Pete Hegseth faces Senator Jack Reed's accusations of disrespect and potential anti-Semitism during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, where he defends his "Pharisees" label and military fitness standards while rejecting hypothetical illegal ballot seizures. The discussion expands to Iran policy, with Hegseth insisting negotiations must occur in Abbottabad despite President Trump briefing CENTCOM on striking oil facilities and seizing the Strait of Hormuz. Ultimately, hosts critique Senate Republicans for treating the President like a lame duck, failing to pass the Save America Act or enforce Supreme Court redistricting rulings ahead of the 2026 election. [Automatically generated summary]
How do you justify using this language as Secretary of Defense?
Words matter.
It's a historically hurtful term.
Why do you continue to use it?
And what actions are you taking to prevent rhetoric like this from permeating throughout the department that is going to target specific groups or individuals of people based on their religion?
Senator, I feel like it's a pretty accurate term for folks who don't see the plank in their own eye and always want to see what's wrong with an operation as opposed to the historic success of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
He is a misogynist and he's been trying to get rid of women's role in our military.
He obviously must have lost out a promotion to a female service member at some point and is, you know, on a personal vendetta.
But bottom line, in the testimony, he said, We are doing this to the highest male standard, as if there were only two standards in the military.
And in fact, The physical fitness standards are actually graduated based on age as well.
So, a 40 year old serviceman does not have to run the two miles as fast as an 18 year old serviceman.
So, it is also differentiated by age as well as by gender.
And frankly, you know, someone who served in a combat arms branch, and I volunteered to serve in the first combat arms branch that actually accepted women into combat roles, which is as a helicopter pilot.
You know, I know what the experience is.
I know that our women who have met those standards have met the standards.
They're doing their jobs.
They are actually out there participating and taking care of the business at hand.
And frankly, our nation's military could not go to war without its female service members.
And yet, Pete has got this on this personal vendetta.
In fact, he's fired every female four star general and tried to stop the additional promotion of two African American women generals from getting additional stars.
And that's why, you know, the former Army Chief of Staff quit.
Axios is reporting that the CENTCOM commander, Admiral Bradley Cooper, is briefing Trump on Iran options right now.
These are two sources who spoke with Axios.
A short and powerful wave of strikes on Iran to break the negotiating deadlock, taking over part of the Strait of Hormuz to reopen it to commercial shipping that would include ground operations.
And the third option, special forces operation to destroy.
To secure Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
So, Secretary, do you think any of those right now, given the stalemate that we are in, are wise options?
Well, I think that the White House and certainly the military leaders understand that putting any boots on the ground or continuing any military action.
Is not going to be supported by the American people.
It's not going to be supported by the Congress.
And so the idea that suddenly we're going to go back to war in order to ultimately arrive at some kind of solution here is crazy.
So the issue is going to be, what is it going to take?
I mean, the president himself has said so often, within a couple days, we'll end this war.
Within a couple days, we'll end this war.
You can't end the war unless you're negotiating.
And right now, each side has decided they're waiting for the other side to blink.
It's time for negotiations.
It's time for the president to send representatives to Abbottabad to meet with Iran and negotiate.
On the Straits of Hormuz, negotiate on the issue of nuclear and how to limit the nuclear capabilities, and negotiate on sanctions.
That needs to be negotiated.
That's the way it works.
It's not just going to happen.
You can't throw a few more bombs at Iran and expect that that's going to work as well.
What you've got to do is negotiate and come to an agreement to end the war, period.
He said in the State of the Union that essentially, His side doesn't win, then the election was rigged.
He said that before the 2020 election.
He's asked for voter rolls for 29 different states.
He just asked for Detroit's votes or ballots.
And we know that in 2020, he wrote an executive order that he didn't sign that said to the U.S. military, to the Secretary of Defense, you should go and seize ballots and voting machines.
A few months ago, he said that he regretted that he ever didn't sign.
That executive order.
So the US military has never been deployed.
You miscorrectly, incorrectly said yesterday that they were deployed during different elections.
Governors deployed them under their authorities, but the federal government has never put the uniformed military at our polls during World War II, right after 9 11.
We've never had to do that.
So, Secretary Hegseth, if the president, who regrets not signing that executive order to the then SecDef in 2020, asks you to seize ballots.
Or voting machines in states during the 2026 election, will you stand up for the Constitution and say no, or will you salute and do his bidding?
Senator, I didn't get a chance to answer the front part of your question, which, you know, there was a lot of deferred maintenance under the Biden administration that needed to be addressed because the world was in chaos when President Trump was elected.
In 2020, he's the president, your boss, the guy you're performing for right now, told the journalists this year that he wished he signed that executive order to your predecessor.
And your predecessor said publicly, Thank God, we didn't actually go forward with it.
What are you going to do?
You're the guy here in the seat.
