Defense Secretary Goes on Offense

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That's AvocadoGreenMatress.com to get up to 20% off AvocadoGreenMatress.com. It's Wednesday, November 11th, and finally, a vote goes the White House's way. Start here. By the skin of their teeth, congressional Republicans bury an impeachment attempt. This is just purely for people to get attention and it's shameful. But that doesn't mean everyone's defending Pete Hegseth. The DOJ charges an Iranian for allegedly orchestrating a terror plot from an American prison. Still, after his arrest, an engaging in calls with relatives of his two co-conspirators. What actually prompted the U.S. to pull military jets out of England, and the Fed hoped inflation would level off, spoiler alert, it hasn't. Day-to-day costs are going up faster than economists or for that matter the Federal Reserve would like to see. If raising interest rates was a jump-ball decision, now it's a slam dunk. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milky. As election results came in last week, it became obvious in Republican circles that someone would have to be the fall guy. He can't suffer such massive losses and just keep carrying on doing the same thing. Can you? That just sets the stage for bigger losses two years from now. But within hours, it had become clear to some that defense secretary Pete Hegseth could be the obvious foil here. Along with the commander-in-chief, he has led a war effort that Americans are obviously frustrated by. The economy would be straight out fast if we just get these fuel prices on the wall over with. We can't make it a Russian Ukraine war of four years for God's sakes. Democrats and even the odd Republican floated the possibility of impeachment. The form of the resolution is as follows. Impeaching Peter Bryan Hegseth, secretary of defense for high crimes and misdemeanors. But since then, the defense secretary has gone on offense. Instead of him being fired, it was chief of staff Susie Wiles getting the axe instead. If I wanted to make a change, I think Susie's done a very good job. Great job, but I just wanted to make it. And despite being disliked by many members on Capitol Hill, Hegseth started seeing Republicans rallying to his defense. They had no due process. There's nothing that went into this. And yesterday, most congressional Republicans managed to get back on the same page, scrambling to pass a key measure that would keep that impeachment vote from happening in the first place. Let's start today with ABC Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott Rachel, crisis averted for Republicans. I mean, walk us through how this played out yesterday. Yeah, Brad. So it started. First thing in the morning was defense secretary Pete Hegseth defiant. What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight. And it's not accountability. It's a political spectacle. He rarely comes before the cameras at the Pentagon and hosts at press conference. But he decided to come forward hours before this vote and deliver a message straight to Democrats and Republicans who were even considering about voting to move forward within peaching him. It's a farce and it's a stunt and everybody knows it. He attacked the effort as slander and sabotage. And a reminder, Brad, this is an effort that's being pushed forward by a member of the Republican Party. We're not indicting him for being bad at his job. In fact, he was very effective at killing school children in Iran. But he called it a stunt. So it's clear President Trump was watching that from the White House. He posted on social media that Pete Hegseth gets an A plus plus plus. But over on Capitol Hill, there's quite a bit of soul searching that's being done within the Republican Party. And even Republicans who do not believe that Hegseth should be impeached clearly had some concerns about the Pentagon's leadership and also the direction of the war. I just want to make sure that the right information is flowing from the Pentagon to the President. And also where exactly this war goes from here. But then Rachel, the question then is even if Republicans have misgivings about Hegseth at defense, that doesn't mean they want to vote to impeach the President's secretary, right? So how do they navigate that? Because we were told, you know, last week, this probably had to get voted on. You probably had to take a stand one way or the other. Yeah, and it's really a fine line because a lot of Republicans do feel like voters sent them a very powerful message. I talked to a number of Republicans who said without question, the war with Iran was a drag for them this election. They know it. Many of them lost their seats. But at the same time, many Republicans will tell you they don't believe that it is right to impeach Hegseth. I have separate complaints about the Secretary that's not in the impeachment. So Mr. Bacon, just to be clear, you will be a no-- I'm like, I plan on being a no. Others made the argument that it would be wrong to impeach the current defense secretary in the middle of an ongoing foreign conflict. And so even talking to Republicans one by one, they were trying to kind of talk through this. On one end, they do acknowledge they have concerns about the war, how long it's going to last. But on the other end, they don't exactly want to see this impeachment effort move forward, and certainly not before they hand over the keys to the majority to Democrats. Please stand up. Please stand up. Please give in to try to bear proof. Yeah, I'll stand by. So even if he's impeached, you're going to be-- I'll press him on your defense secretary. You won two wars. So with the little time that they have left in the majority, how Speaker Mike Johnson came up with this plan, essentially, to try to just effectively kill this for the time being. I expect that we're going to defeat that and one way or the other, and we'll get on with the business. The vote that came to the floor in the House was really like a baby step toward impeachment, with what we call here a procedural vote. It was a vote to refer this over to a committee. And that essentially means that it could be effectively killed by Republicans who are still in charge of the House. And so they had enough Republicans to go along with this, but ultimately voted for this to be referred to the House Judiciary Committee. The current chairman of that committee is the next minority leader to lead the Republican Conference, Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican. It effectively means that this impeachment effort, as of right now, is going nowhere. And there is no circumstance that justifies Pete Heggseth continuing to hold this position. But that does not stop Democrats from trying to bring this to the floor once again once they get the majority in January. Yeah, although Democrats won't have Thomas Massey to do it for them, like the Republican here, he lost his race in Kentucky. And so if Democrats want to bring forward impeachment articles, they would have to do it themselves. However, a big test for Republicans here to at least keep some semblance of unity after these midterms in the face of this very unpopular war, Rachel Scott at the Capitol. Thank you. Thanks, Brad. Next up on Start here, he was already suspected of plotting attacks around the US. Now he's accused of trying to blow up a military base from a jail cell. We're back in a bit. This show is sponsored by Quince. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on, whether you're heading to work, going out, or keeping things casual. 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Let's talk about something no one really wants to talk about. What happens to us when we pass? Unfortunately, it's going to happen to every one of us. So if you want to make sure your family's protected, the way you would like them to be after you're gone, it's important to act ahead of time and document your wishes now. Clearly and securely, that's where Trust and Will comes in. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney-designed estate plans that you can create online in just minutes, giving you a lifetime of peace of mind. On their easy-to-use website, you can document your wishes for guardianship of children and pets, distribution of assets, and health care planning. It's designed to be easy to tackle on your own or with your partner, but if you get stuck, attorney support is available as an add-on. When you're ready, you can share access with trusted contacts. 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Well now US authorities are describing what they think happened, including an alleged mastermind who's already behind bars. ABC's Alex Malin covers the DOJ. When we left this, we had no clue what had happened. We just knew it sounded really bad since the US was pulling out its jets, UK police were making arrests at the airbase. Do we have a better sense of what was actually happening behind the scenes? Yeah, I mean we know that the President Trump had been long saying that he believed that Iran was behind this potential terrorist attack against the RAF Fairford airbase. But we'd not really seen what evidence was there to support his beliefs and it now turns out is that it appears the US intelligence community was on this at least in part because one of the individuals allegedly involved in planning this was behind bars in New York City, Muhammad Al-Sahide, who was taken into custody in May on separate charges alleging he and two other individuals who are based in Iran conducted in planned to conduct at least 18 terrorist attacks in the US and Europe. This included discussions about positioning potential vans filled with barrels of fuel and excellence, including large quantities of potassium chloride and metallic objects that could apparently be used to create shrapnel. So this appears to have been according to the government's superseding indictment yesterday, an alleged plot to position several vans near that airbase and attack it potentially with explosives spread. Wow, and so like you said, this guy had already been arrested for allegedly concocting plots to bomb Americans on US soil. This would have been allegedly US service members and I guess British service members on UK soil. How does that happen? Like is there a sense of how he was even communicating? According to this new superseding indictment unveiled by prosecutors in New York yesterday, Al-Sahide was actually still after his arrest, engaging in calls with relatives of his two co-conspirators using coded language to essentially mask what he was trying to talk about, but it was clear based on some of these communications according to these prosecutors that he was using phrases like asking whether the plot had been "canceled" and that essentially it appears led prosecutors and the intelligence community to be able to what we saw alert the UK authorities to be able to effectuate all of these arrests because it appears that they were, you know, actively tracking this group and all of their activities, which not only just included this alleged plot against RAF Fairford, but other targeted attacks against things like synagogues in the UK against US-based activists and others who are seemingly targets of the Iranian regime. Well, and that's the other thing, Alex, as we now learned that the US has also moved US military jets out of a different UK air base, so I guess I'm wondering what is the current threat level from Iran when it comes to not just in the Middle East, but I mean in Europe and in the American homeland? Yeah, I think that really reflects what we're seeing is the concern among the intelligence community that Iran is not only going to seek to be limited by targeted attacks within the Middle East. They see targets across the US and Europe as potential opportunities for them to inflict severe potential damage against US interests and US persons. Again, I think that a lot of the things that we saw revealed in this indictment yesterday, most of these targeted attacks, including the ones in base in Europe, were all against US-involved interests, people like a US bank that was actually operating within the UK. So again, all of this seems to be surrounding their frustrations that they've not really been able to inflict a lot of damage against the United States military interests. So they're going to essentially, according to this indictment, branch out, and one of the interesting things about this person that is in US custody, al-Sadi, is he actually referred to himself as a close partner of Kasim Soleimani who, as you recall, was that Iranian general, the infamous IRGC general, who the US killed in 2020. The United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world. The United States took an act of war against Iran. It would have to be prepared for the consequences. This is what we see a lot of downstream effects from that specific targeted assassination of Kasim Soleimani is these networks that were then put out by Iran across the world, really, essentially intending to inflict targeted attacks against Americans and American interests. Yeah, I feel like to a lot of Americans that was in name that they were learning for the first time. To many Iranians and people in the Iranian power structure, that was the beginning of a lot of dominoes that are still falling right now. Alex Madeline covering the DOJ. Thank you. Thanks, Brad. So you might remember last month, we got these inflation numbers that did not look very good. It showed that prices in this country are still going up even faster than they were a few months prior. Real activity is clearly pointing in the right direction. That's good news. But inflation is too high. Usually, the way you might counteract this as a government is by raising interest rates, but the Federal Reserve chose not to do that. The committee believes that the accumulation of more information will help it determine the policy stance, appropriate, to ensure a timely return of inflation to the 2% goal. If you got money in the stock market, that was probably good news. Businesses tend not to do well when interest rates go up. Some saw this as the Fed just trying to stay out of the political fray the week before midterms. Keep the market stable, don't impact an election, even if inflation keeps rising because of it. Well, yesterday, we got new inflation numbers. Guess what? Their higher than economists would like, and now the Fed has another decision to make that could affect all of us. ABC's Elizabeth Sholesy covers business and economics, Elizabeth. What was in this inflation report? Yeah, it wasn't good, Brad. I mean, it was worse than expectations. In October, prices were up 0.4%. That doesn't sound like a lot, but for a monthly increase, it's more than the expectation had been, and it's definitely higher level than you want to see when you're thinking about a healthy level of prices in the economy. Typically, when we're talking about inflation, Brad, we have that 2%, 3%, maybe 4% number. We don't actually have that yearly inflation rate number this time around because there was actually a government shutdown a year ago. They weren't collecting the data, so there's no way to actually compare the rate now versus a year ago. But the details of this report show that prices really across the economy are going in the wrong direction. Fortunately, it doesn't go down as quick as it goes up, so something's got to be changed here. The economy is not great for most people in this country, and even if you do seem to kind of have your head above water, it's just above water. And it's not just the gas price impact. So rent prices were up, that accounts for a lot of the overall inflation number, services like electricity, medical care. I mean, a lot of these day-to-day costs are going up faster than economists, or for that matter, the Federal Reserve would like to see. And so, yeah, what does that mean for the Federal Reserve? Do they have to look at this now and go like, we're kind of on the bubble last time, I guess, now we will jack up interest rates? It all but locks in an interest rate hike in December, Brad. And that had already been the expectation going into this report that the Fed would hike rates again to try to tame these high prices. But now, because prices are, as economists say, hotter than expected, it seems pretty likely that the Fed will raise those rates again. So that means, you know, higher borrowing costs when you're talking about credit cards, mortgage rates could tick up a bit higher again, auto loan rates. And keep in mind, this is at a time when people are already feeling the impact of these high rates. I mean, you got credit card rates at about 20%. Credit card debt is already at a record high. People are feeling these borrowing costs, but this is really the lever that the Fed has to pull to try to rain in spending in the economy from businesses, from consumers to try to bring down prices overall. And the expectation is that that's what they're going to try to do, and just a couple of weeks when they meet again. Yeah, and I think I saw that fewer Americans are buying homes. You could imagine that's because mortgages are so expensive. In the meantime, Elizabeth, we got Nvidia CEO under investigation over his relationship with an alleged spy. And Thropic has said it's initial share price as it goes public. I know AI is driving the market, but is that a good thing at this point? Like, should we be skeptical of the AI boom? Or what are you seeing? Well, you don't want to be looking at Nvidia stock over the past couple days. I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars in value wiped out of a company that's worth more than four trillion dollars because of this scandal. Notably, other tech stocks have been kind of recovering a little bit, and a lot of the focus in the market right now, especially with these big tech companies, is on Anthropics IPO. We very carefully address those risks as we bring the benefits and as we have a viable business at the same time. And I invite you to join us on the next phase. of this journey. The company in a new filing said it's basically full speed ahead on the IPO, likely this month, and it's maybe not going to be valued quite as sky high as some investors had originally thought. We're at one point throwing out $2 trillion for a company that was just going to go public. Now the latest filing shows it would be worth about $1.3 trillion. So, you know, not as much. That's still a lot of money. That's the discounted price. Exactly. So, that IPO is really a test for the market, of course, to see how it goes, does it go as well as expected, or is there actually, are there some investors who are saying, "I'm actually not going to get into this big AI trade now." This is going to be the most promising technology in human history. AI is capturing the essence of cognition. So, that IPO, huge test for, anthropic, of course, this company that has been kind of barreling toward going public after it grew so fast in such a short amount of time, but also a big test for the rest of the stock market, which has been propelled by these AI companies, and can that momentum continue when you've got, kind of, these, one of these frontier labs, actually, finally going public, will there be a lot of more investors who want to buy in, or are people sort of going to sit and wait and see, "Let's see how this does." That's sort of a big question, and a lot of attention is going to be on that IPO. Yeah, and I think there's already people wondering, like, is this anthropic saying, "Oh no, we won't be able to get as much money as we'd like," or is it anthropic intentionally being, like, "Hey, let's, let's all lower expectations a little bit, guys, in this uneasy time. Elizabeth Scholzzy, thank you so much." Thanks so much. Okay, one more quick break. When we come back, it might sound old-fashioned, unless you're the one waiting for the US so to come to your base. One last thing is next. Today, I want to tell you about our friends at Lug. If you're traveling this season, whether you're seeing family or catching some sun in a tropical destination, Lug can help you and your essentials get everywhere you need to go. Lug makes sturdy premium quality, hard-sided wheelie bags for all kinds of travel. The hard shell means your stuff stays protected no matter what. No more worrying that your souvenirs will get destroyed when your bag inevitably gets tossed around by the ground crew. With four smooth 360-degree spinner wheels, it rolls on all surfaces like a dream, and the TSA-approved combination lock keeps your belongings secure from the moment you hand off your bag at the airport to the moment you open it up in the hotel. Plus, if you're worried it'll be too big or too small, Lug offers options in all sizes, even a carry-on that's regulation-size for the strictest airlines, they offer a huge range of colors too. Ready to optimize your holiday travel? Build your travel lineup for more than 40% off with this unique deal for start-here listeners. Head to abcsecretsavings.com/starthere to get 40% off the Lug bag that's right for you today, that's abcsecretsavings.com/starthere And one last thing, today is Veterans Day, and this year more than most, I think Americans are clearly aware of just how many service members find themselves far from