Hegseth ‘looks forward to working with’ Gen. CQ Brown despite recent scathing criticism
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(WASHINGTON) — Just months after calling for his ouster, incoming Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was greeted at the Pentagon on Monday by Gen. CQ Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Brown saluted Hegseth as his motorcade arrived, then shook his hand as the two exchanged pleasantries. With Brown by his side, Hegseth approached a line of waiting reporters and took several questions, including one on whether he intends to fire the general.
“I’m standing with him right now,” Hegseth said, patting Brown, only the second Black officer after Colin Powell to serve in the job, on the shoulder. “I look forward to working with him.”
Hegseth’s past comments on Brown were not so sanguine.
“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth said in a November appearance on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” days before President Donald Trump nominated him to lead the Defense Department.
He continued, “But any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in any of the DEI woke s— has got to go. Either you’re in for warfighting, and that’s it. That’s the only litmus test we care about.”
Hegseth also lambasted Brown several times in his book, “The War on Warriors.”
“The military standards, once the hallmark for competency, professionalism, and ‘mission first’ outcomes, have officially been subsumed by woke priorities,” he wrote. “You think CQ Brown will think intuitively about external threats and internal readiness? No chance. He built his generalship dutifully pursuing the radical positions of left-wing politicians, who in turn rewarded him with promotions.”
Brown has been vocal about what he sees as the importance of race-based diversity in the military. In 2022, while chief of staff of the Air Force, Brown signed a memo calling for the service to work toward lowering the percentage of white officer applicants while raising those of other races.
“These goals are aspirational, aligning resources to invest in our long-term objectives and will not be used in any manner that undermines our merit-based processes,” the memo said.
In his new role, Hegseth could recommend removing Brown and other military leaders, and Trump would have the authority to do so.
Both Hegseth and Trump have sharply criticized military leaders involved in the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as those allegedly pushing “woke” ideology. While there could be legal challenges in trying to outright kick generals or admirals out of the military should they refuse a request to resign, the commander in chief has the authority to remove senior officers from their current positions and reassign them, effectively ending their careers.
Brown drew praise for a June 2020 video titled “Here’s what I’m thinking about” that he released in response to the nationwide protests and unrest sparked by Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.
In the highly personal video, Brown recounted his own experiences with racism and his perspective as a Black man and Black military leader.
There were some positive signs for Brown even before Monday’s polite greeting, when he had an amiable encounter with Trump at last month’s Army-Navy football game.
During the second quarter, Trump and Brown talked for roughly 20 minutes about football as well as the situation in the Middle East and Ukraine, a U.S. official told ABC News. Brown also had a quick introduction and handshake with Hegseth at the game.
(WASHINGTON) — He was the first Democrat to call for impeachment during President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House and now Rep. Al Green is believed to be he first lawmaker in modern history to be thrown out of a Joint Session of Congress or a State of the Union address, according to a presidential historian.
The 78-year-old Texas congressman was escorted out of the House Chamber at the Capitol Building Tuesday night by the House sergeant at arms after he stood and shook his cane at Trump, and refused to obey House Speaker Mike Johnson’s order to sit down and refrain from interrupting the president’s speech by shouting criticisms.
“I can’t think of another lawmaker being taken out. In modern history, I can say with some level of confidence that the answer is no,” said presidential historian Mark Updegrove, CEO of the President Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation.
In advance of Trump’s speech, members of the House Freedom Caucus called on the sergeant at arms to take action against any member of Congress who violated House rules during the address.
“The President’s address to tonight’s joint session of Congress is a constitutional obligation — not a sideshow for Democrats to use noisemakers, make threats, throw things or otherwise disrupt,” the Freedom Caucus said in a statement posted on social media. “Our colleagues are on notice that the heckler’s veto will not be tolerated. You will be censured. We expect the Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police to take appropriate action against any Members of Congress or other persons violating House rules.”