It's not hypothetical.
Tell the American people will you deploy the uniformed military to our polls to collect voter rolls or machines?
Well, I think that direction from your behavior is an intense interest in Christianity, in nationalism, and in not recognizing the talents of women and non white gentlemen.
I'm sorry, Mr. Secretary, but broadcasting before the national religious broadcasters, stressing the need for more Christianity in the military forces, doesn't seem like a neutral position in which you tolerate and accept all religions.
Yeah, really the same themes that we talked about at the House Armed Services Committee.
Rick Scott asked Hegseth, Sir, what are you most proud of?
Senator Sullivan from Alaska talked about the battle for the American Arctic.
Senator Sheehy was saying, Hey, what about more funding for Special Operations Command?
Meanwhile, Jackie Rosen is saying, You're an anti Semite.
Elizabeth Warren said, You're guilty of insider trading.
Reid said, You're a Christian nationalist.
Slotkin said, You're going to send troops to voting stations because you and your president want a dictatorship.
And it was much more personal, I thought, than yesterday.
And these guys came loaded for bear.
It was really something to behold.
Again, like we said yesterday, Hank Seth just took it, right?
And he fought back.
He was very, I thought he was very effective in his rebukes.
I was a little disappointed that Roger Wicker, the chairman of the committee, he's supposed to be there to sort of like call, I don't know, I say civility, but I have seen chairmen before sort of step in.
The purpose of the majority, particularly when they have the executive branch, is that the chairman is supposed to step in and provide air cover.
So you're not supposed to let his people be personally attacked, stay on the topic.
These attacks were personal and they were so far off topic.
They were trying to smear Pete Hegseth.
And Jack Reed, I had to play it twice.
We played it again this morning, or we actually played it at the beginning when he was making those comments to go after the National Association of Religious Broadcasters because Pete said, There should be more, you know, we should get in view troops and people of faith and make sure they have access to Christianity.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And the National Association of Religious Broadcasts is one of the best groups out there.
This is just, they attack, they attack, they attack, and never get to the substance.
It actually had very little substance on the Democratic side.
The Republicans asked some pretty good questions, but once again, Wicker did not stand in and did not step in and at least shield.
The executive branch and the administration from unwarranted personal attacks.
And that's what this is, that's 100% what it is.
Okay, we're going to get Sam Faddis in this.
We're going to talk about the range of alternatives.
Also, the president was open to the press this afternoon.
We're going to play that, break that all down.
Caroline Wren is here with an update on the all important feckless, lazy, stupid, gutless Republican rhino establishment.
They've known this is coming for months and months and months.
How do you justify using this language as Secretary of Defense?
Words matter.
It's a historically hurtful term.
Why do you continue to use it?
And what actions are you taking to prevent rhetoric like this from permeating throughout the department that is going to target specific groups or individuals of people based on their religion?
That's what, when I was watching, I had to look it up.
And Pharisees, Sadducees said they had the Sanhedrin.
I didn't know it was a hateful term.
Let's hold that for a second, and we're going to get to the president.
But Sam, you heard also the senator sitting there just accusing, or it was the former Secretary of Defense, Panetta, who was saying, you have to get to the negotiating table.
You have to have diplomacy.
You have to have negotiation.
Well, if the other side is not prepared to negotiate, it's a little bit like Vietnam there for a while.
You're going to have to give them a come along and get them focused.
No one wants to go back to the kinetic side of this, but right now they're not prepared to negotiate.
They're not prepared to clean up the situation around their nuclear weapons or make a commitment.
They're not the pirates down in Hormuz, got a pretty good gig going.
They're getting a main or two for the first time.
Hey, and they're not even having to take it in crypto or in Chinese yuan anymore.
It's good old US dollars, and people are lined up to pay it.
So President Trump is going to have a range of alternatives.
Some of those alternatives are going to be kinetic, and none of us, particularly guys like you that spent a big part of your life there and myself that was over there, none of us are enthusiastic about.
Being over there and having the troops over there, but we are where we are, Brother Faddis.
Yeah, look, as I've been saying for some time, there's really nothing to talk about with these guys right now because they're not prepared to discuss the things that we need them to discuss.
They don't think they're losing, they think time is on their side.
We are turning the screws now on them by blockading and taking other measures.
As you know, we're going to, my firm belief, you're going to have to turn those screws a lot more.
Before you get to the table, sitting down right now with them is not just a waste of time.
Yes, Steve, I think that you have the oil facilities at Kirk Island.
You have all the smaller islands around the Strait of Hermos, which would be where the mosquito boats and the drones are coming from.
And so those are your two sort of military targets, unless you go after Tehran itself.
I did notice that USS Boxer was hanging out in Guam in the Sulu Sea, but.
Today on Divids, they posted that Boxer is now underway again.