home, perhaps on an aircraft carrier in the Middle East, or at a base getting ready for deployment. But then there are those service members who spend years at a time overseas, they're in places like Germany, Greenland, South Korea, summer with their families, many are not. So how do you make these men and women feel like they have a home? How do you maintain a sense of Americanness while also making them apart of their current surroundings? This is the challenge faced by the Pentagon, along with nonprofits like the United Service Organization, the USO. You've heard of the USO before, the group that organized appearances by Judy Garland and Marlene Dietrich, and of course Bob Hope. Well, recently our colleagues here at ABC News asked a question, what's it like on these far flung bases in the year 2026, and what role does the USO play in these sprawling modern military communities? I'd been on some of these trips with the USO the last time was back in 2009, just a couple years after I was wounded over there. This is ABC's Bob Woodruff, who of course was hit by an IED while embedding with troops during the Iraq War. This month in partnership with the Bob Woodruff Foundation, he has managed to create a series called American Valor, in which he followed the USO in its 85th anniversary year to some of our most remote bases. We just wanted to see these ones that you know you don't see a lot of stories about because they're so far away. And talk about far away, his first stop was in Yakota, Japan, home to the US forces Japan headquarters and 5th Air Force. We got the chance to go on the C-130 and still do we actually fly right over Mount Fuji. Remember the reason the US has bases in Japan was because it had just destroyed much of the country in World War II. Our soldiers set up shop in Japanese towns as an occupying force and yet 80 years later when he spent time in towns like Yakota he says you see how far this cultural exchange has come. We found one Air Force mechanic who had actually retired from the military a few years ago. He decided to get married to this local Japanese woman and have a couple kids and he never left. And yet there's still nothing like a taste of home. On this leg of the USO tour comedian Gabrielle Iglesias known as Fluffy reminds these service members about the healing power of some old-fashioned American humor. Now make no mistake, most of the day is not spent smiling. All military bases mean business, but as Bob heads to South Korea, it strikes you even more how close our troops are to warfare all the time. Soul of major metropolis and home to thousands of American soldiers is less than 50 miles from North Korea. The war between these two nations is still ongoing, no treaty was ever signed, and yet here too, things evolve. And at the DMZ. So who do you get here to bring down the tension? Well, maybe someone who knows the area, in fact he probably knows everything about every area, it's Ken Jennings, the host of Jeopardy. The Korean dish known as "Army Stew" contains some of this canned meat. Times running out. He is the entertainment on this leg of the USO tour, but he wasn't assigned to South Korea randomly. So he was actually grew up in Seoul, he knew the language a little bit, "I remember my dad explaining to me, you know, there's two Koreas, but I was like, which one are we moving to?" And he was like, "Oh, South, don't worry." He knew the town, he gave us a great tour, what his life was like for he bought the books. If GIs were going home, this is where they would leave their NBA magazines, their mad magazines, their comics, their wrestling magazines, and so this was like a gold mine. But all this made me wonder, it's fun to unleash your inner nerd, Jennings and the USO even set up this elaborate quiz show Taylor made to these service members, but how much of a difference really can one afternoon visit make? Bob says, "Think of Alaska, this was his last leg of the trip. This is not even a foreign base, and yet you will struggle to find an experience more isolating than manning our Coast Guard base in Kodiac." And not only is it far away, it's not like being based far away and Hawaii, it's cold in the winter, it's very dark, and to have somebody to compromise states and do their kind of service, which is maybe comedy or music, then it's really impactful. He says, "In an age where military members find themselves at a higher risk for suicide, where family members are poked and prodded about their role in a war they never asked for, it is nice to be reminded that there are people back home who want to send them some love, maybe a smile." "You know, the military, those who serve are not the ones that are involved in the politics, where we go, why we fight. They want to know that they get some dignity of what they're doing in a world that sometimes argues about whether the military should be based here or not based here." And perhaps on this Veterans Day it provides a bit of perspective, both for service members and the rest of us, because as Judy Garland said before, "Her first USO tour, there's no place like home." And Arwell wishes to all of our veteran listeners, some really cool footage from Bob and his team as part of the series, "American Valor" is streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus. 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