Pete Hegseth under pressure after US elections

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. For goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Welcome to the Haunted Library. Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human. Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube. Also, major tech stocks plunge with a trillion dollars being wiped off their value in a single day as the US midterm results add to fears of an AI slowdown. Also in this podcast, Paraguay's President Santiago Peña faces impeachment after the collapse of a bank left millions without access to their money. And Sambo is a martial art developed by the Soviets, and now it's being practiced by blind athletes. To encourage my fellow blind in Africa, I want to make my country proud again. That story from Nigeria, coming up. Let's begin in the US Capitol, and the continuing fallout from the midterm elections, which saw Donald Trump's Republicans suffer a series of humiliating defeats across the country. In the new year, the Democrats will take up their seats in Congress, and they'll be able to move ahead. With their own agenda, and some believe that topping that list will be a bid to remove the Defense Secretary, otherwise known as the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. He's closely connected with the war on Iran and a host of other issues, including a cancelled attempt to live stream the execution of a convicted soldier. President Trump has said he intends to keep Mr. Hegseth on, but that could change. And the Defense Secretary seems to know he's in a vulnerable position. He posted, a social media video on Thursday defending his record, including the need to fight the war in Iran. So, will Pete Hegseth soon be out of a job? Our North America editor is Sarah Smith. He would be a fairly obvious target for Democrats, because if they were to go through impeachment proceedings, they could interview him in public, in congressional hearings that everybody would be able to watch, and they would be able to explore the reasons for going to war with Iran, some of the things that have happened as a result of that, what advice he was giving. And it's not just the war with Iran. They would also want to talk about the extrajudicial killings of people that the administration says were drug smugglers in South America, the way in which the kidnap of Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, was carried out, they would say, illegally. The fact that all of these actions have been taken without congressional approval, it would be a good way of them to expose some of the decision-making that there has been within the administration about this very, very unpopular war with Iran. And they would see it as a way to embarrass Donald Trump and the administration. The defense secretary has issued a defiant message today. Let's take a listen to it now. This is not about me. But of course, the other side, in case you've noticed, they're obsessed. A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly. Didn't work against President Trump, and it won't work with me. Sarah, he doesn't seem to be going down without a fight. Yeah, he's always very pugnacious. Pete Hegseth will always come up with an aggressive defense of his own actions. The problem is, it's not really up to him whether or not the Democrats move to impeach him. And it actually might happen even quicker than that. A Republican congressman, Thomas Massey, who's been very outspoken about the war with Iran, has said that he will introduce articles of impeachment next week so that the process can begin in Congress. Donald Trump says he thinks that Hegseth has been doing a fantastic job, that he's got no intention of sacking him. But there is one more thing to remember. If he was to do that before the end of the year, then he could try to get his replacement confirmed by the Senate whilst he retains the Republican majority there. If he waits until the new year, or until Democrats have managed to impeach Pete Hegseth, then he would have to try and get his new defense secretary confirmed through a Democrat-controlled Senate. And that would be much, much harder for him to do. So on top of looking for him to be impeached, he would be looking for a scapegoat for the election defeat, which Donald Trump may very well be doing. He could see very practical reasons why it might be a good idea to get rid of Hegseth sooner rather than later. Sarah, many people, including the president, have blamed the war on Iran for the election losses. But there have also been indications that active fighting might restart again quite soon. What have you been hearing? Yeah, there's a huge amount of speculation that it might start again soon because, of course, it remains entirely unresolved what is happening with Iran. Even though there hasn't been a huge amount of active fighting going on recently, Donald Trump himself says he doesn't know if you can even still call it a war. But he does need to try and resolve this. It's difficult to see how they will get past the diplomatic impasse without, he thinks, changing the facts on the ground. And until he does that, he will continue to be dogged by this very, very unpopular war, which, as you say, being blamed now for the massive election defeat that his Republicans suffered. Sarah Smith. Staying in Washington, the U.S. First Lady, Melania Trump, welcomed senior Russian and Ukrainian officials at the White House on Thursday. The event was set up to mark a truce that had been in place in the Russian-occupied city in Ukraine, a truce that Mrs. Trump helped to coordinate. A six-day local ceasefire allowed the evacuation of hundreds of stranded residents from Oleshki, including many children. At the event, Mrs. Trump had this to say. Now we must use the courage we brought to Oleshki to find common ground through a shared concern for the suffering of innocent people. Together, we can create something more enduring than a temporary ceasefire. That Oleshki truce expired last Sunday with no extension. Those attending Thursday's White House gathering included a special envoy of President Putin and a senior politician from Ukraine's parliament. The meeting comes ahead of planned talks in Abu Dhabi, as Washington pushes for a deal to end the war. Our correspondent Will Grant joined us from Washington for this assessment of the First Lady's White House meeting. It was definitely unusual, wasn't it, seeing the visuals of Ukrainian and Russian officials meeting in the White House, but not standing either side of Donald Trump or Secretary of State Rubio, but rather the First Lady. And of course, it comes quickly on the heels of that truce last week in Oleshki, the Russian-occupied town. In Ukraine is on the brink of starvation. It is in extreme humanitarian crisis. So things have been achieved. But as I say, the sort of optics of it being the First Lady to broker those talks was definitely interesting. There may be something in the fact that they benefited from a different setting, a different voice. She could be seen as a new and good faith actor in what is obviously a very entrenched and difficult conflict. And she sent each of the two envoys back to their respective presidents with a letter from her. So we wait to see whether or not there will be any kind of extension or repeat of the ceasefire scene last week. Photos from the event show the First Lady smiling broadly as she receives a medal from the Ukrainian side. But are there indications this meeting wasn't just ceremonial? Because normally the First Lady keeps quite a low profile, doesn't she? She does. And you certainly don't tend to see the First Lady in a geopolitical role. There may be things done domestically. Obviously, the First Lady in a variety of presidencies has taken a role in everything from education to children's health to all manner of things. But you don't tend to see a sort of geopolitical role, which is what this is. Let's make no mistake about it. A ceasefire was achieved. But as has been pointed out by many commentators in Ukraine, it was achieved because President Putin wanted to do it. It wasn't necessarily achieved any other way. There can be goodwill on all other sides. But ultimately, it's only when President Putin decides to stop the fighting that there's an ease or a halt in the fighting. But credit where it's due, there has been families reunited. Children have been able to leave the region of conflict. And that is not nothing. That is an achievement. Well, we've talked about the meetings that happened in front of the cameras today. But there are also reports that President Trump did meet with the Russian side, What do you know? know about that? Well, we do know from the Ukrainian MP who is there, David Arakhamia, that there is a political track, as he put it, to the negotiations and that it was complex. He was basically still asking Melania Trump to keep going, to find new missions and de-escalate more was the wording. Of course, President Trump is the key actor in all of this when it comes to the White House. And he will, I'm sure, have played a role. This is an envoy of President Putin in the White House. The key actor in that will always be the President of the United States. I think these are important. They're useful developments. There can be a building of trust. And I think given, as I say, the entrenched and bitter nature of the war, there's no end in sight. Ukrainians are exhausted. Russians too. Many ordinary Russians want an end to this situation. And moments like last week and the ceasefire in the city of Olashki, it does bring at least a little sense of hope to a very, very difficult situation. Will Grant. Now, the upheaval caused by the midterm elections has had an effect away from Washington, D.C., and that can partly be seen in the U.S. share markets, particularly those focused on tech stocks. Stock markets rose on Wednesday, the day after the vote. But on Thursday, hundreds of billions of dollars, were wiped from tech firms. Some investors fear the Democrats, soon to be in control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, might impose more controls on Silicon Valley, particularly companies dealing with AI. Lily Jamali is our North America technology correspondent. The fear is that the hands-off regulatory approach from Washington is going to be over soon. That was the way that the White House under Donald Trump wanted it. David Sachs, the venture capitalist, turned. Trump, AI czar, advised the president pretty consistently to let the industry regulate itself. And the current Congress, which is dominated by Republicans in both houses, wasn't willing to challenge the president. So there really weren't any checks on that. Now you have, of course, Democrats winning back both houses, as well as governors' races and state houses across the country. There were some really big reversals in states that were very welcoming to the AI industry. And they were very welcoming to the AI industry. And they were very welcoming to the industry until potentially the turn of this year. So Texas is one. Ohio is another. Candidates actually ran on anti-tech platforms, and it worked for them. Anti-tech platforms. Can you tell me more about this? Is it all about the building of AI data centers in local communities? A lot of it is about exactly that. And these candidates were obviously listening to the polling on AI, which showed that going into this election, a third of Americans, who were surveyed, felt that AI data centers were going to be a top three issue, driving them to the polls. Nine out of 10 Americans said that they were more concerned than excited about AI, which is such a departure from the culture where I am here in Northern California and Silicon Valley, where everyone is excited and they think everyone else is just as excited as they are. So the concern is that regulation is coming for these industry leaders. I was just at a conference yesterday, and you could tell the messaging is immediately changing. The messaging is changing. The from these people at companies like Meta and OpenAI, which are very deep into AI development and building out the infrastructure. They are realizing the messaging that they've adopted thus far, you know, has to include communities. I think Meta will say they've done a lot of that community relationship building. OpenAI, what I saw from the president, Greg Brockman, last night at a Wall Street Journal conference was somebody who was very blindsided by the results and- Thought to himself, well, we need to change the way we talk to these communities and comport ourselves in their- It's interesting, Lily, because you're using words like realization that they've just realized this, they, you know, some were blindsided. But this Democratic win was predicted in the polling for quite some time. I'm just wondering, you know, the share prices for many tech firms have fallen, but they've been doing well for several years. So could this just be a correction in the market too? Yeah, it certainly could be. I mean, technically, the term that Wall Street traders use is correction for when you're in a market that has fallen between 10 or 20% below the highs. So we are now in a correction, at least for the NASDAQ, which is the tech heavy index. When you fall below 20%, that's called a bear market. And so if you look, if you zero in on what's known as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks just those kinds of stocks, that is in bear market territory. That is falling more than 30%. And so if you look, if you zero in on what's known as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, that is falling more than 30% in about a month. And that's alarming. But big picture, the markets rallied yesterday, and it's giving back some of those gains today. We'll see what happens tomorrow. But this is a very volatile market and big companies like Meta and Alphabet, the big metric I've been talking about the last few weeks is long term debt. Those companies are taking on so much of that, even though they make unbelievable amounts of money selling ads, that's no longer enough to fund their AI ambitions. So they're having to take on debt in a way that may finally be sinking in with investors as alarming. Lily Jamali. Still to come in this podcast. There's a real lack of empathy, you know, when you're dealing with families that have lost so much, and no one seems to be willing to say, you know what, we made a mistake. And for that, we're sorry. We hear from families who lost relatives in Spain's devastating wildfires, and why they feel so let down. Listen to the Haunted Library, wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube. This is the Global News Podcast. Relatives of Britons killed in this summer's wildfires in Spain have told the BBC they feel really let down after regional politicians blocked an official inquiry into the disaster. Nine British nationals were among the 15 people who died, when fire ripped through the hillside village of Bedar in the province of Almeria in southeastern Spain in July. Families have criticised the authorities' actions, including the decision not to send an emergency alert to mobile phones as the flames closed in. Our Europe correspondent, Nick Beek, has been talking to families of victims of the fire, which was one of Spain's most deadly. If that evacuation warning had come through in time, my father would still be alive. Duncan Chodd has been fighting to find out why more wasn't done to help the people of Bedar when a wildfire ripped through the Spanish village this summer. The authorities have argued if they'd sent out an emergency alert to all mobile phones, it could have caused panic and traffic jams. In conditions that are crazy, you do everything that you possibly can. Issue the damned alert. Do everything. But they didn't. Duncan describes Bedar as a vibrant mix of locals and expats. Many of them British, including his dad Michael and his partner Christine. He built that house from scratch. He was very proud of it. It was his place in the sun. It was his little paradise. And he loved the community. Families of the victims say their grief has now been made worse by the decision of the regional parliament in Andalusia to block an independent inquiry into decisions taken on the day of the fire. It's just outrageous. It's an injustice. You know, they started off basically victim blaming. They've been. They've been withholding as much information as they possibly can. They basically want to shove it under the carpet. As family members, we're absolutely disgusted by this. This is an insult, you know? They were fantastic parents, my biggest champions. Danny Gillam-Curtin says her mum Fran and dad Pete were also failed. Her parents had lived in Bedar for eight years, Fran running a quiz night that raised money for the local school and church. Fantastic grandparents. So they leave a huge, huge hole in our lives. Danny travelled to Spain in the aftermath of the fires to collect her parents' possessions. The local police had told her the family car had been meticulously searched by forensic specialists and she would find nothing. But then she made a shocking discovery. When I was searching the driver's side footwell, I picked up what I recognised to be sort of part of a pelvis or a hip joint. They were Danny Fier's. Her father's remains. Obviously shouted my husband to look and at that point he just sort of said step back and he recovered multiple bones. Later on when I was looking through the back seats, there was also what appeared to be a piece of rib. The fragments were sent to Madrid for testing. The Guardia Civil now says no DNA was found and they are animal bones. Danny says experts she's spoken to, including those who worked on the Grenfell Tower investigation, are confident they are human remains. It feels like they're going to hope we exhaust ourselves, that either the burden of grief is going to be enough for us to give up or that we're going to financially exhaust ourselves. There's a real lack of empathy, you know, when you're dealing with families that have lost so much and no one seems to be willing to say, do you know what, we made a mistake and for that we're sorry. The Spanish police have not replied to our request for comment. The Andalusian government says the ongoing criminal investigation will provide answers. But the grieving families say they will now have to pay tens of thousands of euros in legal fees to be included in those proceedings. Duncan Chard again. And the most important thing that we're looking for is to make sure this never happens again because this is for everyone who lives in Spain. This is for everyone who visits Spain. Let's focus on what's happening in Paraguay now. It's a country of just six and a half million people and now the collapse of one of the country's main banks has affected three million of those people who are unable to access the