Dems widen House edge with CO seat flip

[0:00] A Republican forcing an impeachment vote on Pete Hegseth, a vote that I indicated could be hours [0:05] away. The vote in the House of Representatives could come as early as tomorrow morning, [0:08] and there are likely enough votes to impeach him in the House. A really important thing to say, [0:13] right? You still have a Republican House, and Republican Congressman Thomas Massey [0:17] is the one leading the impeachment charge. He says Hegseth is a threat to the Constitution [0:21] if he remains in office. But Trump tonight is defending Hegseth. [0:25] You have multiple times given Vladimir Putin. Yeah, I'll stand by. [0:32] So even if he's impeached, you're going to... Mr. President, you're defense secretary. [0:35] He won two wars. He was in charge. We all won. I had great people. [0:40] You what? Massey says that he's carried out a little... [0:42] Massey's a loser. Now, Hegseth says he's not concerned, [0:47] even though the vice president said it was the war that cost Republicans the House, [0:51] the Senate, and state races all across the country. [0:53] There's a lot of politically motivated people who may have substantial policy disagreements, [1:02] but their disagreements are with success. And so if we want to litigate that, [1:07] the success of those things, I'm happy to do it all day long. [1:11] Mr. Secretary, do you have enough Republican support to... [1:14] Oh, we're not worried about that. [1:18] All right. All of this coming, and that vote hour is away, [1:23] as we are getting some more projections, and the Democrats' margin in the House [1:26] is actually getting even bigger here. We're almost a week out, [1:29] and some of these final races are coming in. [1:31] Today, Democrats flipping another Republican House seat. [1:33] We are projecting tonight that Republican Congresswoman and Trump ally Lauren Boebert [1:38] is out. She was defeated by Eileen Laubacher. So you can see now we're making that call [1:43] by 3,237 votes. Making that call today, and that win gives Democrats 256 seats. [1:50] There are still 15 races to be called, which could even make the balance of power even more [1:56] lopsided. Of those outstanding races, Democrats are leading in three seats currently held by a [2:01] Republican. So far, Democrats have a net gain of 42 seats. So that's the most since 2018. [2:07] Democrats also lead in the Senate, 54 seats. And those two high-profile races, Mississippi [2:13] and Alaska, are still not yet called. However, we can tell you at this moment that Democrats [2:18] are leading in both of those seats. [2:20] Now, Trump, six days after it was clear that this was one of the most crushing losses in [2:25] political history, is now starting to say it was all rigged. He writes online, [2:30] does anybody really believe, quote unquote, election was honest? How could the polls be [2:34] so wrong? Three exclamation points. Some early voting dumps were so large that it was impossible [2:39] to win, no matter how many people went to vote. It's all about the machines, which are far more [2:44] important than the voter. Now, obviously, this is sour grapes. But even though the allegations are [2:51] absurd, I just want to take a moment in the context of them, because sometimes when you [2:56] throw, you know, seeds of doubt, they can take root. It's important to note that Democrats won in [3:00] multiple states where Republicans control the count and the elections, like Texas, right, [3:06] where Tallarico got more votes in the early vote than Paxton got combined. But Trump's turn to a rigged [3:12] election, of course, is not surprising. Actually, what is more surprising is what Trump told the New York [3:17] Times the day after the election. Then he said that he was, quote, absolutely willing to accept the [3:22] results of the midterm elections and was prepared to work with Democrats. That was what is out of [3:26] character, not tonight saying that it was all rigged. Kristen Holmes is out front live outside the [3:33] White House. And Kristen, you know, you've got Trump making complaints about a rigged election yet [3:38] again as he is standing publicly behind Hegseth in the hours before Republicans may have enough votes [3:44] to impeach him. And you're learning that not everybody is buying what Trump's saying publicly [3:50] about Hegseth. What are you hearing? Yeah, that's true. And that was happening before Trump actually [3:55] spoke about it. And even now that Trump has said this officially, I spoke to a number of allies and [4:00] advisors who have talked to Donald Trump in the last two days, and they say they think there's a strong [4:04] likelihood that Hegseth could still be asked to resign if he is in fact impeached. It could be [4:11] regardless, but that's coming from conversations that these allies, these advisors are having with [4:16] Donald Trump himself. Now, it was interesting to hear Hegseth there saying we're not worried about [4:20] that when he's asked if Republicans, if they're concerned that Republicans have the vote to actually [4:24] impeach him in the House. That is not the same feeling for many at the White House. There is concern [4:30] that Republicans have those votes. They have been asking people on the Hill how they're going to [4:35] vote. And there is a concern that he could be impeached by the House, though they don't believe [4:39] it will go anywhere in the Senate. And that would likely mean that there's not a soft landing for [4:44] Hegseth because it had long been kind of speculated that Marsha Blackburn, the current senator of Tennessee [4:50] who's just elected governor, would appoint Hegseth to her senator's seat. And that would give him the [4:57] kind of out there and give the administration an out. We have now learned that Blackburn does not [5:01] intend to appoint him to that seat. I will also note that this is coming at the same time. I'm [5:06] hearing increased speculation really from all corners of Trump's orbit that Pete Hegseth is going [5:12] to run for president in 2028. Obviously, what happens this week and what happens in the next [5:16] several weeks is going to play a role