Transcript of Hegseth Dodges Impeachment as Trump Threatens Democratic Investigators

Hey, how are you?

Good, how are you? Happy... Wednesday.

Sure, happy Wednesday. Happy one week from the blue wave. Blue nomi.

I know.

And we're already fighting with each other. Things are just the way that they were.

Everything is back to where we once were. If you guys are just joining, welcome to the Raging Perspectives. I'm Aaron Parnes with Jessica Tarlov. Make sure to subscribe on Substack up here, YouTube down there. Happy Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday. Let's fight with each other. Not you and me.

Let's get into it.

But the party.

Let's do it.

Okay, Pete Hegseth just got a lifeline from House Republicans. Am I stupid? I'm going to have to read the full prompt. But I actually thought a few more of them would vote to impeach and not do this workaround to send it to the committees.

That was the plan. At least that's what everyone thought. I mean, I spoke to Adam Smith, a ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, a few days before the vote, and he said he thought it would pass with flying numbers. He thought there were plenty of Republicans who were ready to vote. Massey was prepared for Republicans to vote. At the end of the day, it ended up being an attendance issue, and Democrats kind of screwed the pooch here.

Well, it wasn't the attendance issue. I mean, we'll get into it.

Yeah.

But I think there's blame to go around, but also numbers are going to number, and it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

I have some even more. I mean, I do think it would have changed the outcome. Those seven Republicans were not in DC.

Oh, you're talking about the attendance issue. Should I—let me read the whole prompt.

Sure, go ahead.

So people know what's going on here. Here I am in professional reading. Okay. Despite mounting questions about Pete Hegseth's conduct during the Iran war, the House voted 211 to 204 to sink an impeachment effort, referring the articles to committee and shielding Hegseth from a potentially damaging vote. Massey said his Republican colleagues are in a, quote unquote, "suicide pact" with the administration. Okay. Now you tell me about the numbers. It wasn't that exciting of a prompt.

Yeah, I mean, listen. So the numbers are what they are. You had—it was 210 to 204. You had seven Republicans not voting. You had, what was it, 11 Democrats not.

11 Dems.

11 Democrats not voting. If all 11 Democrats voted, there would have been enough to move this forward. I think the argument that, well, if all Republicans voted, this would have been killed—yes, that is true. If every Republican and every Democrat voted, this would have been killed. But based on what I understand, not all of those seven Republicans were in DC ready to vote. There were attendance issues with this Republican caucus. And so if every Democrat showed up and voted, there would have been the votes. Now, let's go through why some of these Democrats didn't. I get it. Some of them have health issues, and that is one bucket.

Though, shout out Pat Ryan.

Yeah.

Who had back surgery the day before and checked himself out to make sure that he was going to be on the floor to vote to impeach Pete Hegseth. I mean, I'm a Pat Ryan stan usually, but I thought that that was worth noting.

100%. So Pat Ryan, yes, shout out to Pat Ryan. But the other members, the other members—well, here's where I get a little annoyed. Nancy Pelosi was in California at a Veterans Day event, okay? Nancy Pelosi should have been in DC voting. That's number one. Number two, the ones who were stuck in traffic or because they said that there was, like, an issue, car accident, whatnot. This vote was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. It was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at 7:00 a.m.

And walked, yeah.

Right, to vote. You go there and you vote. And by the way, I think there's also this—and I can't believe I'm, like, out here talking about, like, all of this because there's this misconception that, like, Mike Johnson shut this vote quickly. He didn't. I mean, if you were watching it live, this vote was open for a good 30 minutes. It was a 15-minute vote. It was open for 30 minutes. So I just—I don't think anyone who didn't show up, unless you had, like, a serious health issue like Congressman Correa does, you don't have an excuse, in my opinion.

Yeah, so the Democratic whip, Kathryn Clark, had a meeting this morning where she said to the 11 members who missed the vote for Pete Hegseth's potential impeachment that the committee—sorry—that they had disappointed the American people. She acknowledged that full attendance wouldn't have changed the outcome. That's depending on the Republican attendance.

Sure.

Which is the point that Aaron's making. But stressed that members have a responsibility to show up to the people who elected them. Reiterated leadership's expectation that Democrats be present for votes during the lame duck session. She was apparently, you know, transmitting the sentiments of many rank-and-file Democrats who were frankly pissed off that this was possible, and they were at an event for Democratic women. It was a group called Elect Dem Women, just so people know where they were.

