Pete Hegseth knows he’s in serious trouble

At 8:03 this morning, on the 251st birthday of the United States Marine Corps and the eve of Veterans Day, the Secretary of “War,” Peter Brian Hegseth, stood before a carefully selected audience at the Pentagon and gave one of the most desperate speeches ever delivered by someone holding that office. Over the next 26 minutes, he shamelessly fought to keep his position as a cabinet member and to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces, just hours before the House of Representatives would be voting on whether to take the next steps to impeach him.

He started his tirade by calling Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman responsible for introducing the articles of impeachment against him, “one disgruntled and defeated congressman” pursuing “a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment.” He called it a farce and a stunt, and he said everybody knows it. What everybody actually knows is that by the end of the night, nearly half of the members of Congress would vote to keep those articles alive. That is not one disgruntled congressman.

But his speech wasn’t really about the impeachment itself, Thomas Massie, or defending himself against allegations of violating federal law, the Constitution, or abusing his authority. It was about something much more important to him. It was about proving his loyalty to Donald Trump and his new right-hand man, Stephen Miller. It was a public humiliation ritual, performed in the hope that he would be allowed to keep his job leading the Department of Defense. He made his intentions abundantly obvious for why he was doing it when he called Donald Trump the best commander in chief this country has ever had, saying, “Any day he’ll have me, I’ll be right here at this podium.”

He then turned his focus to Stephen Miller, who officially replaced Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff just yesterday. Axios reported that Trump blamed Wiles for the midterm losses. CBS reported that Trump described the change as something he had been wanting to make. The Washington Post reported that Miller and Hegseth are close allies, that their families socialize, and that Wiles had previously expressed concerns about Hegseth. Regardless of the reason for Wiles’s departure, the person who had reservations about Hegseth is gone, and Miller, his close friend, now controls access to the president. Hegseth knows what that means, and he made sure everyone else did too. “We’ve got no better friend at the Department of War than Stephen Miller,” he said. “He will stand, he will fight, and defend this republic. And we’re proud to be right there with him, all the way.” He was not praising a colleague. He was pledging allegiance to the man who now holds the door open to the Oval Office, hoping Miller keeps it open for him.

When he wasn’t cementing his loyalty to the administration, he was trying to make himself look like his time at the department had been an astounding success, even though he failed each time he tried. He tried to paint the picture that his war in Iran had been a military triumph in comparison to other wars where large numbers of Americans had died. “We lost 60,000 Americans in Vietnam over 20 years. We lost 37,000 in Korea in just three years.” Hegseth said as he was attempting to say that the Americans who died in connection with the Iran war were something to celebrate because the number was so much lower. As though families should feel grateful their loved ones died in a more efficient war. He then promised the Iran war would never reach those levels of casualties, which is an odd thing to say on the same day that American military aircraft were being evacuated from another air base in England. According to the BBC, American military aircraft were moved from RAF Mildenhall to bases in Scotland, Spain, and Germany after U.S. officials received a threat. The Wall Street Journal reported that the threat was connected to Iran, although American officials have not publicly confirmed its source. That is the war that he “successfully” completed.

He also stood at that podium and said that the “218 narco-terrorists are dead where they should be,” speaking of the people killed in the supposed narcotic boat strikes his department had carried out without evidence, trials, or due process, and he expected Americans to accept that as justice.

That is not the country we were raised to believe in. We were founded on the rule of law and the principle that human beings are entitled to a legal process before they are determined to be guilty. And certainly before any government just kills them. The danger is that the moment we abandon that principle and stop pushing back against what has been done, we are telling our own government that it can decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die without ever having to prove that person did anything wrong. And if we accept that from our own government, how can we condemn another country for doing the same thing? If we make this a normal thing, and tell the world this is who we are, what stops other nations from pointing to our actions to justify their own? If we are supposed to be the light on the hill, the country the rest of the world looks to for moral clarity, then this cannot be what we stand for.

He closed his press conference with this: “We will stand, we will fight, and we will defend this republic against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Throughout his speech, he tried to make himself look like the greatest champion of the men and women serving in our military, someone who respects their service and understands the sacrifices they make for this country. Yet he is the same man sending them into harm’s way and then dishonoring their service with the circus he has turned the Department of Defense into. He talks about their courage, commitment, and their willingness to sacrifice everything for this country, but when he talks about the Americans who have died under his leadership, he reduces them to numbers he can use to make himself look successful. What he forgets is that each one of them, both those who have died and those who are still serving today, is a real person. They have families and loved ones. They are valued members of their communities. But to him, they are all just numbers.

