{"id":230353,"date":"2026-11-11T05:14:04","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T05:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/hegseth-lays-it-on-thick-for-trump-to-shave-off-fallout-from-iran-war-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T05:14:04","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T05:14:04","slug":"hegseth-lays-it-on-thick-for-trump-to-shave-off-fallout-from-iran-war-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/hegseth-lays-it-on-thick-for-trump-to-shave-off-fallout-from-iran-war-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth lays it on thick for Trump to shave off fallout from Iran war – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defense secretary calls impeachment effort a \u2018farce\u2019 and praises president in press conference for audience of one
There was no talk of \u201cweirdos or beardos\u201d \u2013 two among several categories<\/a> whom Pete Hegseth has made it known are unwelcome in the US armed forces under his watch.
But a man with a beard had to be uppermost in his mind for him to meet journalists in the Pentagon at the ungodly hour of 8am on Tuesday.
Why else would he be addressing a group he commonly disses as the \u201cfake news\u201d? Consorting with the fourth estate is not the sort of thing this defense secretary does first thing in the morning \u2013 or indeed, any time of the day.
He had ostentatiously avoided holding a single press briefing in nearly six months \u2013 thus driving an armored personnel carrier through all normal notions of accountability as an unpopular war with Iran rumbled on during an election campaign.
Yet here he was summoning media attention at a time when he \u2013 and they \u2013 should have been having breakfast.
For this sudden departure from type, praise belongs to Thomas Massie, the outgoing \u2013 and lusciously hirsute \u2013 Republican representative from Kentucky, who has launched articles of impeachment against Hegseth, citing high crimes and misdemeanors in his scattergun stewardship of the US\u2019s mighty military.
It was this that had driven the self-anointed secretary of war to call an unaccustomed news conference.
Hegseth, who has railed against beards and poor grooming in the military, presumably feels deep contempt for Massie\u2019s facial follicles.
But he made no mention of them in a 25-minute appearance bristling with affronted indignation. In fact, he contrived to omit mention of Massie\u2019s name at all.
Instead, Hegseth applied the adjective \u201cdisgruntled\u201d to his nameless nemesis several times in an address that seemed to throb with his own feelings of disgruntlement \u2013 not least with the journalists he was meeting for the first time in months.
Syntactically, that probably represented an upgrade on Donald Trump\u2019s description of Massie the day before as \u201ca stone cold loser\u201d.
Massie, a contrarian in Republican congressional ranks, has introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth that are likely to find support from Democrats \u2013 and maybe some fellow Republicans.
Among them lie serious charges, including violating the US constitution and waging war against Iran without congressional authorization.
Hegseth also stands accused of violating Congress\u2019s war powers resolution, which requires the withdrawal of US forces from unauthorized hostilities after 60 days.
There are also accusations of carrying out illegal military strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean, unlawfully capturing Venezuela\u2019s president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, unauthorized military strikes against Yemen and ignoring laws intended to minimize civilian casualties.
Finally, he is accused of abusing his power by retaliating against Mark Kelly, a Democratic senator, who had urged members of the military to disobey illegal orders.
For Hegseth, it was all a \u201cfarce and a stunt\u201d.
\u201cIn the 250 years of our American republic, no secretary of war or secretary of defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations, and in our case, successful ones at that,\u201d he complained.
\u201cNot once, war powers resolution or not, not under Reagan in Lebanon, not under Clinton in Kosovo, not under Obama in Iraq and Syria, not under Biden in Iraq and Syria. That\u2019s the standard.\u201d
But the \u201cdisgruntled\u201d Massie wanted to turn all that upside down \u201cover policy disagreements\u201d.
\u201cThat\u2019s what it is,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cNot high crimes, not misdemeanors, not treason, not bribery, not the kinds of offenses the founders intended when they wrote the impeachment clause.\u201d
They hadn\u2019t done it to Lloyd Austin, his Democratic predecessor at the Pentagon after he oversaw a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and then disappeared for several days to undergo treatment for cancer, the defense secretary wailed.
But lest anyone thought he was playing the victim, he asserted the disclaimer \u201cthis isn\u2019t about me\u201d.
It was \u2013 at least partly \u2013 about America\u2019s \u201cbrave warriors\u201d.
\u201cPut the secretary on trial today and the men and women who carry out the orders tomorrow,\u201d Hegseth said. But be warned, if they want to go after the warriors, \u201cthey are going to have to come through me\u201d.
But most of it all, it was about Trump, who was impeached twice in his first presidency and who Hegseth now said he was proud to serve as a proxy target.
\u201cNow they\u2019re trying a third time, this time against a member of his cabinet,\u201d he said. \u201cIf standing with President Trump puts me in that company, I\u2019ll take that company every day of the week.\u201d
Then it was time to attack the very class of people he had reluctantly invited to the Pentagon. The media could not admit Trump\u2019s military success against Iran, he claimed, \u201cbecause they hate the president more than they love our country or our troops\u201d.
It was at that point that it became clear the audience Hegseth was primarily addressing was not in the Pentagon briefing room, but in the White House.
By fervently defending Trump \u2013 who has so far stuck by Hegseth as a man who \u201cwon two wars\u201d \u2013 he was shielding himself, all the more so amid rampant speculation that the president could still make him a fall guy for last week\u2019s Republican midterm debacle.
Then it was to the hazardous territory of journalists\u2019 questions. One was about Stephen Miller, Trump\u2019s chief policy adviser and newly appointed chief of staff.
\u201cAn incredible American patriot,\u201d Hegseth gushed, no doubt wisely, given his delicate predicament. \u201cWe\u2019ve got no better friend at the department of war than Stephen Miller. He\u2019ll be a fantastic chief of staff.\u201d
The tone changed markedly when someone asked about Vice-President JD Vance, who has blamed the Iran war for the Republicans\u2019 defeat, and who everyone assumes harbors fierce presidential ambitions.
\u201cI respect the vice-president greatly, and I\u2019m certainly not going to exchange any finger pointing,\u201d Hegseth said.
And then, in an aside uttered so quickly it could almost have passed unnoticed were it not such a well-aimed blow, he added: \u201cThankfully, politics is not really my thing.\u201d
The audience of one in the White House would surely have heard \u2013 and understood whose \u201cthing\u201d it was.<\/p>\n

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Defense secretary calls impeachment effort a \u2018farce\u2019 and praises president in press conference for audience of oneThere was no talk of \u201cweirdos or beardos\u201d \u2013 two among several categories whom Pete Hegseth has made it known are unwelcome in the US armed forces under his watch.But a man with a beard had to be uppermost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}