And by the way, just one thing I'm just going to say is, like, if every Democrat showed up and every Republican showed up and this didn't go forward, okay, fine. At least everyone showed up. And you can't then go and say no one would be blaming Democrats today for anything.

No, they'd be blaming Republicans or saying Republicans are trying to protect Pete Hegseth on their way out, even folks that you would expect.

Exactly.

To see do this, like a Don Bacon who has been consistently critical of Hegseth. I'm curious what they'll do because now it will move to the individual committees, for instance, but Republicans are still in leadership positions until the end of the lame duck session. All of this is spilling over onto Hakeem Jeffries, though. And that, I mean, my timeline is full of this, that, you know, the first thing that comes up since getting this massive majority is a failure on a vote.

Where I stand on it.

As a hockey referee's problem.

Yeah, I mean, listen, it's a Democratic caucus-wide problem. It's a leadership problem. Of course it is. I think everyone in leadership has to figure out why their members did not show up. I mean, that is the truth of it. Because to me, if it was as important of a vote, everyone would be there. And you would whip it, you would figure it out. So it's a caucus-wide problem. If you were elected to the House of Representatives, you got to get and make sure you vote. So it's a caucus-wide issue. It's—I don't pin it on one person.

Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, when you are the person who's in charge.

Yeah.

People are going to look at you and say, you know, why wasn't it communicated that this is, like, first day of school, super important shit, right? Like, you got to be here for that vote. And, you know, Kathryn Clark, that would be on her too, as you're saying, you know, caucus-wide problem. You know, I feel like this merry-go-round that we're on about Hakeem Jeffries's leadership position, when there's nobody else running against him, is getting a little tedious, to say the least.

Here's where I stand. I think that there are serious concerns from a lot of the Democratic base that leadership is going to have to address. That is number one. And they shouldn't be talked down to. They shouldn't be rejected. I think that I find it very interesting that a lot of the more progressive members are making clear that it's not about one person being leader. It's about the agenda. And for what it's worth, you can ask every single member of the Democratic caucus, I guarantee you, maybe two, three, or four, whatever, say they want to be speaker of the House. It is not.

No.

It is a thankless job. It is not a fun job. It is a very tedious job. And I think AOC actually explained it really well on her Instagram Live the other day of what a speaker of the House actually does and why she is essentially, at least currently, supporting Jeffries because he's the only one on the ballot. It's not—this whole conversation is not Jeffries-focused or Schumer-focused. It's a conversation about the future of the Democratic agenda.

Yeah.

And that's the conversation that I think a lot of people need to be having. And it's why I say there are concerns that whoever becomes leader in both chambers, whoever is leadership, will have to address. You can't just sweep this aside because there is a growing number of people in the Democratic base. I would argue a majority of the Democratic base want to see things like universal health care, universal child care, things like that, which a lot of these member elects ran on. And so it'll just be up to leadership to address the concerns.

I don't even think that it will be an interesting conversation. I think that everyone knows that. And I get the frustration. And from the things that he said in interviews about what they're going to be bringing to the floor first, those are the things people wanted to hear, right? Like banning people in Congress from trading stocks, raising the minimum wage, you know, restoring the ACA subsidies, repealing the cuts to Medicaid, for instance, like the war powers resolution.

I will say where you and I disagree, I think, and where I will break from a lot of folks, is the fact that I actually think number one on the agenda has to be accountability. It has to be. And I think that is—and I have called out Jeffries on this already in that the message, yes, we're going to lower your costs, but accountability and affordability go hand in hand.

Totally.

If you can hold the wealthy and the top 1% and these tech oligarchs accountable, you will make life more affordable. And so the message has to be accountability. I think a lot of Americans want accountability. I think saying things like, oh, we don't want revenge, I get the sentiment behind it, but a lot of Americans are angry. They have seen their friends and family taken off the streets by masked ICE agents. They are tired of where they've been, and they want to see some type of accountability, especially given the fact that in a Congress right now, you have a Democratic House, Democratic Senate, but you don't have veto-proof majorities, and you have a Republican president.

