This Is How I’ll Finally Impeach Hegseth: Dem Star | The Daily Beast Podcast

Your Democratic. colleagues can't manage their schedules to get to an impeachment vote. If you see any of these colleagues, what are you going to say to them? You need to show up. You can't let this happen again. I mean, there is nothing else to say, right? Like, people are pretty upset in the caucus. They should be. Once the Democrats take control of Congress in January, will you be repeating the process of kickstarting impeachment for Pete May? The short is. Yes. This has nothing to do. with my personal dislike or disdain for the man, which is very high.

By the way, I think he's a, you know, a grotesque individual. And by every, every way of looking at it, Pete has set has trying. to change the face of the military into some white nationalist. version, perverted version of what he wants that institution to be. I'm Joanna Coles, this is the Daily Beast podcast, and today we are having a conversation about, well, where do we begin? Pete Hegseth, Jensen Wang, Elon Musk,

and of course, inevitably, Donald Trump. We're talking to Congressman Jason Crow, a favorite of the Daily Beast crowd. Last time we had him on, we got overwhelmed by comments saying, what a voice of reason he was in a currently unreasonable world, though. perhaps, perhaps our world has course corrected in the last week. He is a congressman in Colorado. He served in the military.

He got a Bronze Star. He saw active duty in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and he serves on the Armed. Services Committee and also on the Intelligence Committee. So we kick off, of course, with Pete Hex. because he's demanded that hex be impeached immediately. And of course, he was letting down, if that's a phrase by his own Democratic colleagues, which was inevitably the first thing I had to ask him. just before we get into it, a reminder to please subscribe.

to The Daily Beast wherever you get your podcasts. We are independent media. That's why we can have these frank conversations. which don't happen anywhere else. So please support this podcast. Give us a like share it with a friend. All right. Let's get into it with Congressman Crow. Congressman you have been. out there very specifically demanding. impeachment. Can you explain to us exactly what happened yesterday? Because my understanding is Democrats, 11 Democrats didn't turn up to vote.

What happened? You know, I don't know yet. I mean, we're still trying to figure out what happened, but clearly missing. such an important vote like this is is is not okay for a member of the caucus. Right. And, you know, there are reasons why some people miss votes. Sometimes people are in the hospital or they're sick or they're injured, or. there's a of a loved one, or almost always there are some people. that miss votes, and there were eight Republicans that missed the vote, too.

But certainly being in town and not managing a schedule is is not. is not a good reason. So. Well, my my understanding is they were at a party. That's my understanding too. I mean, I, I haven't spoken to any of them. I'm not the whip. I haven't figured that out. But I've heard those public reports too. And, you know, listen, something is important as the impeachment of Pete. And we'll talk about that for a minute. In a minute here, too. The this is a critical vote, right?

And we're about to take power in January. So we have to figure out how we we manage people's schedules. and vote whipping, and we make sure that things like this don't happen again. You've just had this unbelievable blue wave, and now we're like, oh my God, they can't get out of their own way. to leave a party and turn up for the impeachment of Pete Hex, who is one of the main reasons why the Democrats won won the election. People really don't like the war in Iran.

Yeah, I can't defend it. I'm not going to defend it. It's not my place to defend it because I was there, I voted, I don't know what else to say. I mean, it shouldn't have happened that way. And, we have to just figure out the next step. You know, I'm going to continue. my oversight and accountability of Pete sets. And I'm firmly of the belief that unless Donald Trump fires him, and maybe even if Donald Trump fires him, we still go forward with an impeachment. and try to take him to trial.

We probably should. But every single day that Pete Seth is sitting atop. his perch in the Pentagon is a day where our military culture changes. Well, he he does generational damage to our. our most vulnerable institution and our service members. This is actually the most important point is that our service members are at risk. when he is there because he is a failed leader. He's incompetent, he's corrupt,

and we have service members around the globe, hundreds of thousands deployed around the globe, some of which are in combat operations today, as we're seeing here, talking. that don't have the leadership in the sport and the competency from. and his team that they deserve. Okay, so I don't want to belabor this, but it does seem. incredibly important that Thomas Massie brings this vote. You have been out there. demanding the impeachment of Pete for all the reasons you laid out. You served in Iraq, you served in Afghanistan.

