DEPARTMENT OF WAR (CRIMES)

Pete Hegseth is neck deep in scandals. Somehow, he keeps sinking deeper.

• Spooky season may be over, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s worst decisions are still haunting him. President Donald Trump’s cartoonish pick to lead the “War Department” has long seemed hellbent on proving that a man dressed in embarrassingly loud socks is still capable of wanton, dangerous, irresponsible destruction. This week, though, he’s in the spotlight on Capitol Hill — and his boastful blundering has grown so hard to ignore, it’s raising questions about his future.

• Hegseth is catching heat for controversial killings in the Caribbean, his infamous leaked war plans group chat, and his decision to remake the Pentagon press corps into a Star Wars bar scene of rightwing hacks. How long can Trump stand this guy?

• Naval commander Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley privately briefed lawmakers today about Hegseth’s alleged order to “kill everybody” aboard a Venezuelan drug boat in September. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bradley has a strange excuse for greenlighting a strike on two survivors: They would’ve continued trafficking drugs to the United States. Really? They were clinging to the wreckage!

• After watching a video of the strike, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) told reporters: “What I saw in that room is one of the most troubling scenes I’ve seen in my time in public service.” He told one outlet: “They posed zero threat to anyone in the region, and we killed them.” Bradley reportedly told lawmakers that Hegseth never gave a kill order, and the Pentagon has denied any wrongdoing.

• Meanwhile, Signalgate is wrapping up in dramatic fashion. Hegseth “created a risk” for American troops in the Middle East by sharing private war plans in a Signal group chat using his personal cell phone, according to a DOD Inspector General report released today. Sounds pretty damning, right? Apparently not, if you’re the secretary. “No classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed,” Hegseth tweeted.

• What’s more, Hegseth is now at the center of a major lawsuit. The New York Times and one of its star reporters are suing the DOD, accusing it of violating their free speech and due process rights by blocking reporters from accessing the Pentagon. “Journalists… face loss of their press credentials for doing nothing more than bringing facts to light on behalf of the public,” the Times said in a statement. The DOD vowed to battle it out in court.

Trump wants to be known as a man of peace. Hegseth’s warmongering isn’t helping.

• Trump is beyond thirsty for a Nobel Peace Prize. He has repeatedly boasted about ending multiple wars, including between countries that were not fighting — like Albania and Azerbaijan.

• This week, his team renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace… wait for it… the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. “Trump will be remembered by history as the President of Peace. It’s time our State Department display that,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted. Someone needs to get this guy a pair of those Trump-branded kneepads for Christmas.

• Even in Trump’s orbit, some are starting to voice doubts about Hegseth’s future. “There’s only so many times that you can stand next to the president and label everything as fake news and deny everything,” a former senior Trump administration official told Politico. “It’s worn out.”

• One former senior Trump DOD official doesn’t think the secretary is safe, either. “Hard to say. Only Trump knows,” he told What A Day, when asked if he thinks Hegseth will be canned.

Democrats are fuming that Hegseth is still employed: “I’m just so pissed off about our men and women in uniform who serve every day … that he dares put them in harm’s way for his own damn ego,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) told the What A Day podcast. “He needs to resign.”

WHAT ELSE?

The FBI arrested a Virginia man in connection with the January 6 pipe bomb plot. Investigators have struggled for years to track down suspects involved with planting bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national committees the night before the insurrection. Prosecutors charged him with explosives offenses.

Nearly half of Americans say that the cost of living in the United States is worse than they can ever remember, according to a Politico poll. Even more shocking: 37 percent of Trump voters also feel that way. Trump knows he’s failing to deliver on a key campaign promise to bring down costs. Lately, he’s dismissing the entire idea of “affordability” as a Democratic “con job,” even as he plans to travel the country next week to tout his economy.

More than 80 percent of immigrants arrested during Trump’s crackdown in Washington, D.C. had no criminal record, according to federal data. Eighty percent!!! The data contrasts with Trump’s suggestion that the operations would target “violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.”

More billionaires exist today than ever before, according to a new study. “Some 2,900 billionaires now control $15.8 trillion, up from about 2,700 billionaires with a cumulative wealth of nearly $14 trillion a year earlier,” the Wall Street Journal writes.

The majority of Gen Z believes that America is heading in the wrong direction, according to the Harvard Youth Poll. That’s six percentage points higher than last year’s record high… I wonder what happened between spring 2024 and fall 2025!

The Metaverse appears to be imploding. Tech bro Mark Zuckerberg’s quest to build an online universe (which drove Facebook to change its name to Meta) may be heading toward the virtual trashcan, Bloomberg reports. The initiative could face budget cuts as high as 30 percent next

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE EMAIL…

Should people still trust in the media? Crooked’s Jon Favreau took part in a creator roundtable about the topic at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit. It’s a great conversation, take a listen!

Unemployment claims fell to a three-year low over Thanksgiving, despite recent widespread fears about layoffs.

Some recent flyers have been wearing pajamas to the airport in protests of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s recent “civility” campaign, in which he urged people to dress nicer for air travel. “Civility starts with being a good human and leading by example,” one resistance hero told the Washington Post. “And not with whether or not one wears pajama pants and slippers on a long haul flight.”

A federal judge ruled that the U.S. must reinstate all federal grants to libraries and museums that Trump’s team terminated. You’re not allowed to Make America Stupid Again, Donnie!

Millions of Americans are eligible for a chunk of the $177 million settlement stemming from a massive AT&T data breach class action lawsuit. Here’s how to find out if you’re eligible. Get that bag!

What do four dogs, two peacocks, five peahens and nine parrots on Long Island have in common? They all live inside the same high school. Kellenberg Memorial High School lets the animals roam free and interact with students. “I call them sometimes guard dogs,” the principal told The Washington Post. “They guard against fear, depression and anxiety.”

You know about the raccoon who fell into a liquor store. Well, get a load of this: A curious seal galumphed into a bar in New Zealand after apparently getting lost. The underage mammal dodged patrons who tried to usher it outside, but it dashed into a bathroom and then hid under a dishwasher. Alas, rangers eventually caught the fugitive. “There’s been the running joke that we’ve got the seal of approval,” the bar’s owner told the Associated Press.

You’re not going crazy: Pop star Taylor Swift’s accent really has changed over the years, according to researchers. When Swift lived in Nashville, for instance, she had more of a country twang than her time in New York City. That phenomenon is normal for humans, researchers say, but “the degree of flexibility within a person over the lifespan is a lot greater than we used to think.” What I’m hearing: I could theoretically convince people that I’m from the Land Down Under during my lifetime. Crikey!