Politics and views in the United States

Impeachment proceedings against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth begin, new lawmakers are outlining their agenda for the next Congress, and the Senate advances a bill that could weaken endangered species protections.

Transcript

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

There's no argument in these impeachment articles that he's ineffective.

The argument here is that he's broken laws and he's violated the Constitution.

Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massey introduced new articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The articles say Hegseth violated the 1973 War Powers Act by going to war with Iran without congressional authorization and killing civilians in boat strikes against alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean.

Numerous lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, are joining the movement, which could come to a vote as early as this week.

Hegseth called the impeachment a sham, pushed by a, quote, disgruntled, defeated congressman along with all his Democrat allies.

President Donald Trump is standing by Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is singing his praises.

The Department of War, and the Pentagon in particular, has been responsible for many of the important things this administration is working on, whether it's our counter-cartel coalitions that we have going on in the Western Hemisphere, he's done a great job with that.

While the articles of impeachment could pass, it's uncertain whether they'll get to the Senate.

Speaker Mike Johnson could refuse to send the articles to the high chamber before the current Congress ends, but this would push it to the next one when Democrats control both chambers.

However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Senate must put Hegseth on trial to answer for the Iran war.

Hegseth waged this war illegally in open defiance of the Constitution and multiple war power resolutions this Congress passed to end the fighting.

A week after the midterms, newly elected lawmakers are outlining their plans for what they want to accomplish in the next Congress.

New York Representative-elect Kate Conley says she and her colleagues from across the aisle and the nation have been sent to Congress to help Americans not to continue partisan bickering.

The American people gave us a mandate to come here and to solve problems.

And shame on us if we do not deliver.

Our bar must be what can we do and what will we do.

And in order to deliver that, we're going to have to work with Donald Trump in the White House.

And yeah, working across the aisle.

The Senate is advancing its permitting bill, which aims to speed up energy and infrastructure permitting.

But the bill faces backlash from environmentalists since it has provisions to further weaken the Endangered Species Act.

This includes condensing endangered species reviews, exempting certain right-of-way projects from ESA consultation requirements, and restricting judicial review of ESA decisions.

Chris Westfall with Defenders of Wildlife says this bill hampers ESA procedures.

The bill really takes a broadside to Endangered Species Act consultation, which is the review process that is currently used to avoid needless harm for endangered and threatened species.

Another provision calls for states to take over federal ESA consultation responsibilities.

Currently, formal reviews take about two months, while informal reviews, which constitute the bulk of ESA review, only take about two weeks.

Westfall says this could compromise review quality because states often lack resources and could slow the ESA process.

I'm Edwin J. Viera for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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