in all of that. In the context of what Kristen just said, [5:20] that everyone around him says it's a sure thing that Pete Hegseth is going to run for president. [5:24] How worried should he be that an effort led by a Republican in the House could get him impeached [5:31] in a Republican House? That's the one that's going to leave a mark, isn't it? That's the one that [5:37] doesn't help in a primary. And obviously, Pete Hegseth looks in the mirror and sees a president. [5:41] Who knows what else he sees? But getting impeached by a Republican Congress when the march is this [5:47] narrow, when Thomas Massey's putting forward the articles and they are legitimate, this isn't just [5:52] political theater. That's a problem. He also knows he's going to get impeached, if not this time, [5:56] the next time when Democrats control Congress. And here's the additional calculus for Trump Co. [6:02] They have an ability to pick a successor with a Republican Congress during a lame duck now. [6:08] They won't have that come January. So, you know, he's going to be, you know, [6:13] Trump's hand could be forced. And yep, that's right. So watch out. [6:16] And Max, you know, in that context, what John is laying out, right, that if Trump wants to get [6:21] somebody to replace Hegseth, that he wants to replace him, you know, he might need to act now. [6:27] Put some context around Trump today defending Hegseth and criticizing people calling for his [6:32] impeachment. Here he is. [6:35] Pete Hegseth won two wars. Oh, let's impeach him. What about impeaching the gentleman from Biden, [6:43] his person that disappeared for two weeks and nobody had any idea where he was? What about [6:50] impeaching the people that ran the Vietnam War? What about impeaching that went, that ran Iraq and [6:56] Afghanistan and all of these other wars? What about impeaching the leaders of these stupid wars that [7:03] were done when nothing was gained? But look, once Stephen Miller was appointed to be the chief of [7:08] staff, the ship sailed on them actually waking up to the fact that the American people have rejected [7:15] this war, they're doubling down. It seems ludicrous. It seems insane. But they're not going to fire [7:22] Pete Hegseth. But I do think that they will be astounded by the extent of this impeachment vote [7:29] because they may not be listening to the voters, but certainly the Republican members of the House and [7:33] Senate are. I mean, Tara, now the members of the House and Senate know where the public [7:38] stands. So to the extent that maybe somebody was afraid to have a backbone before, voters may have [7:44] given them one. Well, I'm not going to hold my breath for the intestinal fortitude or lack thereof [7:49] of Republicans over the last 10 years. But now you have a lot of angry moderate Republicans who lost, [7:56] who may now say, you know, find some courage and actually do the right thing. Because so many of them [8:01] know that Pete Hegseth was never qualified to be Secretary of Defense in the first place. I mean, [8:06] the guy is an absolute disgrace on a number of levels. I run a women's organization. How do you [8:10] think the women in the military feel that this guy is their secretary of defense when he was [8:17] incredibly accused of sexual assault, where he denigrates women, particularly women of color. [8:21] He's denigrated the top brass of the military. He's been an absolute embarrassment. He's obsessed [8:26] with beards and testosterone. It's very odd. And what are we doing here? This is supposed to be the [8:30] greatest military in the world. And he's diminishing it. And Donald Trump is standing by him after a [8:35] tsunami from the American people, basically rebuking everything this administration has done, [8:41] including what happened in Iraq. Nobody's won anything in Iraq. I mean, in Iran. If we had won [8:46] in Iran, Donald Trump wouldn't still be up there trying to gaslight the American people into believing [8:51] we've won in Iran. We can all see it. And we can also see it at the gas pond. [8:54] And that's why we see the margin getting wider and wider right now still as the vote count comes [8:58] in. And Lauren Boebert losing. We've got 256 now at the House. I mean, this could go a little [9:02] bit above 260, as Harry Enten's laid out. So Lauren Boebert loses. And look, she was a major Trump [9:09] ally. A major Trump ally. This is a really close race. And we knew this one would be close. But [9:14] you know, that's another loss. And this was a seat that she'd been moved into that was supposed to [9:19] be safer. Another one of the redistricting backfired. In Colorado, she was moved into a [9:24] safer Republican seat because she'd been in a marginal district before. So it just shows the [9:28] depth and breadth of the wave. Now, this is even in Colorado. Look, there are upsides. She goes to [9:33] the theater with less scrutiny going forward. That's a quality of life improvement. But they're [9:37] going to be. I'll let people Google that if they're curious. Please Google it at home. But I mean, [9:42] you know, there's just so many Trump loyalists have been wiped out because they were enabling [9:48] a behavior that their constituents, even in conservative districts, said no mas. [9:52] But Max, you know, he's back to the rigging. And that and that I think the real surprise was that [9:57] it took a week. Yeah, I guess it's because he wasn't on the ballot this time. It took him a little [10:02] bit to wake up to the fact that this was still about. Exactly. It was still about him. He's also [10:09] waking up to the fact that this is a different Democratic Party than the one that previously took [10:15] the House. This is a party that isn't going to be distracted by any of their ideological differences. [10:23] You know, I remember in 2018, there was that that was dominating the news cycle for quite some time. [10:28] It's not a Democratic Party. It's going to get overtaken by like a Trump focus, you know, that [10:34] they are going to focus in on the things they ran on. And I think he's pretty intimidated by that. [10:38] But I think that's going to be better. [10:54] Thank you.