Impeachment Effort – for Now

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. It's hard to believe, but Gwen Ifill, an icon of American journalism, died 10 years ago, November 14, 2016, at the much too young age of 61. She was a friend, confidant, and adviser to me and to so many people across journalism. We'll talk about Gwen tonight and her trailblazing role in journalism, and what she might make of today's Washington circus. Before we do this, I'll talk about some of the news of the week with my guests, John Dickerson, contributing writer at The Atlantic, and co-host of The Political Gabfest Podcast. Jonathan Carl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, and Michelle Norris is a senior contributing editor for MSNow. Thank you all for being here, all of you friends and admirers of Gwen. We appreciate you doing this on a sad occasion, but I'm glad that we get to sit and talk for a little while. Let's talk about the news. We're not going to talk about the Friday the 13th ground stop because it's developing as we speak, but it doesn't seem like a great day to fly. Well, the whole week has been one fragile reminder of the membrane between the day as we go through it and total collapse. There's the FAA, the ground stop. You had the Outlook Microsoft Outlook was down for two days. People didn't know what to do. And Jensen Huang, the head of the most important AI company in the world, has a total and complete collapse, which means the center of the AI economy is fibrillating. Well, thanks for the buzzkill. I was a reasonable summary of a week that probably should end. I wanted to ask I will get to Jensen Huang in a second. I wanted to ask Michelle about Pete Hegseth. Narrowly escapes impeachment, but this is something that is going to happen again, we think. Yes, it will. I mean, he did a lot of chest-pounding afterwards and called it a stunt. But he should be prepared for this to happen once the Democrats take over the House and the Senate. He will definitely face impeachment again. And, you know, the interesting thing that we have to remember is we're a nation at war. And the SecDep, the head of the Department of Defense, I guess that he calls it, the Department of War, is facing impeachment. I mean, normally when a country is at war, you're trying to build a case. For what you're doing, you're trying to bring along the American public. And this is happening, you know, the impeachment is in the news, but the real news, I think, this week is what the people who are serving the conditions that they're serving under. You know, on these ships that they don't have food, there's mold on these ships, they're learning that they're not sure when they're going to come back. It's a larger problem than just impeachment. But the larger sort of almost philosophical question is, are you at war when the president says you're not at war? I mean, you've been following this closely. Yeah, yeah. We've been through that many times. But look, first of all, on the impeachment, this was a deeply flawed eight articles of impeachment written by Thomas Massey, the one Republican that the Republicans in the House dislike more than any other. So it was easy for them to all vote against it. But it was eight articles including impeaching him for violating the war powers act by executing the war in Iran. I mean, that might be a terrible thing, and that would be something you might even want to try to impeach the president of the United States. Well, he's doing it on behalf of the president. Right. Yes. And the other thing, it didn't include some of the obvious things, such as all the firings of senior military officers. So many of them women, people of color. And, you know, fired for what? None of that. The next one will. So the members of the House were given a choice: vote up or down. All these eight articles, some of which you might not like and didn't include your real And it's not just impeachment. It's hearings that will come in the next year, which is, did you or did you not tell the president about the number of missiles that were being burned through? What was the actual evidence before this war? Was started about what Iran had? Those are questions that are going to be uncomfortable. And by the way, they voted on their bases overseas right now. And they voted to refer those articles of impeachment to the committee, which will now bury it because it's a Republican-held committee. Well, guess what? Next time it happens, the clock resets. In January. Jensen Huang, surprised that the most indispensable CEO in tech turned out to be dispensable? Well, we'll see if he's dispensable or not. And you look at the stock price. Well, the board of his company believed that it had no choice. And the stock market thinks he was indispensable. If you look at what's happened in the number, I mean, what it reminds us is that human beings are at the center of these companies. And those companies are being handed extraordinary power over the future of AI, which will affect all of our lives. And perhaps this should be a lesson that maybe you want to have not just a single point of failure. When it comes to AI, which will have all these ramifications. So people who have asked either to slow AI down or have some sort of extra process for managing the gallop, that this might remind them that single people are fallible. This has become a mess for the White House. Not only for the Commerce Secretary, but for the President of the United States. I mean, you have to the way it's been described to me, the president's trip to China, where he leaves Washington on Air Force One, and realizes that Jensen Huang is not on the manifest for his trip to China. And he gets briefed by, we understand, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, because there are suspicions that he may be sleeping with a Chinese spy. And the president wants him on this trip. So he calls Jensen Huang from Air Force One and says, can you meet us in Alaska, where we're going to be refueling Air Force One? And it's I mean, I'm told it was very close, whether or not he could scramble. By the way, he's the head of one of the most important companies in the world, and he drops everything. To fire up his Maybe Trump just wanted to keep an eye on him. I mean, I mean, the president's at the middle of the scene. Of course, the real pressure right now, the first pressure point, is going to be the Commerce Secretary. Right. Quickly, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, big week coming up for them. Quickly, they have are there any real foreseeable threats to their rise to leadership and their respective houses? Maybe, Jonathan. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is going to try and challenge Chuck Schumer. I don't know how far that will go. Their biggest challenge is being leaders of a big, big, big complicated coalition now. That's what happens when you win. People I mean, this is natural, but it's a tough leadership challenge. And a progressive wing that is coming in and feeling themselves. I mean, they really even if they don't challenge Hakeem Jeffries, they will make sure that they are going to be heard. The interesting thing The interesting thing about that, going to what Jonathan said, is that the Democratic caucus is so big that the power of that progressive wing is actually a little bit diluted. Or am I No, you know, you're exactly right. This isn't like the Freedom Caucus that would constantly give Kevin McCarthy or Mike Johnson problems because the margin was so narrow that a couple of guys in the Freedom Caucus could derail a piece of legislation. There aren't enough progressives to derail a piece of legislation. Chuck Schumer in trouble? I don't think he is. But look, Van Hollen is mounting a really serious and I think quite personal campaign against Chuck Schumer. Challenging his integrity, essentially, for, you know, where his sources of money come from, his position on Israel, his association with APAC. I mean, it's a pretty brutal campaign. This isn't a nice, hey, we you know, we just have some disagreements on policy. This is a tough challenge. I think it will fail. Hakeem Jeffries smoother sailing, we think. And also, he has history behind him. I mean, there is a certain amount of enthusiasm on top of his leadership style because he would be the first African-American. Yeah, there's no opposition within the House Democratic Caucus. But there is in the base that think that he is not tough enough. There is this amazing quality to the rush of news these days, where we don't even pause as much as we should to say, oh, my goodness, the House of Representatives is going to have a Black Speaker of the House. Another thing worth noting, is that a big winner of this weird week is Scott Colome, Mississippi Democrat, first Black representative first Black senator from Mississippi in 150 years. You're an expert on this subject, Jon. I know. He was giving his Yeah, he was giving me the history before. Fascinating guy. But Michelle, talk about that. And actually, it's an interesting way to talk about Gwen in a way, because Gwen one of her many one of her many subspecialties was tracking and reporting on the rise of a new generation of African-American politicians. She would be absolutely fascinated by the idea that Mississippi of all places is sending a Black Democrat to the Senate. Did you all miss her this week? What are you thinking about her this week that, you know, on Tuesday night? We was going to say this week or I miss her all the time. Whenever you think of her, you kind of, yeah. The text that would have been flying, the conversations she would have loved this. And you're right. She would have spotted it. She was a tremendous spotter of early talent. She was always looking down the road at, you know, who was that was her book was all about that. Just one word before we talk about Gwen and that, though, with Scott Colome. He said something interesting about the leadership in the leadership race here in Washington. Both Schumer and Hakeem come from the same boroughs. You know, I mean, so they're, you know, and as a Southerner, he's saying, you know, maybe we need to think about having that kind of At least get somebody from Staten Island. Can we talk about diversity of that kind also? I'm not sure I like this subtle prejudice against the five boroughs. Well, we're talking a single borough. But the idea that he did this now, yes, he was running against a weak candidate, and he was running in an unusual year where people were concerned about affordability and corruption. And the chaos that we've been talking about. But he also just ran a really tight campaign. And he went and campaigned in places that other people have not campaigned in. He went to every corner of that state. His wife was in a food truck, and she was traveling all over the state. His father is a Republican, and so he had a leg up in going to some of the places that Democrats have ignored. He himself is a gun owner, believes in gun rights to a certain extent. He's a former prosecutor. Prosecutor, yeah. And so I think it is a message about the limits of our imagination as journalists, but for the party, you know, to think about where these possibilities exist. Because the party didn't see this happening. There were very few people who thought that he had a path to victory. You know, that's and I want to pivot, but the amazing thing is, Texas was surprising. Kansas is really surprising. Mississippi is another level. And that just shows how what a dramatic race this was. You can imagine Gwen asking, was the Supreme Court right when they said the Voting Rights Act didn't wasn't necessary anymore because the South had changed? And, you know, Colom's election maybe showed that. I think the answer from perhaps even Gwen would be, you can have progress without necessarily getting rid of or thinking that what is gone are all the efforts to try to stop progress. Right. And see the Obama presidency. Well, exactly. Hiram Revels, just to do one other the very first Black senator from Mississippi. Blanche Kelso Bruce's predecessor. Yes. He came to Washington. His opponents said, when he came to Washington, his opponents said, you're not a citizen. You shouldn't be a senator. Right. Draw that line right to the current sitting president of the United States who attacked Barack Obama for not being a citizen. We're not that far from that history. By the way, I think people who voted did bring a $10 note that's signed by Blanche Kelso. You are this is the for some reason, I feel like we're on a reconstruction reconstruction quiz bowl. Gwen didn't allow show-and-tell. Yeah, no, no. There was no show-and-tell. We're going to I would have seized control of this table. Can I it was provident that it happened on Veterans Day? Because the Veterans played such a role in pushing this country forward in the civil rights movement. Medgar Evers included. And we should just note that this is not ancient history. That some of the people who voted for Scott Colom remembered having to pass a poll test. Remembered what it was like, you know, when that hill was so much deeper. Let us bring