Hegseth’s former spokesman says he’s guilty of article of impeachment

[0:00] I want to go to John Elliott first, though. He served as Hegseth's Pentagon spokesman. [0:03] He also served in the first Trump administration, and he's now the author of a new book, [0:07] The President Deserves Better. Paul Rykoff and Jamal Simmons are also here as well, [0:12] familiar faces to everyone. But John, I want to start with you, if I may. [0:15] Interesting in the wake of what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just said, that these articles [0:20] could come again. But when you look at Thomas Massey's articles of impeachment that go through [0:25] specifics, you also conclude that guilty is the verdict. Well, look, it's up to Congress, [0:33] but he's going to get impeached, whether it's now, whether it's before the January, [0:37] or whether it's in January itself, after the Democrats take the gavel. But to me, [0:42] Aaron, it's not about impeachment. If you're somebody, if you look at that news conference [0:46] that Hegseth did today, where he's screaming at reporters and he's yelling across them, [0:51] he looked like a Fox News fire breather, frankly, or a cable news fire breather who is trying [0:57] to get a point across. So he's essentially somebody who is, he makes it about himself, [1:02] not about the troops. He makes it about, he actually likes this, to have the focus on [1:08] him and to be able to, it's as if he's on a set of Fox News. And what I've said and what [1:12] I say in the book is that the President deserves better than that, that when he was appointed [1:16] by the President in the transition, that if, and he was confirmed only, remember, 50-50 [1:22] with Vance casting the tie vote. If I'm somebody like that and I'm getting in there and it's [1:28] such a thin margin, then when I get in office, I would pivot from being a Fox News co-host [1:33] and instead focus on bringing the volume down, just figuring it out, talking to people, and [1:39] not making it about yourself. So what I say is the President deserves better and that if I were, [1:43] if I looked at that news conference today and I'd just say, hey, look, President's got [1:47] two more years to go, he doesn't need this headache. You want Hex to resign, but I think [1:52] you go even further. By the way, I'm thinking when you talk about making it about himself [1:55] during the war, we had to look at him putting out videos of himself lifting weights and talking [1:59] about testosterone tests for troops and all of those things. You think he shouldn't have [2:04] taken the job to begin with? Yeah. So what I would say, Aaron, is that let's say I'm on the [2:07] transition and just as a reminder, I was a senior advisor on President Trump's campaign [2:11] in 2016. That was at the same time that Pete Hegseth was calling him an armchair phony warrior [2:16] is what he said. He was not backing the President when we were working in Trump Tower to get him [2:20] elected. So that's number one. Number two is that when you talk about Hegseth himself is basically [2:27] he's somebody that when he was offered the job and he knew that he was just a Minnesota National [2:32] Guard major, which we honor everybody's service, no question about it, but then he had no management [2:37] experience. And if he's also built a career as a bombastic guy on Fox News, that's very helpful [2:43] to go up the ranks from a contributor to a... So I'd say if I were in his shoes... [2:48] On cable news. But not to be running the department. [2:49] Yeah, not to be running the department. So for me, if... Let's say the President came to me [2:53] and said, hey, John, for all your service you've done me over the years, I want you to be my Deputy [2:57] Attorney General. I would say, Mr. President, I get a big car, drive him around, big motorcade, [3:02] but you might want to think about somebody with a law degree because I'm not qualified for that. [3:06] And so that's what I think that Secretary Hague should just say, look, you know, I'm a Fox News [3:10] host, bombastic, like to throw bombs. I'm not the unifying figure that you need after President [3:17] Biden and looking forward. And you would be better served with somebody else who's better qualified. [3:22] All right. And okay. So, so, Paul, just to make the point, John was the Pentagon spokesperson for [3:28] Hegseth. So it's significant that you're saying what you're saying. But we're here tonight where this [3:33] just failed. Okay. Alexander Ocasio-Cortez is saying, well, it failed for now. And for now, [3:37] I don't mean till January 3rd when Democrats control. I think Thomas Massey