'Daily Show' Shuts Down GOP's 'Stupid' War Plan Semantics Game
'This is Pete Hegseth, maybe he was talking about Jagerbombs,' joked Chieng in a nod to allegations that the former Fox News host excessively consumed alcohol on the job.
On Wednesday, Hegseth downplayed new reporting from The Atlantic revealing that he texted a timeline to the group chat detailing when U.S. strikes would hit Houthi targets in the country.
Hegseth slammed the publication on X, formerly Twitter, for releasing what he referred to as 'so-called 'war plans.''
'So I think it's a war plan, but what the hell do I know, I've never seen one before because no one's ever been dumb enough to put one in a fucking group chat with a journalist,' Chieng quipped.
He then turned to clips of several Republicans claiming that the messages in the group chat weren't 'war plans,' instead describing them as 'an outline of what is about to happen' and a 'private conversation.'
Chieng brought in 'Daily Show' correspondent Michael Kosta for his take on the GOP's 'stupid' argument.
'It's not a war plan because I didn't say something specific, like what type of plane they're using, you have no idea that it's an F-18,' Kosta said.
'Yeah, you just said that it's an F-18,' Chieng noted.
'Yeah, well, F-18 can mean anything. It could be a bingo number or a parking spot. F-18 could be Pete Hegseth's search on a dating app,' Kosta replied.
Check out more of Chieng's Wednesday monologue below.
'Daily Show' Spots The 'Most Embarrassing' Thing In Trump Officials' Group Chat
Jimmy Kimmel Uses Pete Hegseth's Own Damning Words Against Him In Blistering Opener
Stephen Colbert Burns Pete Hegseth With The 1 Question He Refuses To Answer
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Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth belongs to an archconservative church network. Here's what to know
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he's proud to be part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, an archconservative network of Christian congregations. Hegseth recently made headlines when he shared a CNN video on social media about CREC, showing its pastors arguing women should not have the right to vote. Pastor Doug Wilson, a CREC co-founder, leads Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, the network's flagship location. Jovial and media-friendly, Wilson is no stranger to stirring controversy with his church's hard-line theology and its embrace of patriarchy and Christian nationalism. Wilson told The Associated Press on Monday he was grateful Hegseth shared the video. He noted Hegseth's post was labeled with Christ Church's motto: 'All of Christ for All of Life.' 'He was, in effect, reposting it and saying, 'Amen,' at some level,' Wilson said. Hegseth, among President Donald Trump's most controversial Cabinet picks, attends Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a CREC member church in a suburb outside Nashville, Tennessee. His pastor, Brooks Potteiger, prayed at a service Hegseth hosted at the Pentagon. CREC recently opened a new outpost in the nation's capital, Christ Church DC, with Hegseth attending its first Sunday service. Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed Hegseth's CREC affiliation and told the AP that Hegseth 'very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson's writings and teachings.' Here are other things to know about the church network: What does Wilson's church say about women? Wilson's church and wider denomination practice complementarianism, the patriarchal idea that men and women have different God-given roles. Women within CREC churches cannot hold church leadership positions, and married women are to submit to their husbands. Wilson told the AP he believes the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote 'was a bad idea.' Still, he said his wife and daughters vote. He would prefer the United States follow his church's example, which allows heads of households to vote in church elections. Unmarried women qualify as voting members in his church. 'Ordinarily, the vote is cast by the head of the household, the husband and father, because we're patriarchal and not egalitarian,' Wilson said. He added that repealing the 19th Amendment is not high on his list of priorities. Hegseth's views on women have been in the spotlight, especially after he faced sexual assault allegations, for which no charges were filed. Before his nomination to lead the Defense Department, Hegseth had questioned women serving in combat roles in the military. Wilson, a Navy veteran who served on submarines, also questions women serving in some military roles. 'I think we ought to find out the name of the person who suggested that we put women on those submarines and have that man committed,' Wilson said. 'It's like having a playpen that you put 50 cats in and then drop catnip in the middle of it. Whatever happens is going to be ugly. And if you think it's going to advance the cause of women and make sailors start treating women less like objects, then you haven't been around the block very many times.' What is the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches? Founded in 1998, CREC is a network of more than 130 churches in the United States and around the world. CREC ascribes to a strict version of Reformed theology — rooted in the tradition of 16th-century Protestant reformer John Calvin — that puts a heavy emphasis on an all-powerful God who has dominion over all of society. Wilson and CREC are also strongly influenced by a 20th-century Reformed movement called Christian Reconstructionism, according to Julie Ingersoll, a religion professor at the University of North Florida who wrote about it in her 2015 book 'Building God's Kingdom.' She sees that theology reflected in the Wilson slogan Hegseth repeated on social media. 'When he says, 'All of life,' he's referencing the idea that it's the job of Christians to exercise dominion over the whole world,' Ingersoll said. Since the 1970s, Wilson's ministry and influence have grown to include the Association of Christian Classical Schools and New Saint Andrew's College in Moscow, Idaho. The ministry has a robust media presence, including Canon Press, publisher of books like 'The Case for Christian Nationalism' and 'It's Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity.' What is the connection to Christian nationalism? Wilson wants the United States to be a Christian nation. He does not mind being called a Christian nationalist. 