Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann. Before we get started, take a second to tap the ❤️ and restack buttons. That’s how we break through the algorithm and make sure these stories get in front of the people who need them most.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held his first press conference in six months, melting down at outgoing Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky over his impeachment effort. Massie also told Raw America how he thinks his party will address the Hegseth impeachment. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is urging Republicans to confirm dozens of new judges to lifetime appointments before the new Democratic majority is sworn in on January 3. Whistleblowers are warning that the Trump administration is already in the process of destroying documents pertaining to the president’s vanity projects across Washington. And Trump’s cryptocurrency products have dropped to new all-time lows after the GOP’s blowout losses in the midterms.
One brief request before the news. As you’ll read below, Raw America’s Capitol correspondent, Luke De Cresce, was in the House last night and spoke directly with Thomas Massie about his efforts to impeach Hegseth. Luke is covering Congress with full credentials not because a billionaire paid for him to be there, but because our readers believe in independent journalism enough to fund it.
Exclusive: Massie Says Hegseth Presser Proves He Fears Impeachment
On Tuesday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave his first press conference in more than half a year. Not over the war in Iran or defending Ukraine or Taiwan, but about himself.
Hegseth spent a significant portion of his presser tearing into Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, who just yesterday filed eight articles of impeachment against the former part-time Fox News host-turned-defense secretary.
Hegseth dismissed the impeachment resolution as the effort of “one disgruntled and defeated congressman,” calling it both “a farce” and “a stunt.” He then asserted the impeachment articles would put “a target on the backs of American warriors” and blasted it as an act of sabotage.
Massie’s eight articles of impeachment accused the Pentagon chief of going to war without the approval of Congress, committing hundreds of extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific through his bombing of boats, and suppressing the free speech of lawmakers by targeting people like Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona (who Raw America interviewed in May).
Massie — who lost his Congressional primary to a Trump-endorsed Republican earlier this year — told Raw America Capitol correspondent Luke De Cresce that Hegseth’s reaction to his resolution shows he legitimately fears an impeachment vote: “If it was a nothingburger, the secretary of defense wouldn’t be holding a press conference with this as the topic… [the vote will] happen after that, it may happen Tuesday, it might happen Wednesday, I don’t know. It’ll probably be a motion to refer to committee. That’s how they’ll try to kill it.”
Trump chimed in after Hegseth ended his press conference (in which he only took a handful of questions from MAGA outlets before walking away from the lectern), giving his Pentagon chief an “A PLUS, PLUS, PLUS” and slamming Massie as a “TOTAL LOSER.” The president said yesterday he would continue to defend Hegseth even if the lame duck House votes to impeach.
Because impeachment resolutions are privileged, the House has to either vote on them, table them or refer them to committee within two legislative days. Outgoing House Speaker Mike Johnson has a paper-thin majority of 218-214, and it’s not clear if he’ll be able to convince his party to act as one. This is especially true given that some high-profile Republicans — including Vice President JD Vance — blamed the midterms on voters’ hatred of the Iran war. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who is expected to replace Johnson as speaker in January, says Democrats are a “hard yes” on impeachment.
Even if the House votes to impeach Hegseth, it will require a two-thirds Senate majority of 67 votes to remove him. To date, no Cabinet secretary in American history has ever been removed via the impeachment process.
Before Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024, the last Cabinet secretary to be impeached was War Secretary William Belknap in 1876. The House unanimously voted to impeach him even though he’d resigned minutes before the actual vote. Impeachment isn’t sabotage, but a mechanism the Framers gave Congress to make sure nobody who commands the world’s most powerful military will be able to decide for himself whether he has to follow the law.
Tell Congress: Impeach Pete Hegseth now!
Trump Scrambling to Confirm 25 New Judges Before Democrats Take Over
As the clock ticks down before the Democratic majority is sworn in, Donald Trump is racing against the clock to get a slate of 25 far-right federal judges confirmed.
The current session of Congress has confirmed a total of 57 federal judges to the District and Circuit Court levels. The president now wants a total of 82 confirmations during the remainder of the lame duck session. He’s also urging Republicans to take action on dozens of other nominees to posts requiring Senate confirmation before the GOP officially becomes the minority party.