You have a Bronze Star. And yet your colleagues, your Democratic colleagues, can't manage their schedules to get to an impeachment vote. If you see any of these colleagues, what are you going to say to them? You need to show up. You can't let this happen again. I mean, there is nothing else to say, right? Like, I think they've received that message, right? That people are pretty upset in the caucus. They should be, and people are expressing that to them. So will you.

Once the Democrats take control of Congress. in January, will you be repeating the process of. kickstarting impeachment for Pete? Yes. I mean, the short is yes. Is, this isn't this this has nothing to do with my personal. dislike or disdain for the man, which is very high, by the way. I think he's, you know, a grotesque individual. And by every, every way of looking at it and measuring it,

this does everything to do with what I talked about just a minute. ago, that, you know, we have these these minimum women in uniform. across the country. These are our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and. and moms and dads who have stepped up to serve. And they don't have competent leadership at the top. And even worse than that, Pete, Seth is trying to change. the face of the military into some, you know, white nationalist version. You know, perverted version of what he wants that institution to be.

And if he accomplishes that, which he won't, by the way, because we're going to stop him from that, then. Then our military will cease to be what it has been for generations. Right? Which is a melting pot of this country, a standard bearer of our values. You know, it has made mistakes. I know that better than anybody. And we try to fix those mistakes and improve what the military does. But it still has remained a place. where it has led the country in desegregation.

It's red led the country, and integration has led the country and training. You know, the GI Bill veterans, World War two actually helped build our country. And where some of our nation's greatest civilian leaders. after they took off the uniform. So it is an institution that means a lot to me. Every. day your personal information is exposed somewhere online. your email address, financial details, even your health information. It's not about being careful anymore. It's about the hundreds of data brokers who collect.

and sell your data without your consent. They can't harm you. However, if they can't find you and that's where incognito comes. in, incognito automatically sends removal requests and follows up across. more than 420 harmful sites, helping get your personal information. removed from places you may not even know exist. Incognito can find where your information appears online, and recurring removals help keep it from coming back.

You can also track your progress, get monthly risk assessments. and reach 24 over seven live chat support. To get an exclusive 60% off an annual. incognito plan, go to Incognito. Slash beast or click the link in the episode description. That's incognito.com/beast. He's clearly a very polarizing figure. When you talk to your Republican,

Congress friends, when you talk to your congressmen, colleagues, congresswomen, colleagues, what do they say about Pete Hegseth? Many of them do not like the man. They come to me and they say, yeah, he's he's horrible and he's is and does crazy things. And I wish he would stop doing it and do which I say, stop. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to. I just don't care to hear it anymore, because I've spent the last two years.

listening to many of them complain about Donald Trump, complain. about Stephen Miller, or complain about, you know, all the horrible things that have happened. And then they, they get up there in front of the cameras. and say something different and toe a party line. It just it's insulting. at this point that they, they, they say. one thing in private and then they go off and do another thing publicly. And, and that's just it's just not leadership, right? I don't I'm not here for their therapy anymore. They, they,

they, they they've got to go to the cameras. They gotta say it in public. That is not my role. And I'm not going to listen to it anymore. And many of them were booted. Many of them lost their jobs. So, you know, good riddance actually. So what are they saying now? The ones that you are still therapy sing. What are they saying about Stephen? The. What are they saying about Stephen Miller coming in? They say that this is a pretty sure indication that their party. is not going to learn lessons from last Tuesday, right?

It's, you know, millions of Republicans and unaffiliated voters. who haven't voted for a Democrat in a long time. Many of them who have never voted for a Democrat vote have voted for Democrats. And that's a clear sign that people want a course correction. They want something to change. And in the last nine days, Donald Trump has sent signal after a signal. that he's going to double down, he's going to triple down, do more of the same. And the Republicans see it.