could do it again [3:41] and succeed. He should, because today's the Marine Corps birthday. Tomorrow's Veterans Day. [3:47] Yep. And Pete Hegseth never should have gotten the job. He should have long ago lost a job. And [3:52] every day he's in that job, he's making our country less safe. He's making it about him. He's dragging [3:57] our military down. Our enemies are celebrating every single day he's in office. And it's about our national [4:02] security. So yeah, the Democrats blew it tonight by not having enough people there [4:06] to pass it, but they should bring it back tomorrow. Drop it on Veterans Day. You want to serve our [4:10] veterans? You want to serve our military? Remove the number one problem that we have facing our [4:15] military. And it's Hegseth. And there's bipartisan support for that now. But he does want to make [4:19] it about him. He wants to grandstand. He wants to amplify his profile. And he probably wants to run [4:22] for president. Well, I mean, we've heard that that's all but a sure thing from those close to him. I don't [4:26] know whether he will or not. But I mean, that reporting's been there. But Jamal, what about what the [4:31] Congresswoman said? Where were those Democrats that that caused the failure today? Because it's [4:35] all about a complicated set of a rubric of math when it comes to the House and its votes. [4:40] You know, the Republicans have learned nothing since Election Day. I mean, they're not changing [4:44] course. You pick Stephen Miller to be the White House Chief of Staff. You pick Jim Jordan to be the [4:49] minority leader for the House. That means they're not changing course. They're not listening to the [4:54] voters. But you know who has learned something is AOC. Think about how constructive she sounded when she [4:59] was there. She didn't throw bombs at her colleagues. She gave people grace to sort of figure out where [5:03] they were. And then she opened the path. I don't know what's up with people's health. But by the way, [5:06] I clocked in at my job when I worked at a restaurant. She got a lot of things in there. [5:10] She made her point and she made it in a way. She made her point and she made it in a way that didn't [5:14] take anybody else down. But then she also opened the door for the Democrats to act. And here's what's [5:19] important about that. When you've got Jim Jordan being named as a minority leader, that means the [5:23] Republicans are knuckling up. They're getting ready to get into a fight. And now you get people like AOC who are saying, [5:29] I'm knuckling up too. If you guys want to do that, I'll match you. [5:32] Yeah, Jamal is absolutely right that that sends a bad signal from the outset. But look, I've worked [5:37] with Stephen Miller and, you know, he is obviously a hardliner on immigration. But he does know the [5:42] Senate. He worked for Jeff Sessions from Alabama when he was there. So I don't know. But my hope is [5:49] that he pivots just like Hegseth didn't pivot after barely getting, getting, he didn't pivot from being a [5:55] Fox News fire breather over to actually doing the job. I'm hoping that Stephen Miller says, look, I'm no [6:02] longer in charge of immigration. I have to make this president succeed and work with Democrats. And so [6:09] I'm going to we'll see that the jury's out. Now he's in charge of everything. And hope is not a course of [6:14] action. I think the reality is we're in for a new phase of war. It's going to be open combat between all [6:19] sides. And I think this period again between now and January is especially dangerous because what this [6:24] tells you is Hegseth is still there, which means the most important story in the world is still [6:28] that Trump can do anything he wants with the most powerful military in the world and nothing is [6:31] stopping him. They didn't slow him down today. They didn't check him today. And forever war rolls on [6:36] that it can include Cuba and anything else he wants. He circled the wagon. It comes down to close the [6:40] circle. The CIA warned you multiple times that the CEO, the single most important company in the AI [6:44] war against China is sleeping with what they say is a Chinese spy. And Trump chooses to do nothing about [6:50] it. We don't know about the whys and the motives on all this, but we know the basic scaffolding of [6:56] the story. We do because we also know the president of the United States has given information to [7:01] Russians in the Oval Office that was supposed to be secure. We know that he met with Putin and came [7:05] out of the meeting and said, I trust Putin more than I trust my intelligence officials. So there's [7:10] like real questions about how the president feels about intelligence in general. The question for me [7:14] about Stephen Miller is it could also be that Donald Trump likes to negotiate from positions of [7:19] strength. And Stephen Miller is like a loaded gun that he put on the table to let Democrats know [7:23] that if we're going to fight, I've got somebody I'm ready to fight with. But now perhaps there is a [7:28] doorway open for the Democrats to negotiate, but the Democrats have to fight back too. They have to [7:33] show Trump that they are willing to go just as tough as he is. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. What I would say [7:37] is, look, President Trump has two years. Those of us who work for him for over a decade now, [7:43] off and on, in and out, first term, second term, we know that he's only got two years left as [7:49] president. He's already shown that maybe he wants to fight, be very combative. But at the end of the [7:53] day, I still think he can take a step back and say, hey, look, I want to work and get something [7:58] done. He's always concerned about these legacy projects like the ballroom and everything like [8:02] that. His true legacy is going to be whether he comes to the table and actually gets things done [8:05] in a bipartisan way. Last thing that I would say is that if you're Hegseth, if you're truly loyal or [8:11] anybody for that matter, Kristi Noem, for example, if you are, if you realize that you're being a drag on the [8:16] president, if you're loyal to him, then you owe it to the president to say, it's not about me, [8:21] it's about you. And I've become a distraction. When you write in your book, The President Deserves [8:24] Better, though, you know, Trump picked Hegseth. Right. And there were people around him who [8:27] warned him. And early on with Signal Gate and all of that. I warned him. I wrote an op-ed right after [8:32] I left. Why do you think Trump stands by him? I think President Trump, I don't think that he [8:37] realizes how much of a drag Pete Hegseth is. You've had good things that have been happening in the [8:43] military up until the war in Iran. But I don't, you know, our munitions stockpiles, everything else. [8:48] He, did you hear what Pete Hegseth said? It was all rosy. He was giving all the top lines. Most of [8:54] that that he was talking about could have happened no matter who was Secretary of Defense. It was CENTCOM [8:58] did, did, it was, it was Stratcom that did a lot of the actual attacks on Iran that were a year and a [9:05] half ago. So bottom line, he's making it as if he, you know, recruiting was already going up when he first [9:10] came in office, dismantling, dismantling identity politics programs. That went across, that was [9:16] across government. But does Trump ever say, hey, wait a minute, this guy didn't tell me the truth [9:21] about the munitions. He didn't tell me the truth about the U.S. bases. He didn't tell me the truth [9:25] about the aircraft carriers that are in the region. It goes on and on and on. Right. So Trump, what he [9:30] might be doing is establishing that I'm not going to do what the Democrats want. And then three days [9:35] from now, he asked Trump, he asked Hegseth to find somewhere else to go. Because here's the real [9:39] vital line. The real vital line is the American people have said they want a change in direction. [9:44] And right now, the Republicans aren't giving them that. That's going to hurt every single other [9:47] Republican that's going to be up for re-election soon. And Trump doesn't care. Trump doesn't care. [9:51] Maybe tonight was a pure victory for Hegseth. All right, I got to, I got to leave it there. [9:55] Noah, I'm going to start with you. I have a lot of thoughts about this because this was started by a [10:01] Republican, a disgruntled Republican. And that, Donald Trump is right, Thomas Massey. He is [10:06] being, this was sort of his last salvo before he leaves exit stage left from the stage. He was not [10:12] re-elected. He was booted out in the primaries because of Donald Trump. [10:17] So what was the point of this? What was Thomas Massey's point? [10:23] Perhaps to get quite a lot of attention for Thomas Massey. [10:27] Members of the Republican conference do have plenty of problems with Pete Hegseth. They probably have more [10:31] problems with Thomas Massey, but that was irrespective. I think they're most likely [10:35] that the conference realized that they didn't want to spend whatever floor time they have left [10:38] litigating an issue that Democrats are likely to litigate themselves when they take control of [10:42] Congress. But the articles themselves were rather flawed. There were elements in there where they [10:46] have Pete Hegseth dead to rights. The mishandling of classified information on the signal chat, [10:51] you got him. Mark Kelly, the suppression of his speech over a political dispute, hard to argue with that. [10:56] The notion that we are kidnapping, the language that they use, kidnapping a sovereign leader [11:00] in the form of Nicolas Maduro, I don't know, sounds like we're invalidating, for example, [11:04] the effort that extricated Manuel Noriega from Panama. And beyond that, a lot of these are just [11:10] bank shots at the president. The president executed these orders, ordered these orders rather, [11:15] and he and Pete Hegseth executed them. If your problem is with the orders themselves, [11:19] your problem is with the president and his subordinates. Well, that is certainly something [11:22] that, um, was argued today by not only Pete Hegseth, but Marco Rubio. Let's listen. [11:31] Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen, everyone was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief. [11:39] The president of the United States makes these decisions. I mean, ultimately, [11:41] our job is to execute now, you know, on the president's orders. [11:44] Everything that he's done, he is executing on President Trump's, um, mission and what President [11:49] Trump has said we should do. Explain to me what you think that defense is about. That defense is [11:56] about, hey, Democrats, try to impeach the president. Go down in flames by doing that, right? [12:01] Look, I, I, I'm not happy with the president. I'm surely not happy with Pete Hegseth. Pete Hegseth [12:06] needs to go, and I think he will go. I think the president's going to fire him probably Thanksgiving [12:10] week, so good luck, Pete. Enjoy your, enjoy your success for a little while. But ultimately, [12:15] what they're saying is bring it on, do another impeachment, lose your momentum that you gained in [12:20] this election, and then really, good luck in 2028. You're, you were shaking your head when he was [12:26] talking. Oh, yeah. Pete Hegseth is not going anywhere. He gave, at least by the president's [12:30] account, he gave a phenomenal press conference today. He's a fighter. He was tough. He's a great [12:34] communicator. Congress doesn't have any balls, and they don't care about ending wars. If they did, [12:39] they would cut funding to Ukraine tomorrow, but we all know they're not going to do that. Congress is [12:44] the only people to blame for not stopping this war. All of them had a vote. They could have voted to use the [12:50] war powers. They all chose not to. Clearly not enough. Even people who agreed with the war [12:55] decided that they were not going to exercise their authority on the war. Now, the charge against Pete [13:00] Hegseth, first of all, the secretary of war has not been impeached since 1867, 150 years. The charge [13:06] against him is bogus. The charge is that he carried out unlawful military operations because there was no [13:12] congressional authorization. But did we have any legal authority to go into Pakistan when we were getting [13:18] Osama bin Laden? No. Did we have any legal authority to go get Noriega? No. Did we have any legal [13:23] authority to go get Saddam Hussein in Iraq? We sure as hell did not. And so what Congress is saying, [13:29] what Congress is saying, there was no legal authority to go into Pakistan. There was no legal [13:37] authority to go into Pakistan. But what they are saying is the American people might be anti-war and [13:44] they spoke in this election and said that they are. But the American people are pro-soldier. [13:48] And what Congress is doing by picking this fight, what Pete Hegseth is saying that if his... [13:53] All right, all right. Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause. Hold on. This is important. [13:55] If the orders that he gave were all unlawful, then that means all of our men and women who [14:01] carried out their longest employment on the U.S.A. for him, Lincoln, all of them who went to save our [14:07] soldiers in Iran are all following unlawful orders. And that's not true. Are you filibustering the [14:11] table? She's filibustering. Yeah. I'm right. No. Because you're conflating a lot of things about, [14:21] first of all, the War Powers Act. But I don't want to even debate that. Because at the end of the day, [14:25] this motion failed. So why are we going to debate if this was actually... Because it didn't fail on [14:29] the merits. It failed actually on a political procedural matter. So I think debating that is [14:34] something else. But what is interesting is this argument about that somehow impeaching Pete Hegseth is [14:40] hurting the troops. Because if you look at what the American people say, and this is across party [14:45] lines, they just had a poll, November 6th to 9th, from Reuters, Ipsos, and support for Congress [14:53] ending the Iran war, overall 71 percent. Republicans, 51 percent. Democrats, 93 percent. Independence, 70 percent. [15:02] The idea that Pete Hegseth is the same thing as the soldiers. Democrats could argue, and I'm someone who [15:08] spent a lot of time with the military in the Middle East for many, many years. And what Democrats [15:13] would probably tell you, in fact, they do say, is that they're trying to protect the military from [15:17] Pete Hegseth. Yeah. And so I'm just wondering what you see. I think that we're still experiencing [15:24] folks in Washington, D.C. that haven't caught up with the rest of the country, if I'm honest. [15:29] Democrats and Republican at that. Republicans could have actually voted to impeach. Like, they would [15:35] have had the votes as well, but they didn't go with Massey. And that is a failure of leadership [15:40] on their part. And then there were some Democrats that didn't show up. [15:43] 11. And I don't, and I think that they are- [15:45] Including Nancy Pelosi. And I think they are trying to figure out [15:48] the, what the settlement of this earthquake that just happened in this country. So I think [15:53] politically just the observation is like, folks are still trying to recalibrate [15:56] where their power is in Washington, D.C., as opposed to the voters. I think the other [16:01] thing is, what I heard Marco Rubio say, and what I heard Pete Hegseth say, is that I'm with [16:07] the president, but in two seconds, if it just gets, if this anchor gets a little too heavy, [16:12] which it already is, I'm out. I'm out. Like, they are literally saying, this is not my fault. [16:18] This is his fault. And I actually think the president is still trying to recalibrate where he is, [16:22] because there is a, there is a way that he's like, wait, why is everybody paying attention [16:27] to Hexeth? Is he more important than me? Like, come after me. I'm the guy. I'm the guy. [16:31] And so this is, this is all just like folks in Washington, not in the real world, [16:37] in their bubble, in their, in their D.C. [16:39] Hold on. Camille, you're looking, you're looking like you don't- [16:42] Well, I'm just not sure I heard the subtext that you're referring to there, [16:45] that Rubio was hedging in a way to protect himself. I think they've made, [16:49] they've made the best argument that they can, that ultimately the president is the one making [16:52] these decisions. I do think that perhaps- [16:54] And they want no accountability. [16:55] A little bit of a hope that they can- [16:57] They want clean hands, right? [16:58] Democrats into going after the president of the United States. [17:01] They were following orders. They were following orders. [17:01] How does that work? I'm not the big guy. [17:03] But what else would you expect them to say? I think that that's the part that's clear. [17:06] I think what is interesting is to take- [17:07] That I believe what the president's decision is, and I agree with him. [17:09] I think what is interesting is to take a- [17:11] Or I resign. Precisely. [17:12] If I could just continue to talk more about it, it would be nice if we could have a conversation. [17:16] Let's take a look at the actual articles of impeachment, the particular things that are there. [17:20] I think Noah is absolutely right. There are certain things that don't really wash quite as easily. [17:24] But there are other things about which there are profoundly serious questions. [17:28] Should the United States of America be in the business of simply murdering people [17:32] who are traveling across the high seas without any sort of approval from Congress, [17:37] without any sort of authorization to commit war, [17:40] without any sort of presentation of the evidence in public that says, [17:43] these people were actually headed to the United States of America. [17:45] When they actually apprehend people, they hand them back over, and then they're simply let go. [17:50] Why not interdict? Why not have conversations? [17:53] Why not actually conduct a serious intelligence operation? [17:56] This seems like an administration that is interested in simply running afoul of the law [18:02] or doing whatever they want, irrespective of the law. [18:04] And that is deeply concerning.