I don't disagree with you. I just think of that more as Garcia's purview than what Leader Jeffries is out there talking about. And I'm going to—I want to skip ahead to the discussion about what's going on with oversight because, you know, we're obviously preparing to take over the House, and Trump is now putting the Oversight Committee on notice. White House counsel is warning Robert Garcia that some Democratic investigations could cross the line into criminal behavior, even suggesting lawmakers could face legal consequences for how they use subpoenas.

The letter means nothing.

Okay.

Garcia hasn't even gotten the letter. They mailed it out from the White House, and I don't think.

And we just got it first.

They gave it to Punchbowl before Garcia got it, okay? This letter means literally nothing. And in fact, it's going to hurt the White House substantially because now Jeffries and legal—not Jeffries, sorry—Garcia and legal counsel for oversight can go to a court and say, look, they never intended to follow subpoenas in the first place. This is what they're trying to do. And it will almost expedite a lot of the adjudication, the back and forth, the legal back and forth for when they try to defy subpoenas and stonewall these investigations.

Well, definitely. I mean, they've got closets full of stuff. But I was surprised to see it so early, I guess, before there's even been a real wind-up.

It's because they're scared. It's because they're scared. That's why.

But they went from, like, making fun of him about his petty comment over the weekend to this. Though, I mean, it is infitting with Jim Jordan becoming the new leader of the Republican minority. He defeated longtime leadership contender Steve Scalise in a 106 to 73 vote.

Jordan is promising all-out battle against Democrats. Big shocker there. That's all that he does. The guy has never gotten a piece of legislation passed, and he's been in Congress, what, like 20 years at this point?

Yeah.

What do you think the future of the party looks like under a Jim Jordan, spelled G-Y-M or J-I-M?

It makes a lot of sense that Jim Jordan was elected leader of the party that refuses to release all the Epstein files. I mean, it just, it's poetic. It's poetic in a way. Where do I see this going? I see Jim Jordan never becoming speaker of the House. And what I mean by that is, yes, could Republicans potentially take over the House of Representatives again one day? 100% they will at some point in the future. Democrats will not be the majority in the House in perpetuity. It'll flip back and forth. Fine.

Excuse me?

Just, okay. It'll flip back and forth. But Jim Jordan, I don't see lasting longer. Like, I don't see him growing the majority that much. I think Republicans have a huge uphill battle in 2028. And I don't know that Jim Jordan is the one that can lead them, especially like strategic strategy-wise. I don't think he has that strategic bone in his body, given the fact that he spent time on judiciary investigating a whole lot of nothing, hasn't passed a piece of legislation in 20 years. And so, yeah, I struggle to see a path forward for Jordan.

Yeah.

I don't know that he'll be able to do that.

He's, to put this politely, he's inelegant. And there is something to being able to raise money, and it usually comes from elegant people that can work all sorts of different kinds of rooms, right? This was the thing about John Cornyn versus Ken Paxton as well. Like, Cornyn, an enormously prolific fundraiser. Mike Johnson did a really good job with this. Think whatever you want about him. And I have had some of those dirty thoughts myself, not in a sexual way, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, totally.

But agree with you there. I also, unless I'm wrong, but my impression is that he doesn't have great relationships with anyone but really like his core group.

Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what I thought.

And the leader is supposed to be able to, you know, schmooze with everybody to understand what people's priorities are and also how they're thinking about these issues. Because you're going to see of the Republicans who are left, and it's not as many of them as certainly the Republicans had hoped, some of them might have interests, for instance, in doing deals that could deliver for their constituents so that maybe they could get elected again, or it's just the right thing to do. But I'm going to go with the electoral impetus for doing this. And my impression is that Jim Jordan is not someone who's going to be good about that necessarily.

Right, which is why I think he'll last the two years and then he'll go. I mean, like, I don't envision, given how large, I mean, listen, given how large the Democratic majority is in the House, for Republicans to flip it in the House in 2028, they'd have to have a red wave of such epic proportion that we haven't even seen in our lifetime, or at least in my lifetime. And.

Your mini lifetime?

In my mini lifetime. But no, but still, I mean, like, they're not going to, the House is not going to, in my opinion, not going to flip back to Republican, neither is the Senate in 2028. It'll be, it could be closer, it could be constricted to the House, not necessarily the Senate, but it won't flip. And I don't see Jim Jordan lasting another election cycle after 2028.