To which I then say, well, you all have made this bed, right? And now you have to sleep in it. You have. You have allowed Donald Trump to take over your party because. because you say one thing to me privately, in another publicly. What has always been needed all along is for you to stand up. and to push back publicly and to create that space. for people to step up and to rebuild your party, because we actually need to have. a functioning Republican Party in order for our system to work. But right now it's defunct.

Okay. So, Congressman, what happens in January with the war in Iran? We know it was an incredibly unpopular war, a war of choice, a war that we were told would last sort of 4 or 5, six weeks. We're now in its 10th month. How do Democrats bring an end to this? Well, we've now taken seven votes, Joanna to to in the war. We've won the last two. including the last one was was my resolution in late July put forth.

We won that vote. Now that we've. we're about to take over the majority, we will have more power and control. over a lot of administrative functions, a lot of the the power of gavel. And we can use that actually look at litigation options. to enforce our resolution. Of course, this is a case of first impression. Of course have never been in a situation like that. But a lot of that's happening these days. because of what this administration is doing. So that's number one. So wait a minute. So hold on, hold on.

So what does that actually mean? That that Congress actually stops what the military. from doing any more action in Iran? I mean, translate that for a layperson. You know, we've never been in a situation where we've had to actually ask a court. to enforce, a valid resolution. and law passed by Congress to say, stop. You know, stop this, this unconstitutional, lawless war. So we have to look at what does that actually look like? It's a great question. Right? That's the process for going through now.

We've never that. our country has never been in a situation where, where we've had a president. that has just patently said, nope, you guys passed a law. I'm not I'm not going to I'm not going to respond to it. I'm not going to do it right. And that's just happening on a weekly basis with this administration. So we have to figure out with an ongoing military operation what that looks like. But more importantly is appropriations. We can just cut the money off like that. That is that's something we can do. It's something that we have the power to do.

We know how that works, and we can cut the money off. And this is how that's going to go. I'm going to push for us to cut off the money. The Republicans. are in this administration and say, oh, you don't support the troops. To which I say, no, supporting the troops and our military families. actually means not asking them things to do, things they shouldn't do, not putting in the harm's way for unwinnable conflict, not spending months or years away from your family,

missing graduations, births, weddings, funerals unnecessarily. That is supporting our troops, bringing them home. and focusing on their families and rebuilding. our military is the best way to support our troops. Number one. Number two, we heard for 25. years this argument that, hey, we broke it, we bought it. We just got to keep on putting throwing money at it. And for 25 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, we we heard some variation of, well,

one more troop surge, one more new strategy, one more new general. or admiral with a different idea about how to win this, you know, in $3 trillion later, in 7000. American lives and hundreds of thousands wounded, they ended poorly. So when people tell me. we can't cut the money off, I say, hell, yeah, we can watch me. We can do that. You are, of course, one of the servicemen.

who put out a video reminding people. in the armed services that they shouldn't do anything that was illegal. Donald Trump then accused you of treason. We now appear to be in a remarkable situation with Jensen. Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia, as you know. Do you think he should be fired? I think the first step is Congress needs to have a full briefing. from the intelligence community on what exactly happened when it happened,

what we knew, who knew it and when. That is the first step, right? I am so done with this administration stonewalling, refusing briefings, not responding to my request. for information I have sent in the last four months. Six letters to to Pete Seth. into the white House requesting essential information. that the American people in Congress is entitled to. Like how many people have died in the war in Iran? How many have been injured?

What happened with Starlink and Star Shield in Ukraine? Well, I want to come on to that in a minute. Yeah, I'm dying to ask you about that. So that's the first step. And and based on that information, then we decide what to go forward. And you're right that, they, they threatened me with trying. ni for treason and actually to be to be more exact, Donald Trump. threatened to have me executed and then tried for treason in that order. Well, that's the Trumpian. That's the Trumpian philosophy. Yeah. So just to go back to the gentleman of Wang's situation,

you're. on the Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee. Did you have any briefings about this? We haven't yet. Yeah, we just got back to town, on Monday, actually, after being gone for two months. And by the way, let's remember that they sent us home early. and sent us home for two months to avoid. an impeachment vote of Pete Seth. And actually, they have canceled 25% of our voting days.