And so I'm just waiting to see when Boxer chops into the fifth fleet because Boxer has the amphibious, those hovercraft, landing crafts, and that's really its stock and trade.
Whereas Tripoli has the Marine F 35s, it has the attack helicopters, and they're the ones who are actually going after the boats and boarding the boats.
But I would say that the Boxer group is more a ground offensive or amphibious landing group.
And so we'll see how that happens.
It's interesting.
After all of this talk of a ceasefire and sort of letting the block, we were told a few days ago, Hey, just prepare for this blockade to go for a while.
Also, we're coming up on the deadline of the War Powers Act.
Not that anybody, you know, in the White House takes that seriously, but they do sort of watch it.
And we're coming up on day 60.
The president can make a statement to Congress to give himself another 30 days.
But there's also talk.
Administration officials have been quoted.
There are other people on Capitol Hill who say that the ceasefire itself stops the clock.
For the 60 days for the War Powers Act.
So they actually are thinking that they have more time.
Go back to that for a second, Neil, and just let people know the War Powers Act.
By the way, I'm not sure.
I will say this I don't think 100% that President Trump and people around, certain people around President Trump, think the War Powers Act is in effect in this.
I happen to believe the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.
It's never been challenged, right?
But I think in this case, you might see a challenge to it.
But in the War Powers Act, if you did believe in the War Powers Act as a framework, what happens in 60 days, you need to do what?
If the president wants to have a wider range of military and paramilitary alternatives that include something more than strategic bombing, That we tried the first time.
He would make sure he waited and got all those elements in place, sir?
But I'm presuming, based on what we see deployed, that anything that involves guys on the ground inside Iran will be very limited and very short duration.
I mean, in the scheme of things, on a strategic level, we still have nowhere near.
The actual troops in the region to do anything serious on the ground inside Iran.
I'm not advocating this, but I'm saying if you had to have some elements available for the rim around Hormuz and maybe some oil facilities to do just to give yourself a range of alternatives, like it looked like Gabriel Cooper talked today.
Even though I don't love his girlfriend too much, I won't tell you who the girlfriend is.
But I like him, and I've always liked him.
It's great that he hasn't changed.
But, Brian, I think here's the problem.
It's not even imaginable to me why.
And people are angry about it.
I'm talking about Republicans who are angry about it.
The filibuster should be terminated.
If the Democrats ever get a shot, which probably, based on history, sometime they will, they will use it in the first minute of the first hour, and they will execute all of the bad things.
21 justices.
You know, they really like 21.
I heard 13, but they really want 21 Supreme Court justices.
And they really want to have D.C. and Puerto Rico become states.
That would mean automatic four senators go into the Democrat column.
And there's not even a chance that they don't do it and do it immediately.
Now, with that knowledge, because you could argue whether it's good or bad, but I don't think it's that much of an argument, frankly.
But you could argue, with that knowledge that they're going to do it immediately, why wouldn't you do it as a Republican?
Unless you have bad motives, almost.
But if we did it, we could pass one bill after the other.
We could pass laws and acts and things that we never even dreamt of passing.
And you know what else?
We wouldn't lose for 50 years.
You know, if we passed, if we terminated the filibuster, We would have a 50 year run.
You'd stop cheating.
I mean, look, they're professional cheats and they're great at it.
That's what they're best at because you can't get elected with their policy.
You can't get elected with men and women's sports, with transgender mutilization of our children, with open borders for jails to be dropped into our country, and mental institutions, and drug dealers and murderers.
Think of it 11,888 murderers come into our country, nobody even talks to them about it.
We got a lot of them out because of, you know what?
Because of ICE, which they don't want to fund.
They're defunding our police.
When they defund ICE and with Border Patrol and Secret Service, they're defunding our police.
Police.
The same thing as they're doing with an officer on the street corner.
So, why the Republicans' Senate doesn't just sit in there and just do it and take a negative vote and do it again and again like the Democrats do?
Because we want to get the nuclear test.
It's way down there.
You need excavators and everything to get it.
But we want to get it.
We'll take it one way or the other.
We'll either get it or we'll take it.
They'll either give it to us or we'll take it.
But I think it's very disrespectful to our incredible military when they say, Maybe they missed the target.
Neil McCabe, the brutal reality, the president keeps talking about this.
We've got to do the talking.
We're so far away from the Senate doing that.
And I wish somebody on the president's staff would inform him of that.
We're not even close to that.
John Thune and the McConnell backed operation is treating President Trump like he's a lame duck.
So I think we've got to get some information here.
We don't have 51 votes in passing anything, we don't have 60.
But we should have 27, Mr. President, and that will replace John Thune.
I think that is what you need to do.
Just like you're looking at a range of alternatives to get the attention of the mullahs and whatever Ayatollahs left, whatever mullahs are left in the Persian Revolutionary Guard, whatever is left of this, we're going to get a come along, a U.S. Navy or Air Force come along to get their attention.