If Senate Majority Leader John Thune maintains a breakneck pace through January, Trump’s judges could feasibly be confirmed before January 3. However, that push could end up taking over the lame duck session entirely while sidelining other legislative fights.
Over his two terms, Politico reports that Trump has appointed more than 300 Article III judges to lifetime positions. That remaking of the courts was largely engineered by outgoing Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. And his second-term picks — like former Trump defense attorney-turned-Fourth Circuit Judge Emil Bove — have been particularly extreme.
After Democrats took back the Senate last week, Trump will have a much more difficult time getting any judges confirmed. With Democrats from states like Kansas, and possibly even Mississippi serving new six-year terms, it’s hard to see a path for Trump to get another judge across the finish line before he leaves office, especially if there’s a vacancy on the Supreme Court. All this means it’s safe to assume Senate Democrats will use every tool at their disposal to slow the lame duck confirmation process to a crawl.
Whistleblowers Say Trump Destroying Documents Tied to His DC Vanity Projects
Whistleblowers inside the Department of the Interior are now accusing the president’s team of destroying important documents.
According to CNN, multiple credible whistleblowers have come forward to the House Natural Resources Committee, saying that paperwork linked to Trump’s various vanity projects all over the national capital are being destroyed before Democrats take powerin January.
Democratic Congressman Jared Huffman of California, who is expected to chair the Natural Resources Committee in the upcoming Congress, is sending letters to the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and companies like Lockheed Martin and John Deere that have made donations to projects like Trump’s ballroom, ordering them to preserve all related documents. Whistleblowers haven’t accused companies of destroying anything, but each recipient will have to certify they’re holding onto records, recovering deleted information and suspending any ongoing deletions. The Interior Department maintins the whistleblowers’ claims are “100 percent false.”
The projects whistleblowers are alluding to include the East Potomac golf course, a proposed 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery, new fencing at Lafayette Square outside the White House, and a Tidal Basin plan that would feature Trump’s so-called Garden of American Heroes. CNN’s sources say the White House is planning to push all of those projects forward over the next 60 days, prior to the new Congress’ swearing in. Charles Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation said there’s a storm brewing that will continue to rage until the new Congress takes over.
Rep. Huffman told the network that “everything is coming,” and insisted his committee is prepared to hold hearings, issue subpoenas and take the administration to court if necessary. He assured reporters his committee will “have tools to be able to stop a lot of it.”
Trump’s Cryptocurrencies Plummet in Value to All-Time Lows After Midterms
Our last story this morning: the president’s cryptocurrency business has been tanking ever since the election. Buying access to an exclusive dinner with Trump now costs roughly $700 worth of his meme coin. At this same time last year, the price of admission for a similar event cost approximately $59,000.
$WLFI, the official governance token of the Trump family’s crypto firm World Liberty Financial, hit an all-time low this week after Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter demanding the company preserve all documents. Trump’s branded meme coin has dropped to a paltry $1.11 per unit after hitting a high of $40 per unit last year. The Melania meme coin is also down roughly 99.6 percent from its peak in 2025.
Zach Everson of the nonpartisan anti-corruption group Public Citizen estimates that retail buyers of Trump-linked crypto have so far lost a combined $4.7 billion. He added that the post-election price drops expose how much their value is linked to Trump’s political power.
In the meantime, Trump is making a killing off of crypto, reporting $57 million in income from World Liberty Financial and another $635 million from the $TRUMP meme coin. On CBS this past Sunday, he maintained his adult sons are running the company without any involvement on his part, and insisted that every president deals with this kind of problem.
Democrats are expected to dig into who Trump’s firms have done business with overseas, whether he’s leaned on independent agencies to help his crypto ventures, and whether any pardons were connected to crypto deals. Aaron Klein of the Brookings Institution wondered aloud what value these products ever had beyond currying favor with Trump.
We can only cover stories like these — in which Raw America got an exclusive quote from the lawmaker leading the push to impeach Pete Hegseth, officials are sounding the alarm over the president destroying potential evidence and Trump losing money hand over fist as his crypto empire crumbles — with the support of our readers. And if you learned anything new from today’s newsletter, the single most important thing you can do is to become a paying subscriber to help us stay in the fight.
I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for reading and thanks for supporting independent media. Please make sure you hit the ❤️ and tap restack so we can get these important stories in front of the people who need them the most.