'I am more than happy to work with that label because it's a better label than what I usually get called,' Wilson said. 'If I get called a white nationalist or a theo-fascist or a racist bigot, misogynist thug, I can't work with them except to deny them,' he said. 'I'm a Christian, and I'm a patriot who loves my country. How do I combine those two things? How do they work together?' U.S. Christian nationalism is a fusion of American and Christian identity, principles and symbols that typically seeks a privileged place for Christian people and ideas. Wilson contends that early America was Christian, a notion historians dispute. 'If we succeed, this will be Christian America 2.0,' Wilson wrote in 2022. American Christian nationalism involves overlapping movements. Among them are evangelicals who view Trump, a Republican, as a champion, some of whom are influenced by Christian Reconstructionist ideas; a charismatic movement that sees politics as part of a larger spiritual war; and a Catholic postliberal movement envisioning a muscular government promoting traditional morality. CREC now has a closer relationship to the upper echelons of government. This has renewed scrutiny of Wilson's other controversial views, including his downplaying of the horrors of Southern slavery in the U.S. But it's also given Wilson a bigger stage. Hegseth and Wilson have spoken approvingly of each other. Wilson said they have only met in person once, when they talked informally after Wilson preached at Hegseth's home church in Tennessee this year. Wilson said CREC's new Washington church began as a way to serve church members who relocated to work in the Trump administration. 'This is the first time we've had connections with as many people in national government as we do now,' Wilson said. 'But this is not an ecclesiastical lobbying effort where we're trying to meet important people. We're trying to give some of these people an opportunity to meet with God.' ___ Smith reported from Pittsburgh. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Solve the daily Crossword
Fox News
38 minutes ago
- Fox News
Trump's earliest supporter announces bid for Alabama Senate seat
FIRST ON FOX: Another House Republican has their eyes set on a Senate seat in the 2026 midterms. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital in an interview that he plans to run for Sen. Tommy Tuberville's seat in the upper chamber. Moore, who has represented the southern Alabama 1st congressional district since 2021, styled himself as a fiscal hawk with a longstanding history of supporting President Donald Trump. Indeed, he was the first elected official in the country to endorse Trump during his first run for office in 2015. "I think my number one job is to protect the people's liberty and to support the president in that process," Moore said. "And so, for us, it's an opportunity to continue to fight for the America First agenda, and also make sure we have conservatives in the Senate from Alabama that are truly the voice of the people." And one of his top concerns in Washington is the ever-increasing national debt, which has neared $37 trillion and counting, according to the Fox Business National Debt Tracker. One of his top priorities when helping to craft Trump's "big, beautiful bill" was to apply downward pressure on Congress' spending habits to achieve roughly $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. "I think that we'll have to hold the line on spending," Moore said. "But again, this didn't get this way overnight. You're not going to fix it overnight. So you have to do it gradually." Moore, 58, is not alone in the race to replace Tuberville, who earlier this year announced that he would make a bid for the governor's mansion after serving only one term in the upper chamber. He joins Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson in the Republican primary. There are also a trio of candidates running on the Democratic side, including Kyle Sweetser, Dakarai Larriett and Mark Wheeler II. And despite his conservative bona fides — he is a member of the House Freedom Caucus and touted his deeply conservative voting record — Moore believed that the number one issue in the Senate, and Congress in general, is the growing partisan divide. He noted that when he came to Washington in 2021, he was disappointed that Republicans and Democrats didn't work together more in the lower chamber under former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "I think most people in D.C. are principled," he said. "They're trying to do the right thing. There's perfect, and that's sometimes the enemy of practical. And so we try to make sure that even on the 'big, beautiful bill,' it wasn't perfect. There were 435 versions of perfect in the House, but having principled people come to the table and say, 'Let's get a practical solution so we can get wins for this administration and for our country' – I think that's what we have to do in the Senate." "I don't think we have to look at the opposing side as the enemy always," he said. "And I think we have to keep in mind, too, that they represent areas, and they have a different experience in life." Still, despite his desire to create bipartisan inroads in the upper chamber, which is a must in most legislative fights, given the 60-vote filibuster threshold, Moore supports a change to Senate rules for confirmations to blast through Senate Democrats' blockade of Trump's nominees. He's in support of shortening the debate time on nominees, one of the options on the table for when lawmakers return from their August break, and argued that Democrats "are playing the obstructionist" despite Trump winning big in the 2024 election. "The American people are fed up with that, so I say we change the rules and allow these nominees to get the jobs and start doing the job so they can help the president achieve his agenda," he said.