You're going to have to get the attention of the Senate.
They're no different than the mullahs.
They're set in their ways and they are fighting you on every aspect.
The Save America Act, please, you know, people came the other day.
Oh, we got to get Save America.
We are the network, the channel that covered the Save America first round until 11 or 12 at night.
Neil, you were doing the coverage.
You had Mike Lee, you had Schmidt of Missouri, you had a couple of three others.
That was it.
It was purely performative.
I'm not blaming them.
They tried.
There was no interest at Doon.
He's got zero interest.
There is zero interest up there going to a talking filibuster.
And so we can sit here and continue to complain about it, or we can take some action.
The action that would probably work is removing Thune as leader because you've got 27 votes.
You can craft that together.
Neil McCabe, particularly today, when Wicker just sat there and let Pete Hegseth get eaten alive by these Democrats, actually was not.
Pete gave as good as he got.
But there was no air cover.
This is what lack of respect.
They have for the Trump administration and the Trump team fighting this war.
Wicker never came in and provided any cover for Pete Hegseth.
He let him sit there and take it from these Democrats for hours because you know why?
Well, picking up where you guys just left off, I mean, the way I look at it is we got a Democratic Party in this country that is increasingly.
A Marxist entity.
Then we have an America First MAGA party, which is where all the energy and all the power on the GOP side is.
And then, separate and distinct from MAGA, America First, whatever you want to call it, we've got a GOP establishment that doesn't represent the vast majority of the people in the Republican Party, certainly doesn't represent MAGA, doesn't speak for the folks.
That got Donald Trump into the White House.
So people are sitting here waiting for these Republican senators to do the right thing.
And the unfortunate truth is that a whole bunch of them are not on our side.
It's not just a difference of opinion on issues, they're on another team.
And what they really want is to wait this out for Trump to go away and hope that Maggie dies.
I mean, the president, someone's got to tell the president they're not, they're treating you like a lame duck.
There's no, this talking, discussions of the talking filibuster are not relevant right now.
We're so far away from that.
The Save America Act did not get any traction.
I had well meaning people this week saying, hey, you got to get in the Save America.
I go, whoa, what are you talking about?
They dismissed that and then went on a two week Easter break.
We've got to regroup here.
And you got to regroup around, you have to make Thune the issue.
Casthoon is the issue.
He's standing between the president and action, and the loss of the Senate is going to be on the senators themselves, Sam Faddis, because they refuse to act, sir.
A lot of these establishment guys would rather lose to the Democrats than allow MAGA to gain power.
I mean, we see that at the state level in Pennsylvania all the time.
They'd rather a Democratic legislator got into office.
Than actually have an America First guy take that position.
So, what do we have to do?
I mean, we have to say that out loud and throw down on that and stop pretending otherwise.
You know, you want to, if you want to be a Republican senator and you want to stand up to the people that put Donald Trump in office and you want to do that in the light of day and say that out loud, okay, then let's get to it.
But we're going to take away your capacity to pretend otherwise.
This is where we are.
We are the people.
We are the majority.
We're the people that put this guy in the White House and we're calling you out.
Now, again, you want to throw down.
Let's do that.
They, of course, don't have the courage for that.
What they want to do is continue to be able to hide in the shadows, pretend otherwise.
To accept that you just sit on the sidelines and don't address this redistricting.
And I know that they are blowing up the phones of these different states.
And it's because the Supreme Court ruling that we've all been waiting for, we all knew what's coming, but it finally rights the wrong of race based gerrymandering.
And so these states should not wait until 2028.
Some are saying, oh, well, you know, we have to wait till 2030 per federal court.
This is what Governor Ivey said.
No, we're not waiting.
The Supreme Court came out, so this is unconstitutional.
And so the people should not have to vote in unconstitutional districts, period, full stop.
And any governor telling you otherwise is wrong, and we have to challenge them.
And right now, you know, President Trump is taking this seriously.
The White House is taking it seriously.
I know President Trump's been on the phone all day calling governors about this.
He called Governor Bill Lee and was able to get him to move on this.
And so we're waiting to see exactly what that means.
But President Trump said he had a very positive conversation.
And look, President Trump's the best deal maker in history.
So far be it for me to think that him and Governor Lee just chatted up about the weather and didn't come to a resolution about doing redistricting.
So, you know, President Trump is making calls on this.
Yeah, he was posting pictures the last 24 hours touring some state park.
And I was like, with all due respect, governor, we just had a massive landmark Supreme Court ruling that directly affects your state.
So if you could, you know, take a little time away from the state park tours and address this, that would be great.
You know, but luckily, that's why, I mean, President Trump sitting there and calling these folks is what it takes, which is It is very annoying that the president in the United States has to call them to see action, but that's just where we are.