Welcome to the Jim Acosta Morning Memo on a Tuesday morning after a truly bizarre day in which the somehow attention-starved Trump put on a clown show that was over the top, even for him.
It’s another day in Blue America, so let’s dive in!
Impeach Cobbler: Despite Trump’s best efforts, the real top story on Monday was Thomas Massie’s impeachment barrage at Pete Hegseth. In a lengthy floor speech and an almost-as-lengthy press conference after the speech, Massie laid out the case for removing the erstwhile Fox News host.
We’ll come back to that, but if you doubt this is a big deal, check out what Trump did to distract from it.
Oh Say Can UFC: The big, spectacular distraction was a surprise “press briefing” featuring Trump himself and UFC Chief Dana White in the role of press secretary candidate, each enacting the “punchline” to Trump’s “joke” (read about it in yesterday’s JAMM if you’re not caught up).
It was a lot, but the thing that jumped out to us was the quiet-part-loud that Trump blurted out about the whole episode.
REPORTER: Mr. President, why are you here — why bring him here?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We were having a very bad press day.
That’s not exactly a state secret, but the key to any con is not to confess to the con while you’re doing it.
Creep Show: Trump immediately made it weird by fantasizing about getting his clock cleaned by the women of the UFC.
Rose By Any Other Name: Some other MAGA goon asked Trump if he’d pardon Pete Rose, and the moron blurted out that it’s now legal to bet on your own team (it isn’t).
Make It Make Sense: Trump was pressed on his moderation BS amid his hiring of Stephen Miller. He confirmed what we already knew. Nothing has changed.
Triggered: And it wouldn’t be a Trump briefing if he didn’t flip out on a non-MAGA reporter, in this case favorite target Kaitlan Collins.
Then he melted down on MS NOW’s Vaughn Hillyard and blew off his tough question.
EPORTER: You have given Vladimir Putin multiple deadlines over the last 22 months to enter into a ceasefire, but also to meet directly with Volodymyr Zelensky. He has repeatedly ignored your demands, yet you have provided —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, you know, you say he’s ignored. Has he been fighting us in the war? Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you this question. Who are you with? Who are you with?
REPORTER: With MS NOW.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: MS NOW, it’s a fake. That’s a fake deal. Go ahead. Go ahead. MS NOW gets the worst ratings in their history. Used to be MSDNC. It’s one of the worst. You’re a fake network. Go ahead.
There was a lot more. You can see the whole thing here.
Tom Tom Club: Massie put on quite a show himself with an hour-and-a-quarter floor speech introducing the articles of impeachment against Hegseth. It wasn’t the best part, but it was fun to hear Massie call him “Peter Brian Hegseth” like his mom’s about to put him in timeout.
You can read the full articles below and see the full speech and transcript here, but at one point Massie flat-out accused Hegseth of murdering children.
By directing the Department of Defense in a manner that foreseeably dismantled the safeguards necessary to distinguish civilian objects from military objectives, Secretary Hegseth thereby effected the murder of civilians and abused the trust of the men and women under his command by requiring them to conduct military operations within a targeting and legal-review system that he had deliberately degraded.
Download the articles of impeachment here:
Pitch Perfect: After his speech, Massie held a 45-minute press conference, during which he offered a dead-on prediction of Hegseth’s likely response.
I suspect since we saw the secretary of defense scheduled his own press conference that they’re going to let him deliver a rebuttal.
And to that point I hope he addresses the eight articles and doesn’t get up and misquote the Bible in Quentin Tarantino fashion and do some pull-ups, and, you know, call everybody fat and gay like for being for this impeachment.
I may have just given you half his speech.
Massie also hammered away at a pro-Hegseth talking point.
The one thing that I want to point out here is a lot of people are saying, well, I think Peter Hegseth’s effective. He’s good at his job. And so I don’t want to vote for these articles of impeachment. Well, the reality is we’re not indicting him for being bad at his job. In fact, he was very effective at killing schoolchildren in Iran. He was very effective at extrajudicial killings.
Hegseth was scheduled to brief at the Pentagon Tuesday morning at 8 AM. We’ll have more on that below the fold.
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