Transcript of Pete Hegseth under pressure after US elections

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hattan, and in the early hours of Friday, the 6th of November, these are our main stories. We continue to see the domino effect from the Democratic election wins in the U.S. The Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, says he'll fight any attempt to impeach him. Also, major tech stocks plunge, with a trillion dollars being wiped off their value in a single day as the U.S. midterm results add to fears of an AI slowdown.

I want to use it to encourage my fellow blind in Africa. I want to make my country proud again.

That story from Nigeria coming up. Let's begin in the U.S. Capitol. And the continuing fallout from the midterm elections, which saw Donald Trump's Republicans suffer a series of humiliating defeats across the country. In the new year, the Democrats will take up their seats in Congress, and they'll be able to move ahead with their own agenda. And some believe that topping that list will be a bid to remove the Defense Secretary, otherwise known as the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.

He would be a fairly obvious target for Democrats because if they were to go through impeachment proceedings, they could interview him in public in congressional hearings that everybody would be able to watch. And they would be able to explore the reasons for going to war with Iran, some of the things that have happened as a result of that, what advice he was giving. And it's not just the war with Iran. They would also want to talk about the extra judicial killings of people that the administration says were drug smugglers in South America, the way in which the kidnap of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, was carried out, they would say illegally.

The Defense Secretary has issued a defiant message today. Let's take a listen to it now.

This is not about me. But of course, the other side, in case you've noticed, they're obsessed. A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly. Didn't work against President Trump, and it won't work with me.

Sarah, he doesn't seem to be going down without a fight.

Yeah, he's always very pugnacious. Pete Hegseth will always come up with an aggressive defense of his own actions. The problem is, it's not really up to him whether or not the Democrats move to impeach him. And it actually might happen even quicker than that. A Republican congressman, Thomas Massie, who's been very outspoken about the war with Iran, has said that he will introduce articles of impeachment next week so that the process can begin in Congress. Donald Trump says he thinks that Hegseth has been doing a fantastic job, that he's got no intention of sacking him.

Sarah, many people, including the president, have blamed the war on Iran for the election losses. But there've also been indications that active fighting might restart again quite soon. What have you been hearing?

Yeah, there's a huge amount of speculation that it might start again soon because, of course, it remains entirely unresolved what is happening with Iran, even though there hasn't been a huge amount of active fighting going on recently. Donald Trump himself says he doesn't know if you can even still call it a war. But he does need to try and resolve this. It's difficult to see how they will get past the diplomatic impasse without, he thinks, changing the facts on the ground. And until he does that, he will continue to be dogged by this very, very unpopular war, which, as you say, being blamed now for the massive election defeat that his Republicans suffered.

Sarah Smith. Staying in Washington, the U.S. First Lady, Melania Trump, welcomed senior Russian and Ukrainian officials at the White House on Thursday. The event was set up to mark a truce that had been in place in the Russian-occupied city in Ukraine, a truce that Mrs. Trump helped to coordinate. A six-day local ceasefire allowed the evacuation of hundreds of stranded residents from Oleshky, including many children. At the event, Mrs. Trump had this to say.

Now we must use the courage we brought to Oleshky to find common ground through a shared concern for the suffering of innocent people. Together, we can create something more enduring than a temporary ceasefire.

That Oleshky truce expired last Sunday with no extension. Those attending Thursday's White House gathering included a special envoy of President Putin and a senior politician from Ukraine's parliament. The meeting comes ahead of planned talks in Abu Dhabi as Washington pushes for a deal to end the war. Our correspondent, Will Grant, joined us from Washington for this assessment of the First Lady's White House meeting.

It was definitely unusual, wasn't it, seeing the visuals of Ukrainian and Russian officials meeting in the White House, but not standing either side of Donald Trump or Secretary of State Rubio, but rather the First Lady. And of course, it comes quickly on the heels of that truce last week in Oleshky, the Russian-occupied town in Ukraine. It is on the brink of starvation. It is in extreme humanitarian crisis. So things have been achieved. But as I say, the sort of optics of it being the First Lady to broker those talks was definitely interesting.

Photos from the event show the First Lady smiling broadly as she receives a medal from the Ukrainian side. But are there indications this meeting wasn't just ceremonial? Because normally the First Lady keeps quite a low profile, doesn't she?

She does. And you certainly don't tend to see the First Lady in a geopolitical role. There may be things done domestically. Obviously, the First Lady, in a variety of presidencies, has taken a role in everything from education to children's health to all manner of things. But you don't tend to see a sort of geopolitical role, which is what this is. Let's make no mistake about it. A ceasefire was achieved. But as has been pointed out by many commentators in Ukraine, it was achieved because President Putin wanted to do it.

Will, we've talked about the meetings that happened in front of the cameras today, but there are also reports that President Trump did meet with the Russian side. What do you know about that?

Well, we do know from the Ukrainian MP who was there, David Arakhamia, that there is a political track, as he put it, to the negotiations and that it was complex. He was basically still asking Melania Trump to keep going, to find new missions and de-escalate more was the wording. Of course, President Trump is the key actor in all of this when it comes to the White House. And he will, I'm sure, have played a role. This is an envoy of President Putin in the White House.

