Democratic Senator Warns About Biggest Risk Pete Hegseth Poses

Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth warned that in addition to being radically unqualified, Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, might potentially be “vulnerable to blackmail.”

During an interview on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes Tuesday, Duckworth explained why she still doesn’t believe Hegseth is suited to be the secretary of defense after his confirmation hearing earlier that day.

“If Donald Trump said to Hegseth, you know, on January 20, ‘I want you to prepare a plan to uh, you know, invade Greenland.’ Could he lead that mission? My answer is no, he’s not qualified! He wouldn’t know what was a good mission or what was a bad mission. He wouldn’t know who to put in the room to come up with the plans!” Duckworth said. Duckworth is a combat veteran who lost both her legs during a mission in Iraq.

“And you know, more importantly, I think he personally is a compromised individual whom our adversaries are watching and digging the dirt on, and this makes him somebody who is vulnerable to our adversaries, and we don’t need that person in charge.”

Duckworth went on to describe how Hegseth’s shady dealings with a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 demonstrated a huge liability to the security of the United States.

“Here’s what I’m afraid of,” Duckworth said later. “He’s already had to pay off a woman who accused him of sexual assault in order to keep his last job at Fox News, right? What is he going to be willing to do to pay off the next accuser who might show up after he becomes secretary of defense and has access to the nuclear codes, and the location of U.S. troops around the world?

“What happens when he wants to keep that job and somebody comes forward? He’s already told us that he’s willing to pay off somebody.”

Hegseth’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, revealed in November that his client had paid his accuser in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure agreement in order to stop her from filing a lawsuit and to protect his position at Fox News. Duckworth argued that Hegseth “potentially is vulnerable to blackmail.”

In one humiliating moment of Hegseth’s confirmation hearing Tuesday, Duckworth had asked him to speak about the political and strategic importance of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,or ASEAN, and he wasn’t able to conjure the name of a single member state.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries torched his Republican colleagues for considering conditions on aid to California amid a devastating wildfire season, arguing that the GOP was forgetting one obvious reason to support the economic powerhouse.

Speaking with MSNBC on Tuesday, Jeffries clarified that Democrats were not in favor of the conditions being floated by conservatives, which include atoning for “bad behavior” related to their land management and taxation system under a “liberal administration.”

“We had a discussion about this today in the House Democratic Caucus, and the consensus position, I think it’s fair to say, is that we do not support conditioning any aid to everyday Americans whose lives have been wiped out as a result of extreme weather events,” Jeffries told the network. “Homes have been destroyed, schools have been destroyed, small businesses have been destroyed.”

Further still, Jeffries argued that the idea of not supporting California—which statistically receives a fraction of the money it puts into the federal government as the single largest economy in the nation, contributing to 14 percent of the national gross domestic product—would be “unconscionable.”

“It is unconscionable that Republicans are suggesting imposing right-wing partisan conditions in order for California taxpayers to receive their tax dollars,” he continued. “California is one of those states, in fact, that sends about five times as much to the federal government every year than they get back in return.”

An analysis from the Rockefeller Institute of Government showed that in 2022, California was just one of a small handful of states that gave more than it got to the federal government, contributing $83 million more in taxes to the federal government than it received back. But that fact hasn’t stopped conservatives from pitching ways to make it harder for California to access its money to build back after the fires torched more than 38,000 acres around Los Angeles.

“We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who’ve been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior,” Iowa Representative Zach Nunn said Monday on Fox Business. “We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy. We want to be able to help our colleagues in New York, California, and New Jersey, but those governors need to change their tune now.”

Elon Musk is in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The government agency sued the tech mogul Tuesday for failing to disclose his purchase of 5 percent of Twitter shares in March 2022 in a timely manner, allowing him to buy the shares at artificially low prices. In its lawsuit, the SEC said that Musk underpaid for the stock and cheated investors by at least $150 million.

SEC rules require investors to disclose stock purchases above a 5 percent threshold within 10 days. The agency alleges that Musk did not disclose his purchase until April 4, 2022, 11 days after the deadline, at which point he owned over 10 percent of the social media company’s shares. It ended up being quite lucrative for Musk too: Twitter’s share price went up more than 27 percent after Musk’s allegedly late disclosure.

Musk, as expected, spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning complaining about the SEC decision on his X (formerly Twitter) account, agreeing with his fans attacking the agency, calling the SEC a “totally broken organization,” and posting that the lawsuit is the “last gasp of Biden lawfare.”

With Donald Trump’s inauguration just five days away, one wonders if this lawsuit will continue under the new president, whom Musk helped get elected with hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money. Trump is probably going to aid his biggest benefactor and do his best to make the case disappear, as Musk can’t bear to be held accountable for any misdeed.

Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” project could very easily target the SEC for massive cuts to ensure that he and his fellow billionaires can continue to get away with these types of financial crimes. After all, what’s the point of having the president in your pocket if he doesn’t protect you from being held accountable under the law?

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey on Tuesday hand-delivered Trump a personalized Diet Coke bottle honoring his upcoming inauguration—a huge about-face from a company that was condemning the “unlawful and violent events” of January 6 just four years ago.

Trump campaign spokesperson Margo Martin shared a photo of the present on X, calling it the first-ever “‘Presidential Commemorative Inaugural’ Diet Coke Bottle.” But in reality, this is far from the first time Coca-Cola has honored a president.

Still, the news is upsetting when considering how big businesses and billionaires have cozied up to the president-elect, either by supporting him publicly or reneging on so-called “woke” policies internally. Coca-Cola is only the latest, and maybe the corniest.

“As gratifying as it must be to sell out the inauguration, have Zuck & Bezos pony up (and show up), and generally be greeted with an air of legitimacy and mainstream validation he never had the first time, this gesture is probably the biggest next to the Time cover,” X user Liam Donovan quipped.

Trump is a known Diet Coke lover, and allegedly drank 12 Diet Cokes a day during his first term. But he’s also called it “garbage” and even called for the company to be boycotted in 2021 after it criticized Georgia’s restrictive and discriminatory voter laws.

MAGA Representative Nancy Mace had a serious meltdown Tuesday after being triggered by a Democratic colleague calling her out during a meeting of the House Oversight Committee.

The incident took place shortly after the House voted to pass an anti-transgender bill that bars “biological men” from participating in women’s sports.

Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat from Texas, took a shot at Mace and other Republicans for putting a target on the “most vulnerable in our country” instead of actually caring about the issues brought by their constituents.

“The fact that you just sat up there and somehow figured out how to tie trans folk to your argument makes no sense to me but let me tell you something: Trans people ain’t going nowhere, just like when the racists wanted to make sure that Black people somehow were going to be dismissed in this country, we ain’t left either,” Crockett said.

Crockett continued, referring to Mace’s selling merchandise off of her efforts to keep trans women out of bathrooms. “Somebody’s campaign coffers are really struggling right now, so she’s going to keep saying ‘trans trans trans’ so that people will feel threatened,” Crockett said. “And child, listen. I want y’all to tell me—”

“I am no child,” Mace interjected. “Do not call me a child! I am no child! Don’t even start, I am a grown woman. I am 47 years old.”

Mace continued to speak over Crockett as Committee Chair James Comer attempted to call the lawmakers to order.

“If you want to take it outside—” Mace threatened, before cutting herself off.

Rather than face repercussions for her outburst, seemingly inviting a fellow lawmaker to physically fight, Comer bent over backward to make it OK.

“What the gentlelady said was, ‘We can take this outside if you want,’ and that could mean we could go outside and have a cup of coffee, or perhaps a beer, and you know we have lots of conversations outside,” Comer said, obviously scrambling for some reason why he shouldn’t censure Mace.

“Seriously, Mr. Chairman?” asked an incredulous Representative Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida.

Comer ruled that it was “OK” for Mace to say whatever she wanted, because her meaning was unclear, but Mace was far from done with her tantrum.

“And remember, it’s a slippery slope you’re going down,” Comer said.

“Oh, you’re going down a slippery slope?” Frost replied. “So just to be clear, we can ask, we can threaten violence on someone as long as we’re—”

“I did not threaten violence! I threatened no violence! I threatened no violence!” Mace interjected once again. She kept shouting over Frost and Comer. “You’re making shit up as you go along. You might want to figure this one out.”

Mace has a penchant for posting obnoxiously on X to insist that she is a “REAL WOMAN,” and brag that her transphobic hate speech triggers liberal snowflakes—but it seems the lawmaker couldn’t just take a simple note on her money-making grift. The simple answer here appears to be, if you don’t want to be treated like a child, don’t act like one.

A bill aimed at restricting “biological men” from participating in women’s sports passed the House of Representatives Tuesday. The anti-transgender initiative is on its way to the upper chamber thanks to the contributions of two Democrats, who sided with 216 Republicans.

H.R. 28, titled “The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” would modify Title IX to singularly recognize an individual’s sex based on their “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The measure would effectively bar educational institutions, which oversee youth sports across the country, from allowing transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports—or else risk suspending or terminating their federal funding.

“It shall be a violation of subsection (a) for a recipient of Federal financial assistance who operates, sponsors, or facilitates an athletic program or activity to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls,” the text of the bill reads.

H.R. 28 also compels the comptroller general to conduct a biased survey documenting the “adverse psychological, developmental, participatory, and sociological results” to cisgender girls when transgender athletes are allowed to compete alongside them.

Even lawmakers who remain critical of transgender inclusion in sports deemed the bill too broad and too dangerous to advance, claiming that it could realistically lead to cisgender girls who don’t fit traditional norms or beauty standards—such as being “too tall,” “too strong,” or even “too good” at sports—being forced to hand over sensitive medical information to government officials or to have their genitals inspected.

“Because it fails to distinguish between children and adults and different levels of athletics, school-aged kids who simply want to play recreational sports and build camaraderie like everybody else could be targeted by the federal government,” Democratic Representative Seth Moulton said Tuesday. “My kids play co-ed sports today just as I did when I was their age, and I don’t want any kids their age subjected to the invasive violations of personal privacy this bill allows.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to do away with Meta’s third-party fact-checking service was presented as a sweeping cultural change across the company’s platforms—but apparently, its new policy will apply only in the United States.

Globo, a Brazilian news outlet, reported Tuesday that Meta had responded to some concerns from Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office about whether the company’s rightward policy shift would comply with the country’s legal requirements to combat racism and homophobia. The change, among other things, will allow for the spread of misinformation and “opinions” on issues such as gender and immigration.

Meta assured Brazil’s lawyers that the company’s return to its “roots around free expression” was limited to its country of origin: the U.S. Seems like those roots didn’t go very far at all.

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program will continue in other countries, while the company tests its community notes system. The company said that it would continue to remove posts that contain misinformation when that misinformation might cause bodily harm or interfere in political processes such as elections. Meta insisted that it was “committed to respecting human rights” and “freedom of expression,” according to Globo.

This is all well and good but sure does make it seem like Zuckerberg’s sweeping announcement was meant to cater to a particular moment in America—specifically, Donald Trump’s return to the White House next week.

Zuckerberg’s spineless posturing seems to be working: He’s won himself a spot next to Trump’s Cabinet appointees, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos at the inauguration ceremony next Monday.

Silicon Valley is apparently all in on Donald Trump’s forthcoming presidency.

World’s-richest-man Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos are slated to attend the forty-seventh president’s inauguration next week, according to NBC News. The tech trio will be seated alongside elected officials and Trump’s Cabinet selections.

The industry leaders—and their respective companies—have opportunistically caved to the incoming president’s politics since he won in November, in an apparent bid to curry favor with the executive.