The Hill
40 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump's DC police takeover could pique GOP interest in cities
President Trump 's effort to lessen crime in Washington, D.C., and launch a 'beautification' effort is clashing with a long tradition of Republicans criticizing and outright writing off the nation's cities. Republicans and conservatives for years — decades, even — had amplified the failures in cities as being the result of Democratic policies and flaunted migration from blue urban centers to red states. And as those on the right have slammed the nation's metropolises, only a tiny fraction of the biggest cities have Republican mayors, and there's scant discussion in right-wing circles and institutions about urban policy. Trump's new fixation on D.C. and takeover of police could give conservatives an opportunity to increase their foothold in urban policy and in cities. A big challenge, though, is getting the conservative base to care about the hubs of Democratic and progressive power at all. Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last month made a lengthy post on the social platform X arguing why conservatives should care about the New York City mayoral race: 'All of America looks toward New York. … Plenty of people wanted us to abandon college campuses as lost cause communist no-go zones, but we learned last year that if we bothered to fight back, we could turn the tide. New York can be the same way,' Kirk said. And in a monologue on his radio show on Monday, Kirk argued that Republicans face a question of political will when it comes to addressing policies and outcomes that they don't like in cities. 'You need to dive deep and dig deep, to have the fortitude, the wherewithal, the spine, the cojones, the chutzpah to achieve what you want to achieve,' Kirk said. 'We just put up with crime for the last 40 years because we're afraid of being called racist.' Some on the right, though, are content to let the progressive left take their policies in cities as far as they want in order to maintain a foil. Columnist George Will put it succinctly when he told HBO host Bill Maher this month that he wants Zohran Mamdani to win the New York City electoral race: 'Every 20 years or so, we need a conspicuous, confined experiment with socialism so we can crack it up again.' Aaron Renn, a writer who has explored city policy, noted it has not always been that way, pointing to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani once being hailed as a great Republican mayor. And Renn said a result of Republicans ceding those fights in cities means there are far fewer Republicans with city-level experience: 'There are simply fewer people in sort of Republican political world who have an urban perspective, because there's just fewer of them.' Despite the challenges, there has been a ripple of movement on the right in favor of more active urban involvement Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has repeatedly talked on his podcast about the cleanliness of cities being a reflection of a successful or unsuccessful society. And after Dallas Mayor Eric L. Johnson switched parties to become a Republican in 2023, he founded the Republican Mayors Association — the first GOP group focused solely on GOP mayors. 'For a long time, you had, I think everybody took some of the cities for granted. The Democrats took them for granted, just assuming that cities would continue to vote Democrat, regardless of how the cities were being run,' Bridgewater, N.J., Mayor Matthew Moench, chair of the Republican Mayors Association advisory board, told me. But the group, he said, is aiming to 'go into those areas in the cities that may have been ignored for too long, and say we think that we can win anywhere.' 'The voters in the most distressed areas of any city in the country, they want the same things that everyone does. They want to walk down the street without fear of their safety. They want their kids to get a good education. They want opportunities for job growth,' Moench said. The gains Republicans made in 2024 showed them that there could be value in getting more involved in the urban areas rather than only using the cities as a foil. In New York City, for instance, Trump had the best performance of any Republican presidential candidate since 1988, according to The New York Times. 'The reason that Republicans have a majority in the House right now is because of the urban swing and Trump's urban coattails,' argued Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank and senior editor at the group's publication, City Journal. Trump's takeover of the D.C. police force could also be instructive for red-state legislatures across the country as they increasingly battle with Democratic-run cities — reversing city policies or blocking them from taking effect, in a mechanism known as preemption. Kansas City, Mo., for instance, was blocked by the state Legislature from hiking its minimum wage. Lehman said there are opportunities in Texas where the state can preempt local policies on public camping and crime. 'There are places where the red state legislature could conceivably step in, and in some cases, has stepped in and say, 'We don't like what you're doing here, and actually, the city is a creature of the state, and so we have final say in authority and what's going to happen here,'' Lehman said. And if Trump is successful in bringing crime in D.C. down — and that's a big if — that could be a high-profile demonstration of Republican policies that others could imitate in other urban centers. But there are also risks for Republicans if Trump's gambit is not successful. Renn pointed to former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), who was accused of mishandling the Flint, Mich., water supply amid the city's crisis of lead-contaminated water. Snyder was criminally charged in connection to the Flint water crisis, but the charges were later dismissed. 