On Wednesday morning, the group of hardliners said they would censure Green, but moderate GOP Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington beat them to it. Newhouse formally introduced a measure on the House floor to censure Green, which is expected to be voted on Thursday.
Members of the Freedom Caucus include Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado.
During President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speeches between 2022 and 2024, Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Georgia, heckled the former president. During Biden’s 2023 State of the Union speech, Greene stood and yelled “liar” multiple times at the former president, but was not escorted out of the House Chamber.
Updegrove, an ABC News contributor, noted that Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, yelled “You Lie” during former President Barack Obama’s 2009 address to a joint session of Congress on health care. At the time, the House of Representatives, with the Democrats holding the majority, voted to reprimand Wilson, who later issued an apology to Obama.
“The Joe Wilson episode was kind of the introduction of greater hostility in Congress, at least in modern times,” Updegrove said.
After lashing out at Trump, yelling, “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid,” Green was removed from the chamber Tuesday night. He later told ABC News he’d welcome any consequences from his disruption, saying he was “following the wishes of conscience.”
“There are times when it is better to stand alone than not stand at all,” Green said.
Green doubled down on his protest of Trump’s speech on Wednesday, saying if given the chance, “I would do it again.”
“I am not angry with the speaker. I am not angry with the officers. I am not upset with the members who are going to bring the motions or resolutions to sanction. I will suffer the consequences,” Green told ABC News.
Green added, “What I did was from my heart. People are suffering. And I was talking about Medicaid. I didn’t just say you didn’t have a mandate. I said you don’t have a mandate to cut Medicaid.”
Green said he has not spoken to Democratic leadership about his Tuesday night outburst.
It’s not the first time that Green, who has represented Texas’ 9th congressional district since 2005, has been a thorn in Trump’s side.
In May 2017, Green presented the first articles of impeachment against Trump, citing the firing of FBI Director James Comey. In July 2019, he called for Trump’s impeachment again, citing the president’s attack on four Democratic congresswomen of color. The house voted to table Green’s resolution, effectively killing it.
And just last month, Green announced on the floor of Congress that he intends to again file articles of impeachment against Trump, citing the president’s suggestion that the United States take over the Gaza Strip.
“The movement to impeach the president has begun,” Green said on the House floor. “I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.”
In February 2024, Green, temporarily left his hospital bed in a wheelchair after undergoing intestinal surgery to vote against the Republican-led impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, then Biden’s secretary of Homeland Security, over his handling of a crisis at the southern border. The house ended up voting 214–216 not to impeach Mayorkas.
“I wanted to do all that I can because I know Secretary Mayorkas. He’s a good, decent man and I didn’t want to see his reputation tarnished,” Green said at the time.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Green moved to Houston, Texas, in the 1970s to attend the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, where he earned a law degree, according to a biography published on his website. He later founded and co-managed the law firm Green, Wilson, Dewberry, and Fitch.
Green also served as the Justice of the Peace for Harris County, Texas, for 26 years, retiring in 2004 to run for Congress. He also served for 10 years as president of the Houston branch of the NAACP.
During his tenure in Congress, Green has focused on fair housing and fair hiring practices for the poor and minorities. While in Congress, he has served on the House Financial Services Committee and the Committee on Homeland Security, and chaired the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee.
On his website, Green credits his family for teaching him “righteous resistance to overcome persistent injustice.”
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(WASHINGTON) — House Republican leaders will take an unprecedented step Tuesday when they are expected to block Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s bipartisan discharge petition to allow proxy voting for new lawmaker parents up to 12 weeks after giving birth — the latest move in a weekslong internal House GOP clash.
Republican leaders inserted specific language into the joint “rule” — a procedural maneuver to advance legislation — which says the discharge petition by Luna, a hard-line Republican, and other similar bills that would address proxy voting are out of order.
Tuesday afternoon’s vote is on the joint rule — which also includes other unrelated legislation. Luna is expected to vote against the rule. If others join her, the House could be paralyzed from moving on legislation.