Will Grant. Now, the upheaval caused by the midterm elections has had an effect away from Washington, DC, and that can partly be seen in the U.S. share markets, particularly those focused on tech stocks. Stock markets rose on Wednesday, the day after the vote, but on Thursday, hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped from tech firms. Some investors fear the Democrats, soon to be in control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, might impose more controls on Silicon Valley, particularly companies dealing with AI.

The fear is that the hands-off regulatory approach from Washington is going to be over soon. That was the way that the White House under Donald Trump wanted it. David Sacks, the venture capitalist turned Trump AI czar, advised the president pretty consistently to let the industry regulate itself. And the current Congress, which is dominated by Republicans in both houses, wasn't willing to challenge the president. So there really weren't any checks on that. Now you have, of course, Democrats winning back both houses, as well as governor's races and state houses across the country.

Anti-tech platforms. Can you tell me more about this? Is it all about the building of AI data centers in local communities?

A lot of it is about exactly that. And these candidates were obviously listening to the polling on AI, which showed that going into this election, a third of Americans who were surveyed felt that AI data centers were going to be a top three issue driving them to the polls. Nine out of ten Americans said that they were more concerned than excited about AI, which is such a departure from the culture where I am here in Northern California and Silicon Valley, where everyone is excited and they think everyone else is just as excited as they are.

It's interesting, Lily, because you're using words like realization that they've just realized this, that some were blindsided. But this Democratic win was predicted in the polling for quite some time. I'm just wondering, you know, the share prices for many tech firms have fallen, but they've been doing well for several years. So could this just be a correction in the market too?

Yeah, it certainly could be. I mean, technically, the term that Wall Street traders use is correction for when you're in a market that has fallen between 10% or 20% below the highs. So we are now in a correction, at least for the Nasdaq, which is the tech-heavy index. When you fall below 20%, that's called a bear market. And so if you look, if you zero in on what's known as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks just those kinds of stocks, that is in bear market territory. That has fallen more than 30% in about a month.

Lily Jamali. Still to come in this podcast.

There's a real lack of empathy when you're dealing with families that have lost so much. And no one seems to be willing to say, do you know what? We made a mistake. And for that, we're sorry.

Because in Türkiye, the biggest detours aren't always the longest ones. Sometimes they're simply uphill. Plan your next detour at goturkiye.com today. This is the Global News Podcast. Relatives of Britons killed in this summer's wildfires in Spain have told the BBC they feel really let down after regional politicians blocked an official inquiry into the disaster.

If that evacuation warning had come through in time, my father would still be alive.

Duncan Chard has been fighting to find out why more wasn't done to help the people of Bedar when a wildfire ripped through the Spanish village this summer. The authorities have argued if they'd sent out an emergency alert to all mobile phones, it could have caused panic and traffic jams.

In conditions that are crazy, you do everything that you possibly can. Issue the damned alert. Do everything. But they didn't.

Duncan describes Bedar as a vibrant mix of locals and expats, many of them British, including his dad, Michael, and his partner, Christine.

He built that house from scratch. He was very proud of it. It was his place in the sun. It was his little paradise. And he loved the community.

Families of the victims say their grief has now been made worse by the decision of the regional parliament in Andalusia to block an independent inquiry into decisions taken on the day of the fire.

It's just outrageous. It's an injustice. They started off basically victim blaming. They've been withholding as much information as they possibly can. They basically want to shove it under the carpet. As family members, we're absolutely disgusted by this. This is an insult, you know?

They were fantastic parents. My biggest champions.

Danny Gillum Curtain says her mom, Fran, and dad, Pete, were also failed. Her parents had lived in Bedar for eight years, Fran running a quiz night that raised money for the local school and church.

Fantastic grandparents. So they leave a huge, huge hole in our lives.

Danny traveled to Spain in the aftermath of the fires to collect her parents' possessions. The local police had told her the family car had been meticulously searched by forensic specialists and she would find nothing. But then she made a shocking discovery.

When I was searching the driver's side footwell, I picked up what I recognized to be sort of part of a pelvis or a hip joint.

They were, Danny fears, her father's remains.

Obviously shouted to my husband to look. And at that point, he just sort of said, step back. And he recovered multiple bones later on. When I was looking through the back seats, there was also what appeared to be a piece of rib.

The fragments were sent to Madrid for testing. The Guardia Civil now says no DNA was found and they are animal bones. Danny says experts she's spoken to, including those who worked on the Grenfell Tower investigation, are confident they are human remains.

It feels like they're going to hope we exhaust ourselves, that either the burden of grief is going to be enough for us to give up or that we're going to financially exhaust ourselves. There's a real lack of empathy when you're dealing with families that have lost so much. And no one seems to be willing to say, do you know what? We made a mistake. And for that, we're sorry.