Yeah, and the map is terrible for them in 2028. This was their good map.

Yes.

And then 2030 is a whole other conversation once the census kicks in.

Yes.

And then there's going to be a lot of problems for Democrats. But there are Republicans that are saying it's not even worthwhile to run for president in 2028 because they think it's going to be such a shelacking, a redux of what we just saw with the Blue Nami.

Mm-hmm.

All right, let's move over to the tech industry. They're preparing for legal battles with Democrats. Companies are getting ahead of the scrutiny by hiring Democrats who know their way around Capitol Hill. Among them, Palantir, which just brought on former Democratic Senator John Tester as an advisor. The company, founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, has faced criticism from Democrats over its government contracts and technology used in immigration enforcement and surveillance. Meanwhile, the CEO, Alex Karp, has been making his own case to the left, arguing that Palantir's products are essentially progressive and that he's always been a Democrat all along.

What do I make of all this? What do I make of all this is the fact that they know judgment day's coming. It's like, it's like they know that they're about to be hauled to Capitol Hill, all of these tech oligarchs. And they're just trying to hedge their bets. They're trying to hedge their bets. Alex Karp is trying to hedge his bet for 2028. He wants Palantir to continue making money. A lot of their government contracts are fueling a lot of their income. So, yeah, I think it all makes sense. It's just a sign of the times of kind of where we're at.

I will say, though, I actually do believe them that they were all or are all Democrats at core.

Sure.

Then it just makes the cravenness of it even worse that you were willing to sell your soul like this to have what was supposed to be two good years. Though, I guess for these tech companies, they were awesome years because the average American was the one having a tough time, not the tech CEOs. But you know who's the tech CEO that's having a very tough time?

Elon Musk.

No, I was going Jensen Huang.

Oh, well, yeah, him too.

I mean, really bad. The New York Times was reporting that Trump was briefed aboard Air Force One before his trip to China in May about intelligence suggesting that Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, was involved with a woman believed to be a Chinese spy. This directly contradicts Trump's claim this week that he didn't know about the allegations at the time. This is insane that they knew about it and didn't do anything.

It's so crazy. And the fact that he traveled to China on Air Force One.

And Republicans are out there like hot. Yeah.

Like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Imagine this was Joe Biden.

What the hell are we doing?

Imagine this was Joe Biden.

Because Republicans are actually upset about, whoa, the country would be on fire.

I know. I know. Crazy.

Well, I was even thinking about, like, Eric Swalwell's, remember, he had, he slept with a Chinese spy, Fang Fang, and they talk about it all the time. And they want a collective shrug about this. But there are individual Republicans who seem deeply concerned about it. Where do you think this goes?

Where does this go? I don't know where this goes, honestly, truth be told. And I will say that because right now, even Silicon Valley is really rallying around Jensen Huang right now. I'm curious to see whether Jensen Huang remains the head of Nvidia moving forward and what the results are of the internal investigation that they launched. There's a lot here that needs to be unpacked. It seems like Trump's standing with him, so I guess that's where we are right now. I don't know where the future goes, though.

Yeah. I mean, I get that people really like him and that he seems like a good guy or whatever. But Scott has a whole thing about, you know, how he has to resign and how.

Of course. I mean, come on.

I mean, obviously, but they never seem to do it. And I get too caught up in the, like, soap opera aspects of it, but I feel so terrible for his wife, who was like his lab partner for 43 years, two kids, was with him from, like, being a poor student up until this, but no prenup. So what does she stand to get, like, $81 billion or something?

It might be the most expensive divorce in American history outside of the Bezos divorce.

Are they definitely getting.

Or the Gates and Gates divorce. If they divorce, I don't know that they will.

Yeah. I don't know either. If she wants to talk to us, we're available on the Raging Perspective.

Come on over.

I want to talk, looping back to what Democrats can do or what they're already thinking about. They're putting forward some bigger ideas to counter Republican policies that they say are hurting Americans' pocketbooks. Love this from Senator Andy Kim, who's pitching universal healthcare as a defining issue for the party, starting with the Medicaid Act, which would automatic, excuse me, which would automatically enroll every child in Medicaid and extend coverage to the age of 26. He's also proposing expanding Medicare to cover long-term care for older adults and people with disabilities.