money in their accounts. Now, Paraguay's president is facing impeachment by parliament over the collapse of Bueno Bank. Santiago Peña had offered his resignation but he'll face a hearing later on Friday over his business links to that bank. People gathered in a public square in the capital, Asuncion, waving flags, dancing and watching videos of Mr. Peña's resignation announcement on their phones as reaction to the political fallout continued. This man, who has an account with Bueno, was particularly concerned about elderly people who can't access their pensions now. They were playing around with, Santiago Peña was playing around with, depositors' savings. And I get emotional when I mention the pensioners. I've got relatives and friends who still haven't received their money and some have also died in hospital. That saddens me and it hurts me in my heart and in my soul. Our Latin America expert, from BBC Monitoring, Luis Farjado, joined us from Miami. As you were saying, millions of Paraguayans feel that this has been a personal disaster for them in financial terms. As you said, they haven't been able to access their bank accounts for some days now. And they're also seeing a long-term, or they were fearing potentially a long-term problem because some of the country's pension funds had also kept funds in this bank. So there's a lot of anxiety, clearly a lot of anxiety. What authorities are saying, is that a first group of customers of the bank would start receiving in the next few days some of their money back. They were telling people that had up to the equivalent of nearly $1,600 that they would start to get the money back. However, there is no clear chronogram yet. There is no clear announcement of when the rest of the people would eventually get all their money back. So it's clearly a very substantial financial crisis in this small South American country. So that's the economic, financial crisis that we're seeing right now. And that's what we're seeing in the country right now. And I think that's what we're seeing right now. And that's what we're seeing right now. And because of that, they started an impeachment process against Peña. the impeachment process was what he was facing today when he decided to announce that he was intending to resign the position. So what happens now, Luis? Will there be any regional effects from the collapse of this bank? A lot of people are saying that there will be substantial regional impact. Peña was a part of a group of right-wing presidents in Latin America who were seen as very closely aligned to Donald Trump. He was in many ways, or his government was in many ways, a symbol of what these governments promised their citizens is actually the government of Paraguay was saying that their economic growth was very good. And this also following the result in Brazil, where a conservative candidate lost, it is seen as a sort of a problem for this wave that initially seemed so strong of pro-Trump right-wing governments in Latin America. Luis Fajardo. And now let's talk about a martial art developed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Sambo is an acronym of a Russian phrase that translates as self-defense without weapons. Now, Sambo is practiced in many countries, and earlier this year, a Nigerian woman became the first female to achieve the gold medal at the World Cup in Armenia in a new category for blind athletes. This weekend, that athlete, Rukyat Taiwo Suleiman, is hoping to do it all again at the 50th World Sambo Championships in Uzbekistan. BBC Sport Africa's Isaiah Akinremi met Rukyat at her training base in Lagos. It's early morning in Lagos and Rukyat Taiwo Sulaimon is already on the mat. In April, she made Sambo history in Armenia. When they declared me a winner, I was very, very excited. She beat Uzbekistan's Charo Otekova in the final of the Blind Sambu World Cup. It was the first time women with visual impairment had competed in Blind Sambu at international level. And Sulaimon became the first to take gold. Being the first female Blind Sambist in Africa and in the world to win the gold medal, it makes me great and I don't look down on myself as a blind person. Sambo is very, very interesting and I noticed something about Sambo that it gives me more strength. Sambo is her second sport. On the track, she has won more than 20 national medals and she still competes in both. For me to meet up my training time, we start training around 7.30 or 8 o'clock. So I have to leave home by 5.30 in the morning. It's not easy to be a champion in athletics and in Sambo. It takes a lot of sacrifice, endurance and some pain as a visually impaired person to combine two sports together. Sulaimon lost her sight to glaucoma in 2009 and surgery couldn't save it. She says the hardest opponent back then was herself. Before people looked down on me, I looked down on myself first. All my belief then is that without me seeing, I can't become anything in life. She returns to the world stage at the Sambu World Championships in Uzbekistan. My expectation there is to get the gold. I want to maintain that record. I want to use it to encourage my fellow blind in Africa. I want to make my country proud again. Since the year I joined sports, I see that when there is no sight, when there is life, there is hope. And what excited people can do, a blind can do better. Isaiah Akinremi with that report. And that's nearly all from us for now. Just before we go, some might think it's too early to discuss the holiday season, but our editor believes in being prepared. Hi, it's Jeanette here. Hi, this is Ankur. Here on the Global News Podcast, we'll be celebrating the run up to the festive period with special messages from our listeners to their loved ones. And if you'd like to wish a happy holidays or a Merry Christmas or any other seasonal greeting to someone you know, just send us a voice note. Tell us who you are and where you are, how long you've been listening to the podcast and what you like about it. And don't forget to leave their name and let us know who we should send our best wishes to and why you love them so much. Email your voice note to [email protected]. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Jo McCartney and the producer was Emma Joseph. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye. Thank you.