The Spanish police have not replied to our request for comment. The Andalusian government says the ongoing criminal investigation will provide answers. But the grieving families say they will now have to pay tens of thousands of euros in legal fees to be included in those proceedings. Duncan Chard again.

And the most important thing that we're looking for is to make sure this never happens again. Because this is for everyone who lives in Spain. This is for everyone who visits Spain.

Let's focus on what's happening in Paraguay now. It's a country of just 6.5 million people. And now the collapse of one of the country's main banks has affected 3 million of those people who are unable to access the money in their accounts. Now Paraguay's president is facing impeachment by parliament over the collapse of Hueno Bank. Santiago Peña had offered his resignation, but he'll face a hearing later on Friday over his business links to that bank.

They were playing around with Santiago Peña, was playing around with deposited savings. And I get emotional when I mention the pensioners. I've got relatives and friends who still haven't received their money. And some have also died in hospital. That saddens me. And it hurts me in my heart and in my soul.

Our Latin America expert from BBC Monitoring, Luis Fajardo, joined us from Miami.

As you were saying, millions of Paraguayans feel that this has been a personal disaster for them in financial terms. As you said, they haven't been able to access their bank accounts for some days now. And they're also seeing a long-term upward. They were fearing a potentially a long-term problem because some of the country's pension funds had also kept funds in this bank. So there's a lot of anxiety, clearly a lot of anxiety. What authorities are saying is that a first group of customers of the bank would start receiving in the next few days some of their money back.

So that's the economic fallout. What about the political impact of this? Can you tell us more about what he's accused of?

Yes. A lot of Paraguayans are blaming Mr. Peña for this crisis. He has denied any wrongdoing. However, he was a shareholder of this bank up to last year, up to 2025. He was a shareholder in the company that owned the bank. And a lot of Paraguayans are criticizing the attitude of the government during the run-up to this crisis. They said that there was inadequate regulation, that there was not enough there were not enough measures taken by the government to prevent this. And because of that, they started an impeachment process against Peña.

So what happens now, Luis? Will there be any regional effects from the collapse of this bank?

A lot of people are saying that there will be substantial regional impacts. Peña was a part of a group of right-wing presidents in Latin America who were seen as very closely aligned to Donald Trump. He was in many ways or his government was in many ways a symbol of what these governments promised their citizens. Actually, the government of Paraguay was saying that their economic growth was very good. And this also following the result in Brazil, where a conservative candidate lost. It is seen as a sort of a problem for this wave that initially seemed so strong of pro-Trump right-wing governments in Latin America.

Luis Fajardo. And now let's talk about a martial art developed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Sambo is an acronym of a Russian phrase that translates as self-defense without weapons. Now sambo is practiced in many countries. And earlier this year, a Nigerian woman became the first female to achieve the gold medal at the World Cup in Armenia in a new category for blind athletes. This weekend, that athlete, Rukhiyat Taiwosulaman, is hoping to do it all again at the 50th World Sambo Championships in Uzbekistan.

It's early morning in Lagos and Rukhiyat Taiwosulaman is already on the mat. In April, she made sambo history in Armenia.

When they declared me a winner, I was very, very excited.

She beat Uzbekistan's Charo Oteikova in the final of the Blind Sambo World Cup. It was the first time women with visual impairment had competed in blind sambo at international level. And Sulayman became the first to take gold.

Being the first female blind sambist in Africa and in the world to win the gold medal, it makes me great. And I don't look down on myself as a blind person. Sambo is very, very interesting. And I noticed something about sambo that it gives me more strength.

Sambo is a second sport. On the track, she has won more than 20 national medals and she still competes in both.

For me to meet up my training time, we start training around 7:30 or 8:00. So I have to leave home by 5:30 in the morning. It's not easy to be a champion in athletics and in sambo. It takes a lot of sacrifice, endurance, and some pain. It's a visually impaired person to combine two sports together.

Sulayman lost her sight to glaucoma in 2009 and surgery couldn't save it. She says the other's opponent back then was herself.

Before people look down on me, I look down on myself first. All my belief then is that without me seeing, I can't become anything in life.

She returns to the world stage at the Sambo World Championships in Uzbekistan.

My expectation there is to get the gold. I want to maintain that record. I want to use it to encourage my fellow blind in Africa. I want to make my country proud again.

That's four points.

Since the year I joined sports, I see that when there is no sight, when there's life, there's hope. And what excited people can do, a blind can do better.

Isaiah Akenremi with that report. And that's nearly all from us for now. Just before we go, some might think it's too early to discuss the holiday season, but our editor believes in being prepared.

Hi, it's Jennette here.

Hi, this is Anker.

Here on the Global News Podcast, we'll be celebrating the run-up to the festive period with special messages from our listeners to their loved ones.

And if you'd like to wish a happy holidays or a merry Christmas or any other seasonal greeting to someone you know, just send us a voice note.

Tell us who you are and where you are, how long you've been listening to the podcast, and what you like about it.

And don't forget to leave their name and let us know who we should send our best wishes to and why you love them so much.

Email your voice note to globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk.

This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Joe McCartney and the producer was Emma Joseph. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye.