Pete Hegseth Plays Major Victim Card in Weird Speech on Impeachment

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed Tuesday that he was being threatened with impeachment for being too good at his job.

Speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon, Hegseth began by denying any wrongdoing and claiming that the United States had actually won victories in both Iran and Venezuela.

“For the first time in American history, a Cabinet secretary overseeing America’s military is being attacked, not for losing conflicts with our enemies, but for winning them. Condemned not for defeat but for military victory,” he said.

Of course, that’s not why he’s being impeached at all: Outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie’s 34-page impeachment resolution accuses Hegseth of committing a slew of impeachable offenses by illegally waging war against Iran, suppressing free speech, ignoring laws intended to minimize civilian casualties, and overseeing extrajudicial killings and the kidnapping of a foreign leader. Hegseth insisted that these were not only lawful operations, but victories.

Hegseth claimed that efforts to remove him were being championed by “one disgruntled and defeated congressman,” and that people in the media would never admit to the military’s successes because they “hate the president more than [they] love our country or our troops.”

Hegseth also argued that the impeachment efforts were targeting something bigger than just one delusional Defense secretary. “Make no mistake about what is happening. This is not about me,” he said.

“Put the secretary on trial today, and the men and women who carried out those orders tomorrow,” he added. “If they want to come for the warriors, they’re going to have to come through me.”

Hegseth’s feeble DARVO manipulation strategy crumbles under the slightest pressure. As valorous of a gesture as that may appear, the only person to blame for the crimes committed by U.S. service members is the guy who ordered them—and his boss.

Speaking of President Donald Trump, Hegseth compared his situation to the president’s previous two impeachments.

“Now they’re trying a third time,” Hegseth said. “This time against a member of his Cabinet. They will fail again. And if standing with President Trump puts me in that company, I’ll take that company every day of the week.”

If impeachment is a badge of honor to Hegseth, it’s no wonder he has such backwards ideas about victories and defeats.

Another statue commemorating Donald Trump’s mediocrity has appeared in Washington, this time mocking the moment he evaded the Vietnam War draft with a timely diagnosis of bone spurs.

The bronze installment—erected by an anonymous artist collective on the National Mall—is titled The Foot Soldier, and depicts the president sitting on a pedestal as he rubs his bare foot.

“We honor the service and sacrifice of our commander in chief, Donald J. Trump,” reads a plaque just underneath the guerilla monument. “He’s a soldier in spirit, who marched to the front lines of dodging the draft, armed with a perfect diagnosis of bone spurs.”

“We salute a leader who knows you can’t spell sacrifice without ‘I,’ and a warrior who reminds us that sometimes when you’re called to stand up, it’s best to just sit down and rest your feet,” the plaque concludes, before inscribing a quote from America’s fastidious and battle-worn leader: “‘I can be very military.’ —President Donald J. Trump.”

It’s not the first time that Trump has been immortalized by his critics. Another bronze emulation of the president materialized on the National Mall just last year, portraying Trump in a gleeful handshake with his former “best friend,” child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The statue was named Why Can’t We Be Friends? and was accompanied by a similarly designed plaque that displayed four lines of poetry Trump wrote Epstein for the criminal financier’s fiftieth birthday.

That version was created by the incognito collective The Secret Handshake, and managed to stay on the mall for several months.

A golden incarnation of the president, titled King of the World, also popped up earlier this year, showcasing Trump embracing Epstein a la the famous scene from Titanic in which Jack holds Rose as she stretches out her arms at the bow of the ship.

“The tragic love story between Jack and Rose was built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches,” the statue’s plaque read at the time. “This monument honors the bond between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship seemingly built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches.”

President Trump appears to be doubling down on trying to get Ultimate Fighting Championship President and CEO Dana White to be White House press secretary.

Trump posted multiple artificial intelligence–generated videos of White on Truth Social Monday afternoon, including one where music plays as White triumphantly assumes the role to cheering crowds and another where he berates a reporter in a crowded press room.

The posts contradict Trump’s claim Sunday that the job offer was just a joke.

“I will tell you, I was only kidding, but Dana loves the idea, and there’s only one Dana. He’s great,” Trump said to reporters in Palm Beach.

On Saturday, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that he was offering the press secretary position to White. “I have requested that he bring with him assistants, even though some are not from our Country, of Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, and Kayla Harris,” Trump wrote. “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”

The UFC magnate reportedly declined the offer, and on social media, many users speculated that Trump meant to pick conservative Dana W. White, a former Pentagon spokesperson. But she said there was no mix-up.

“To everyone texting me congratulations: thank you, but you have the wrong Dana White. I’ve stood at the podium and taken questions from the Pentagon press corps. I have never stood in an octagon. I’d like to keep it that way,” she wrote on LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, the UFC chief flew to Washington to meet with Trump in the White House on Monday, meaning that the idea could be gaining steam. Why he would take the job is unclear, although he has a positive relationship with Trump and staged a UFC fight on the White House lawn for Trump’s birthday earlier this year.

Colorado MAGA Representative Lauren Boebert has been washed away in the blue wave, losing her election to Democrat Eileen Laubacher in a stunning upset that is one of many GOP midterm failures.

Laubacher won with 48.77 percent of the vote, while Boebert had only secured 47.92 percent of the vote when CNN called the race.

Laubacher is a retired two-star United States Navy rear admiral who served on former President Joe Biden’s National Security Council.

Boebert’s tenure in Congress was extremely incendiary. She was a staunch supporter of President Trump and his election denial claims, and was a vocal supporter of the QAnon right-wing conspiracy theory community. She is opposed to the LGBTQ community as a whole, and often harassed Representative Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress.

In 2023, Boebert and a male partner were kicked out of a showing of Beetlejuice for vaping, singing, filming, and groping one another. In September, she was the subject of a House ethics complaint for having physical and emotional relationships with three of her own staffers—chief of staff Jeffrey Small, district director Clarice Navarro, and district chief of staff Raven Finegan—and paying them to be quiet about it. Boebert denied the allegations.

Representative Andy Ogles’s legal team pleaded with the Trump administration to drop a probe into his campaign finances. Months later, the Justice Department complied.

Emails obtained by the nonprofit organization American Oversight and published Monday by RawStory revealed that Ogles’s attorneys reached out to the then-director of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, Edward Martin, to end the investigation in November 2025.

“Please see the attached letter on behalf of our client, Rep. Andy Ogles, seeking the termination of the Department’s criminal investigation into campaign finance issues that are more appropriately addressed by the FEC and the House Ethics Committee,” the email read.

Two weeks later, after no response from Martin, Ogles’s legal team followed up to prompt a written response, this time cc-ing Jordan Fox, the chief of staff to then-deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“Received. Thank you,” Martin responded, signing off as “Ed.”

Months later in May, the DOJ agreed to return Ogles’s cell phone back to the Tennessee lawmaker, signalling the end of the inquiry.

It is not clear if Martin followed through on escalating Ogles’s request to DOJ higher ups, or if the request was immediately tied to the end result. But it is an alarming indication of how backdoor favors are clearly expected, and how they operate, within the Trump administration, particularly for the president’s most loyal MAGA lapdogs.

The investigation was related to discrepancies in Ogles’s 2022 campaign finance records, when he filed a report claiming that he loaned his campaign $320,000. The detail raised alarm bells in 2024, when Ogles filed another campaign finance report to acknowledge that he had only loaned the campaign $20,000.

The following year, a U.S House Congressional Ethics panel found “substantial reason to believe” that Ogles had violated federal campaign finance laws by inflating his offices’ fundraising via a personal loan. The lawmaker’s legal defense torched the FBI’s decision to claim his phone, arguing that the bureau—as a component of the executive branch—had no right to look at the personal communications of a sitting member of the legislative branch.

“Members of Congress who are political allies of the incumbent president should not be able to evade prosecution by going through improper channels to request leniency or favoritism,” interim chief counsel at American Oversight Katherine M. Kennedy wrote to Inspector General Don R. Berthiaume last month, according to RawStory.