Luna’s legislation seeks to allow new mothers and fathers in the House to vote on legislation remotely. Luna had a child in 2023 as she was serving in Congress.
Democratic Reps. Brittany Pettersen and Sara Jacobs introduced the effort with Luna and Republican Rep. Michael Lawler in January.
“I am doing this because I believe this governing body needs to change for the better and young American parents need to be heard in the halls of Congress,” Luna said last week.
This extraordinary move from GOP leaders to block the legislation comes after Luna received 218 signatures on her resolution — enough needed to force the House to vote on the measure. Lawmakers use discharge petitions to circumvent leadership, who determine what legislation comes to the floor.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Luna have been at odds over proxy voting for new parents. The speaker has argued the effort is unconstitutional and made his case during the closed GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning, sources told ABC News.
Johnson has argued that proxy voting is the start of a slippery slope that could lead to more and more members voting remotely. Proxy voting was used during the COVID-19 pandemic, which many Republicans were against.
“I believe it’s unconstitutional. I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition in the institution, and I think that it opens a Pandora’s box where, ultimately, maybe no one is here, and we’re all voting remotely by AI or something. I don’t know. I don’t think that’s what Congress is supposed to be,” Johnson said at a news conference last week.
Despite some Republican support for the bill, Johnson said “as the leader of this institution and the one who’s supposed to protect it, I don’t feel like I can get on board with that.”
“This is a deliberative body. You cannot deliberate with your colleagues if you’re out somewhere else. Now, there are family circumstances that make it difficult for people to attend votes. I understand that. I’ve had them myself,” he said.
Luna said in a post on X Tuesday that she asked that the legislation just cover new moms to vote by proxy “and they still said no.”
“The argument here is no longer making sense,” Luna wrote. “They say it is unconstitutional yet they voted by proxy.”
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar declared that it’s time for Republicans to stop with the “pro-family” lecturing.
“Republicans should stop lecturing people on being pro-family when they’re opposing this uniformly,” he said at the party’s weekly press conference on Tuesday.
Aguilar praised Rep. Pettersen for working across the aisle with Luna as Republican leadership has fumed about the bipartisan effort.
“It’s shameful and terrible. Our members will oppose these efforts, our hope is reasonable Republicans who have worked with us on these issues will oppose effort too,” Aguilar said about the discharge petition block. “It’s clear that Speaker Johnson is doing everything he can to undermine the will of the House. The majority of the members in the House of Representatives would support this legislation.”
The vote comes a day after Luna resigned from the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus over her legislation, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.
“With a heavy heart, I am resigning from the Freedom Caucus. I cannot remain part of a caucus where a select few operate outside its guidelines, misuse its name, broker backroom deals that undermine its core values and where the lines of compromise and transaction are blurred, disparage me to the press, and encourage misrepresentation of me to the American people,” she wrote in the letter.
(NEW YORK) — The battle between New York federal prosecutors and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department continued Friday as another prosecutor resigned over the order to dismiss Mayor Eric Adams’ bribery case.
Hagan Scotten, the assistant United States attorney for Southern District of New York, blasted Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in a letter one day after acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon resigned over her refusal to follow through with the Justice Department’s request.
“In short, the first justification for the motion — that [former U.S. Attorney] Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under different U.S. attorneys is so weak as to be transparently pretextual,” Scotten wrote.
“The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” he added.
Scotten, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and clerked under Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, chastised the president and the administration.
“I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal,” he wrote.
“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me,” he added.
The letter came hours after what several former and current federal justice officials dubbed the “Thursday afternoon massacre,” when six people involved with the case resigned and pushed back against the U.S. attorney general’s office.
Sassoon resigned Thursday over the Justice Department’s request to end the federal bribery case against the mayor.
The Justice Department planned to remove the prosecutors handling the mayor’s case and reassign it to the Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C.