I mean, yes, I think it'll definitely help. But I think ultimately it has to be paired with accountability. You have to do this and you have to do that. You got to walk in.

Well, we are doing that.

You got to walk in.

I mean, do you feel like that's not happening, though? Because, I mean, Garcia seems very hot on all of this.

It is happening. 100%. I'm just saying it's got to.

You're just like, it has every 10 minutes. We just have to do the reminder.

It's what Democrats want.

Yeah, but they want healthcare too for kids.

Of course. We could do both. Walk in chew gum.

We could do both. Joe Biden's back. He's releasing his new memoir, Promise Me America. And he is currently scaling back his book tour as he continues his cancer treatment. The book includes the farewell letter Donald Trump left for Biden on inauguration day, which did not seem like he thought that he didn't lose the election fair and square. It was so nice. He has this gracious tone reflecting on the presidency and telling Biden he believed he would be true to himself and the American people. He even writes that Biden's love for the country would set him apart from presidents who simply got swept along by history.

And I know what I need to do for everybody.

Joe's cancer diagnosis was such a complete surprise. And we had other plans for post-White House, you know, traveling and maybe going to Italy. But once he got the diagnosis, our whole life changed entirely. And I can remember sitting actually at a nail salon, going through a magazine and thinking, oh, I'd love to travel to this place and to that place. And it all of a sudden struck me like, wait a minute, this isn't our life now.

That's so sad.

Yeah.

It really is. It's so sad. And I just wish the Bidens the best.

I wish them the best too. And I'm scared for the onslaught that is about to happen. And I know that people are already saying, and we knew the release date. We didn't know that he was definitely going to be scaling back his book tour, but I'm not surprised by that. Even if he wasn't sick, I think that he would be scaling back. But to see people even commenting already like, we just had this amazing result and then it's pulling us back into a doom cycle that was not particularly good for Democrats.

I mean, listen, he was always going to publish his book. It was always going to come out this November. Like, that was always the plan. So, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'll be talking about it today on the five. Thoughts and prayers, please.

Thoughts and prayers. Let's answer some questions.

Okay.

Dutchie asks, do you think Donald Trump wants to be president anymore?

Yeah. Definitely.

I think he's telling you.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think he doesn't, like, want to be. I think he wants to be president, but like at Mar-a-Lago.

Fair. I think he wants to be like chef.

But I think he wants to be president forever.

Decorator. Liz asks, what happens if Supreme Court justices retire before the end of the session? Can Trump get a couple in? I could take that one.

Yeah.

If Supreme Court justices retire, yes, they could force someone else in. There's no indication that any Supreme Court justice is going to retire, though, right now.

And Alito said that. It was, that was the one that everyone was watching. Clarence Thomas is going to die in office.

Yeah, he's not going to leave.

For sure.

And.

And he is on the precipice of becoming the longest serving justice.

Yes, he is. The only one thing that I did see is this idea that Trump could nominate someone and they could confirm someone in waiting. It's an interesting legal concept I've never heard, but here we are.

Oh, yeah, Sarah Isker was writing about it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, that would be super annoying. But I also, and maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but I feel like the outgoing senators, like the Tom Tillises and Susan Collinses of the world, Bill Cassidy, wouldn't vote for a conservative justice after the people have spoken at this level.

Yeah, I agree. I agree 100%.

Okay. So we're safe, Liz, for now.

What's the likelihood of Puerto Rico and DC statehood? 0% right now. It's just not going to happen right now. I mean, moving forward, it's going to be up to the people of Puerto Rico and DC, in my opinion.

Okay. Zero seems really low to me, but. Which way in? Which way in? Oh, I see. Okay. Who said we didn't want revenge?

Multiple.

I don't know.

I think multiple Democrats said that, like, revenge isn't what we want. We just want accountability. That was the quote that that was floating around.

Accountability versus revenge or, like, the agenda versus accountability or revenge? Because I feel like they're distinct.

Yeah. No, it's just the use of the term, revenge versus accountability.

Okay. Well, we're parsing words. I think that people want stuff to happen in the legal sphere, however you want to brand it. And it is not in our nature to just go after people for shits and giggles, you know, real.

That's what Trump does.

Cases and investigations. That's what Trump does.

Thank you guys for watching. Make sure to subscribe up here and down there. See you guys next week.

See ya.