Absolutely. It's crazy. I did taking votes. I think people find this so hard to understand that nobody else works. in a company where someone would say, oh, we don't want to have to do that. Everybody take 25 days extra off. It's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, it's it seems so dysfunctional. So the intelligence services say. that they knew that Jensen Wang was apparently being honey trapped. He was having a relationship with someone who turned out to be working for. Chinese intelligence, and in the process.

are billions of dollars worth of. semiconductor chips were. being circumvented to China are adversary. This morning, Axios broke a story saying that Scott Besson had confronted Howard. in the white House about this and said, how could they not have done something? We are learning that the president knew about it, but didn't raise the subject with the CEO himself.

In fact, took him specifically on a trip to China, where he met with Chinese leadership. This all seems incredibly messy. Yeah, it seems incredibly messy is a very charitable word. Dangerous, right? When we talk about the things that this administration does, corruption. It's 90 plus percent. or close to 100% of what they do is explained by three different things.

Corruption making money. Vengeance going after people they don't like. And incompetence. Right. And and incompetence. This is an competence category here. But incompetence when you're dealing with key. national security functions is extremely dangerous. And you can't ring that bell. Once technology goes to our adversaries to China, once we lose control of trips. What you when you lose control. of essential information, you never get it back, right?

So when you have a checked out president who doesn't care, doesn't read. the Presidential Daily Brief, spends all of his time just staring at Fox News. In golfing. And when you have people around him that that are incompetent. and don't care about anything. other than monetizing federal government and trying to make as much money. as possible. And then you have, you know, ten, 15% of slots unfilled, people actually not even doing jobs because they don't care to fill them. This is the type of stuff that happens.

I mean, it's. it just seems remarkable and particularly given. that you were accused of treason, this seems like the most. Well, this also seems like a kind of corporate treason that you would end up. Yeah, but but regardless of whether or not he actually knew what was going on. or thought it was, thought it was somehow handled, it seems. Well, it just seems a remarkable situation. I don't think anybody can believe it. Yeah, it's it's pretty stunning. And, you know, when I first joined.

the Intelligence Committee, you get briefings on, espionage and counter espionage and how to protect yourself. and how to secure your data. And I remember the FBI agents who are giving this, these briefings, we're like, listen, just because you joined the Intelligence Committee. doesn't mean you have instantly become that much more attractive. Like, you're not any better looking now, right? So, like, you know, you're you're out. You're out and about in the community and like, all these people now.

are paying attention to you or hitting on you like there's something wrong here. There's something wrong. You you gotta, you gotta you just gotta be smart about this stuff. Which which many people don't because they're not serious people or, you know, either not serious or the protections in place. That that would normally be in place. The system is failing. Right. Well, I was going to ask you if you had any insight into invidious own. security systems or own security people, that they wouldn't have warned their CEO.

about this. I mean, it's the oldest trap in the book, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. No, it is, it it is. It's, you know, the classic. They call it the honeypot operation. You know, classic. It's just like basic stuff that they would, you know, that they'd done during the Cold War, right? It's like a John Le Carre novel, right? It's like a movie. It's like a movie. Yeah. Yeah. Which was a great question, Joanna, because we, you know, we always kind of look at the government functions here. But a key part of our oversight.

in the new Congress is actually going to be looking at these private companies. Right. What what systems did they not have in place or fail? And in addition to that, there's this whole world. of private company oversight that needs to be done because companies. and CEOs have been just belly up to the trough for the last two years. You know, pay to play, donate to the the Gilded Ballroom, get a get a no bid sole source contract. You know, pay pay for $100,000 dinner or.