However, as soon the Public Integrity Section was informed it would be taking over, John Keller, the acting head of the unit, and his boss, Kevin Driscoll, the most senior career official in the criminal division, resigned along with three other members of the unit, according to multiple sources.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, called the Department of Justice’s moves “unbelievably unprecedented” during an interview on MSNBC Thursday night.
“This is not supposed to happen in our system of justice,” she told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Hochul, however, declined to discuss the possibility of removing the mayor.
“The allegations are extremely concerning and serious. But I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction, like a lot of other people are saying right now,” she said. “I have to do it smart, what’s right, and I’m consulting with other leaders in government at this time.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime ally of Adams, said in a statement Tuesday that he was convening with other Black clergy to discuss the situation but he already raised concerns about the mayor’s allegiances.
“President Trump is holding the mayor hostage,” Sharpton said.
Four prominent New York City Black clergy members — the Revs. Johnnie Green, Kevin McCall, Carl L. Washington and Adolphus Lacey — wrote a letter Wednesday calling on the mayor not to run for reelection this year.
“Eric Adams had every right to prove his innocence and many of us were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that’s not what has happened,” they wrote.
Adams, a former NYPD officer and Democrat who previously registered as a Republican, was accused by federal prosecutors of taking lavish flights and hotel stays from Turkish businessmen and officials for more than a decade.
He and his staff members also allegedly received straw campaign donations to become eligible for New York City’s matching funds program for his campaigns, according to the criminal indictment that was issued in September.
In exchange, Adams allegedly used his power as Brooklyn borough president and later as mayor to give the foreign conspirators preferential treatment for various projects and proposals, including permits for the Turkish consulate despite fire safety concerns, the indictment said.
Adams pleaded not guilty, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and claimed without any basis that he was being politically targeted by the Biden administration, even though the probe covers many years before Biden was in office.
Adams’ primary opponents have called for him to step down since the indictment, as have other New York Democrats, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The mayor, however, appeared on “Fox and Friends” on Friday with Trump “border czar” Thomas Homan and reiterated he was not only staying in office but he would run for reelection as a Democrat. The deadline to change parties is Friday.
“People had me gone months ago, but, you know what, I’m sitting on your couch,” Adams told the hosts.
The mayor remained silent during the interview when Homan discussed Trump’s deportation policy and called on Hochul to resign for not cooperating with the federal office.
Adams, however, did light up and smile when the “border czar” discussed their partnership. The mayor announced Thursday the city would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into Rikers Island jail, a major shift in the city’s policies.
“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch,” Homan said with a laugh. “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'”
Sassoon prosecutor warned in a letter that the close relationship between the Trump administration and Adams crossed a line.
In her letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Sassoon repeatedly suggested Justice Department leadership, including Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, was explicitly aware of a quid pro quo that was suggested by Adams’ attorneys.
Sassoon alleged Adams’ vocal support of Trump’s immigration policies would be boosted by dismissing the indictment against him.
Sassoon’s letter detailed a January meeting with Bove and counsel for the mayor, where she says Adams’ attorneys put forward “what amounted to a quid pro quo,” after which Bove “admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting’s conclusion.”
“Although Mr. Bove disclaimed any intention to exchange leniency in this case for Adams’s assistance in enforcing federal law, that is the nature of the bargain laid bare in Mr. Bove’s memo,” Sassoon wrote in her letter.
Bove accused Sassoon of insubordination and rejected her claims. Trump told reporters Thursday he was not involved with the Justice Department decisions this week and claimed the SDNY prosecutor was fired, although he did not name her.
Adams also denied the allegations Friday.
“It took her three weeks to report in front of her a criminal action. Come on, this is silly,” he told the “Fox and Friends” hosts.
The dismissal, which is without prejudice, meaning it can be brought again, specifically after the November election, according to Bove’s request, has yet to be formally filed in court or reviewed by a judge.
ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