'If you are a highly incompetent urban leadership class, which all too many of them today are, they would love to be able to … in some way pin the blame on a Republican,' Renn said. Further reading: , from The Hill's Elizabeth Crisp. Welcome to The Movement, a weekly newsletter looking at the influences and debates on the right in Washington. I'm Emily Brooks, House leadership reporter at The Hill. Tell me what's on your radar: ebrooks@ Not already on the list? Subscribe here PRASAD BACK AT FDA IN ABRUPT REVERSAL Readers of The Movement's July 29 edition saw the conservative scrutiny and divide over Vinay Prasad, the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) chief medical and scientific officer and the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. The Wall Street Journal's opinion pages and right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer had taken aim at Prasad for being a former supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for his recent rejection of a disease therapy, and skepticism of the 'Right to Try' law that Trump signed in his first term and is intended to allow terminally ill patients wider access to drugs not yet approved by the FDA. Later that day, Prasad was out — in a move met by outrage from MAHA types who have supported Prasad's skepticism on COVID vaccine recommendations, with accusations running rampant that pharmaceutical companies had been working a behind-the-scenes campaign to remove him. Less than two weeks later, Prasad is back at the FDA. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary was among those who seemed to oppose Prasad's ouster. 'The idea that he was pushed out by anybody is simply untrue,' Makary said at a news conference last week. 'He saw some media headlines and didn't want to be a distraction. We have encouraged him to reconsider, and we're still doing that.' The Washington Post's Lauren Weber and Rachel Roubein had this reporting on the behind-the-scenes action on Prasad's return: 'The White House reevaluated the criticisms of Prasad and supported his return to the administration after finding them disingenuous, according to two people familiar with the decision-making who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. This followed FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who championed and elevated Prasad, reaching out to the White House, one of the people said.' Loomer, for her part, called Prasad's reinstatement 'another egregious personnel decision under the Trump administration,' promising to ramp up her 'exposes' of officials in the FDA and Health and Human Services Department. EPSTEIN FUROR FIZZLING OR SIMMERING? CNN's data guru Harry Enten says that based on his look at the data, the saga surrounding the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is turning into a 'political dud & nothingburger.' His points: Google search engine queries for Epstein are down 89 percent versus three weeks ago; Trump's approval rating is holding; and almost no one in the most recent CNN poll says it's the nation's top political issue. And in another blow to those who would like to see the issue in the news, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer on Monday denied the Justice Department's request to unseal grand jury materials used to charge Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime accomplice of Epstein. But hold on to your hats. There is plenty of action on the congressional side coming up that will keep the Epstein saga chugging along. For starters, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee issued many subpoenas for documents and testimony with deadlines coming up in the next few weeks. These dates could change, but the Justice Department is due to send over Epstein-related documents to the committee by Aug. 19. Subpoena dates are set for former Attorneys General Bill Barr, Alberto Gonzales and Jeff Sessions this month — with several other subpoenas scheduled for September and October. And the Epstein legislative action that had roiled the House floor before the chamber departed for August recess is set to return with a bang as soon as Congress returns in September: Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who are co-sponsoring legislation to compel release of Epstein-related material and aim to force a vote on the matter, announced they will hold a press conference the day that Congress returns alongside 'survivors of Epstein and Maxwell's abuse — several of whom will be speaking out for the first time.' ON MY CALENDAR Thursday, Aug. 14: The Manhattan Institute hosts a conversation with New York City Mayor Eric Adams on 'Governing in NYC.' Starts at 9:30 a.m. at the New York Hilton Midtown. Monday, Aug. 25, to Thursday, Aug. 28: State Policy Network annual meeting in New Orleans. Email me to get your events featured here: ebrooks@ THREE MORE THINGS The first episode of the new podcast by Katie Miller — former aide in the Trump administration and to Elon Musk, and wife to Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — came out on Monday. She aims to be the conservative answer to 'Call Her Daddy' that working moms can turn to, without being totally politics-focused. Her first podcast episode was with Vice President Vance, who said Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler would be the Cabinet official he'd trust most to babysit his kids. The America First Policy Institute announced two staff additions as it aims to be the 'preeminent force shaping the future of American education through bold, student-centered reforms.' Max Eden will be director of federal education policy; James Paul will be director of state education policy. The Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, released a tribute video to its architect and Heritage Foundation co-founder Ed Feulner featuring current Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) and former chairs Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.). 'You could argue Ed did more for the advancement of conservative thought than any person in this arena,' Johnson said. WHAT I'M READING