Mar-A-Lago, get a get another sole source bid contract. as they were operating as if it would never end, right. As if they would be able to do this forever. Or nobody would ever come asking for questions. Well guess what? It's ending. And now we're about to start asking tough questions and. they're not going to have great answers, many of them. So is Elon Musk going to be one of those people. that gets targeted because you referred to Star Shield?

And it does seem, again, remarkable that a single man with a single company. that has, you know, incredibly lucrative contracts with the US government. makes the decision to switch off. essential services for the Ukrainians. so they can anticipate incoming Russian missiles. Yeah. How how wrong is that that a tech oligarch. could be in such control of an essential national security system?

That one person, a private citizen, unaccountable, unelected, can make a decision to turn off. a national security system that one of our partners at war is using, and then results in the death of multiple Ukrainians, including families, as a direct result of it. How the hell did that happen? So yeah, I do want answers to that. We are creating an Oversight and Investigations subcommittee. in the Armed Services Committee to focus on that very thing.

And I will I will say one, one thing. There's one difference to what you said. You said, well, you know, well, Elon, be targeted. Well, well in video, be targeted. We're not eating. individuals and companies. That's not the point. The point is. we got to start with the goal. And the goal is we got to have to protect our service members. We have to make sure that we are in incorruption. We have to make sure that. that American taxpayer money is going to the things that it should be going to.

We have to make sure that we are restoring rule of law. and democratic processes. That is the goal, right? So this isn't about targeting individuals as much as it is. This madness has to stop, and we're going to figure out who. we need to talk to, who we need to subpoena, who we need to call in. for testimony in order to get the answers that we need to stop it. So where do you prioritize? And I take your point about targeting, but it's also about oversight, right. And when one man can stop the defenses of a single country,

it's very clear that something has gone wrong in that process. So so who are your priorities. when you do decide to call people in and hold them to account? Yeah. Well, I, a couple of months ago, you might recall, I, questioned Pete Seth in the Armed Services Committee, and I talked about the special advisor, a man named Tim Parlato. Yeah. I do remember because you came on the Daily.

Beast podcast and talked about it afterwards, and we got a huge response. That's right. Viewers and listeners. So here's a man, you know, a lawyer used to work for Donald Trump. Just to remind remind your viewers here. You used to work for Donald Trump, had a falling out with Donald Trump, was fired. They exchanged words. Pete snatches this guy up. And does a couple of things. One is he gives him an immediate promotion to Navy commander. Right. Makes this guy a Navy commander and then, appoints him as a special advisor.

And by doing that by bypassed Senate confirmation process, bypass the white House, the the presidential personnel Office. So any of that in any oversight? As far as I know, he did. not at that point have a security clearance, makes him a senior advisor. at the same time as this guy keeps his law practice open. and is representing the very people. who are up for promotion in front of Pete. Right?

A direct monetization of the promotion process at the Pentagon. So Pete is firing 80 generals and admirals, purging our top ranks without cause. Many women. Women in particular, being targeted. And then the people that are making promotion. Look as though they were being represented. By who? By who else? Special advisor Tim Tory. So that's crazy. And this goes to the personnel issue. We're going to start by looking at personnel issues.

because in the military, leadership is everything. Are you going to have the best equipment the best best training. If you don't have good leadership, none of it matters, right? Leadership makes decisions, decides how to execute missions, make sure that people are protected. And I'm gravely concerned that both the purging. and then the non merit based process of promotion right now. is putting our young men and women at great risk. One skin is nothing like your.

typical skincare brand and that's why I keep coming back to it. Most anti-aging skin care is built to react. to smooth over lines and wrinkles after they show up. One skin started somewhere different, working to address how skin ages in the first place. It was founded by four PhD longevity scientists, and they studied skin. at the cellular level and found that visible skin. aging starts deeper when certain cells stop working.

the way they should a begin affecting the healthy cells around them. They engineered OS one, their proprietary peptide, to work with the skins biology, targeting those dysfunctional cells instead of just sitting on the surface. It's the foundation of every product they make, and what you see. over time with their products is firmer, smoother skin, even more tone. and radiance, and visibly fewer fine lines. for skin that looks and acts younger.

Born from over ten years of longevity research, One skin is helping. you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age, and for a limited time, try one skin with 15% off using code Beast. at one skin.co/beast. that's 15% off one skin with Code Beast, and after you purchase they'll ask you where you heard about them. So please support this podcast and tell them we sent you.

So how do you. balance as the incoming Congress, the holding. the current administration to account and also delivering on the promises. made to bring down prices for the, you know, the average shopping cart? Well, we don't have the balance because they're linked, actually. And, what was fascinating to me is that in this election, corruption was one of the top issues that.

drove folks to the poll, which has never happened before. Right. Because you always think about, oh, kitchen table issues, health care, housing, cost of groceries, the cost of fuel. And then over here is democracy, good government, anti-corruption. is kind of a side issue, right. What happened in this election is. corruption merged as a kitchen table issue because it was so rank. It's been so rank, so obvious, so tangible in the amount of money that the. Trump family and their donors and cronies are making tens of billions of dollars,

and the siphoning off of taxpayer dollars that should be going to health. care, should be going to housing that are going to, you know, new golf. courses, fleets of private planes, arches, gold ballrooms, you name it. Is is insulting. And it drove people to the polls. And for the first time ever, it was one of the top three issues that folks voted on. So corruption is a kitchen table issues. We don't have to balance it. And corruption is theft.

I always, always point that out is it's not abstract, it's stealing your money. And there are people that are stealing your healthcare money, your housing money, your education money and putting it into their pockets. And I'm going to go after it and I'm going to try to get it back. So last time you were on Congressman, final question, we had so many comments agreeing with what you were talking about and saying, this is exactly the kind of person we need to see in American leadership. And now I sound like I'm really blowing smoke, but,

but I advised your team to have a look at the comments. because they were very enthusiastic. But there was one particular theme that was running through them, which is why isn't Congressman Crow running for president now? The starting gun has been shot. after the midterm elections. Is this something that you would be interested in? I am not I am not now thinking of that. I'm focusing how I mentor these new members of Congress. How was the recruitment in battleground chair for the midterms?

I recruited and mentored many of these candidates that helped us win. We have to get them ready to go for January. We're helping them get set up with offices, staff. Many of these folks are. Almost all of them are going to be frontliners. Right. So these people have to hold their districts now. So we have to very quickly get their offices set up, get their team. set up, get them ready for what is going to be a while, January, and set them up for success so that they're just not losing in two years. So that's what I'm doing over the next couple of months.

is focusing on that job, that mentorship. You know, ultimately, I believe in personnel is policy. You know, that saying you can have all the best. policy slogans, policy papers, ideas in the world, everything comes down to, you know, who's on the bus with you. and who are the people that you bring in to help lead the country. It's all about people. And right now we have this amazing crop. of servant leaders that have stepped up, many of them. One.

We have to set them up for success. We're going to continue to mentor them so we can do great things. Well, hopefully you're going to get them to turn up for votes to. That. We're going to start with that. Okay. Let's managing your time is actually an important. managing your time and always putting parties. I would always rather. go to a party than I would turn up and actually have to do some work. But party. Enjoy your party too. But we have a damn job to do, right?

Like crazy. Yeah, I hear you. Well, good luck and we'll look forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you for joining us. Joanna. Thanks for having me on. I always love talking to Congressman Crow. He is the voice of reason. Right. And leave us your comments. Do you think he should be thinking about running for president? I mean, goodness knows, it's going to be a huge crowd of people. putting themselves up, but only a few of them actually have the experience.

And I would say the gravitas to to pull off and run the white House anyway. Right. And leave us a comment telling us what you think. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already. And big thank you for joining us. If you have been a big thanks to our production team, John Romero, Ryan Murray, Benji Wilson, Rachel Passer, Heather Pesaro and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many BB tier members now. There are too many names to read out and we really appreciate your support.