When I was in high school, my French class took a trip to Normandy, and I had a life-altering moment looking out at the rows and rows of white crosses and Stars of David stretching in every direction. Thousands of them. In a split second, those people became real to me. They were no longer just a number in a textbook or a scene in a movie. I looked over the edge at the beaches below, and I could see the waves crashing with blood before my mind caught up and I saw the clear water there today. Standing there, where so many brave young men died, they all became real to me in a way they never had before, and they have stayed real to me ever since.

Not too long after that trip, I moved to San Diego for college, and they became even more real to me, with such a heavy concentration of military bases throughout the area. Our military members were not just those who fought and died or are serving today. They are also the moms and dads, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives who are serving in a much different capacity by holding everything together back at home and living in nonstop worry for the safety of the people they love as they serve our country. When Pete Hegseth stands at a podium and compares eighteen American deaths to Vietnam as though the smaller number makes it acceptable, that is who I think of. I think of them. I think of the families waiting for someone to come home, the kids who do not fully understand why a parent has been gone so long, and the parents missing milestones to serve our country. Those are not numbers. Those are people. They are why so many want Pete Hegseth impeached. It’s not a “political spectacle,” and it is not partisan. It is because we care about those people more than he does. We do not want them sent into harm’s way with such little regard for their lives.

Tonight we had a chance to stop Pete Hegseth when the House voted to start the process to potentially impeach him. The Republicans, still in control of the House and still playing games with our military and our country, voted to refer the impeachment articles to the Judiciary Committee, which effectively kills them for the remainder of this lame duck session. The vote was two hundred and eleven to two hundred and four. Every Democrat who showed up voted to keep the impeachment process alive and moving forward. Thomas Massie was the only Republican to cross the aisle.

But eleven Democrats did not vote. Had eight of them been in the room, the motion would have failed, and the House would have been compelled to take up the articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth. It came out much later that some of the Democrats missed the vote due to traffic from an unrelated accident, and that one was preparing for a medical procedure, but there were others who have not shared why they missed such an important vote.

For too long, it has felt like we were stuck in the same cycle, doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. The same speeches, the same promises, the same righteous anger that somehow never translates into the votes that matter. That is the insanity of politics as usual, and it is the very thing that so many of us have been exhausted by, writing about, marching against, and losing sleep over for years. This is exactly why January matters.

The committee chairs are ready. Robert Garcia has his investigations drawn up: Trump family corruption, the Epstein cover-up, ICE abuses, corporate corruption. He has said his committee is prepared to subpoena the Attorney General on day one. He has said that anyone who has been in bed with the Trumps will have “no choice but to respond to our questions.”

One week ago, the American people showed up in record numbers for the midterm elections. Donald Trump told us to think of him, and to pretend he was on the ballot. We did exactly that. We voted against his unchecked power. We voted for accountability and a version of this country that does not celebrate murdering people at press conferences. January is coming soon, and that is when the real work starts. The days of us not fighting back are over. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: My picture of the day is a little different today. I spent hours watching Pete Hegseth’s speech, the House vote, and a Bernie Sanders press conference. But one of the biggest takeaways from today was seeing that the official government communications accounts for the so-called Department of War actually posted these things. This is the same department responsible for bombing a girls’ school in Iran and for carrying out deadly strikes on boats, including launching second strikes after the boats had already been hit.

It’s hard to think about the fact that our military members’ lives are in the hands of people who would post things like this. There’s no dignity. It’s just really broken and evil people running things.

I’m sharing these pictures because one day I want to look back on this and see how far we’ve come in the other direction. Back to a functioning government, where we don’t have completely corrupt, empty, unqualified, and incapable people running it. I want to be able to look back at these pictures and say, “Look at how far we’ve come.”

Links to sources used in writing this article:

Secretary Hegseth FULL Press Briefing 11/10/2026: Secretary of War YouTube Video

https://theintercept.com/2026/11/10/hegseth-no-impeachment-house-vote/

https://www.axios.com/2026/11/06/susie-wiles-trump-stephen-miller-chief-of-staff

https://cbsnews.com/news/stephen-miller-trump-chief-of-staff-susie-wiles

https://www.opb.org/article/2026/11/06/jeffries-lays-out-democrats-plans-for-congress-questions-remain-about-accountability/

https://www.twz.com/air/security-levels-at-u-s-bases-in-england-raised-without-explanation

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/house-democrats-plan-vast-oversight-of-trump-administration-impeachment-is-an-option