Trump’s second term could prove to be a new leaf for the tech industry, which faced heightened scrutiny under President Joe Biden’s administration. Meta, Google, Amazon, and several other tech giants have faced blowback from antitrust regulators critical of the industry’s biggest monopolies over the last four years. The government also sought to tighten regulations on a bubbling AI industry.

Rapid developments in tech are already proving to be a major strain on the nation’s infrastructure: In August, taxpayers in Texas paid Riot Platforms $31 million not to mine bitcoin in an effort to stave off rolling blackouts and spare the state’s electric grid.

The tech industry’s support has helped Trump best his 2017 inaugural fundraising records, raising more than $170 million ahead of next week’s presidential celebration. A coalition of top tech heads, including Zuckerberg, Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, all pledged $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

Meanwhile, Musk has further ingratiated himself into Trump’s sphere, effectively bankrolling the 78-year-old’s pathway back to the White House with a $250 million donation. That earned Musk nearly unfettered access to Trump, as well as a not-yet-real position co-chairing the not-yet-authorized Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

But the sudden ingratiation hasn’t come without issue in Trumpworld: Over the weekend, Trump’s former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon lambasted Musk as a “truly evil guy” whom he planned to force out of the MAGA leader’s sphere by Inauguration Day.

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, was unable to name a single country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations during his confirmation hearing Tuesday—even naming Australia instead.

Senator Tammy Duckworth asked Hegseth to speak to the importance of the political and economic alliance, in an effort to make a point of how unqualified he was to lead the Pentagon and its massive workforce.

“You talked about the Indo-Pacific a little bit.… Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in ASEAN, and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations? And how many nations are in ASEAN, by the way?

“I couldn’t tell you the exact amount of nations in that, but I know we have allies in South Korea, and Japan, and in AUKUS with Australia, [we] work on submarines with them …”

“Mr. Hegseth none of those countries are in ASEAN. None of those three countries that you’ve mentioned are in ASEAN,” Duckworth replied. “I suggest you do a little homework before you prepare for these types of negotiations.”

“This might seem like a small, embarrassing gotcha, but ASEAN is an acronym you encounter a lot if you do even very basic reading about the Pentagon’s strategy to counter China,” Yahoo’s Jordan Weissman wrote on X.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The United States regularly conducts joint military exercises with the member states.

During his confirmation hearings for secretary of defense Tuesday, Pete Hegseth was asked about cashing in from the defense industry—and refused to give a straight answer.

Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed out that Hegseth had previously written that after generals retire from the military, they “should be banned from working for the defense industry for 10 years,” noting that she agrees with Hegseth “on the corrosive effects of the revolving door of the Pentagon and defense contractors.”

Warren then asked Hegseth, “Will you put your money where your mouth is and agree that when you leave this job you will not work for the defense industry for 10 years?”

At first, Hegseth tried to deflect, saying that “it’s not even a question I’ve thought about.” Warren pressed him further.

“My motivation for this job has never been about what could conceivably come next,” Hegseth replied, appearing to carefully weigh his words. Warren then asked point-blank for a yes or no answer, and Hegseth refused.

“I would consult with the president about what the policy should be at the Defense Department,” Hegseth said, and Warren was incredulous.

“In other words, you are quite sure that every general who serves should not go directly into the defense industry for 10 years. You’re not willing to make that same pledge?” the Massachusetts Democrat asked.

“I’m not a general, senator,” Hegseth replied, pointedly leaving the door open for a plum job from the defense industry in the future and drawing laughs in the hearing room.

“So you are saying, sauce for the goose but certainly not sauce for the gander?” Warren asked, with Hegseth again saying he’d have to see what the policy is, to which Warren replied, “Oh, I’ll bet you would.”

It’s a clear and obvious admission that Hegseth, now that he’s close to heading the Department of Defense, can see dollar signs down the road in the defense industry that he’s previously criticized. It’s another example of Hegseth backtracking on his earlier statements and writings in Tuesday’s hearing, but, in this case, on something that was actually a good idea.