This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 10 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
On Tuesday, Republicans refused to advance a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The lame-duck majority shut it down because Donald Trump and his party seemingly will not learn any lessons from their catastrophic midterm losses.
One week ago, Republicans faced a once-in-a-generation rebuke from the American people. And what has been their response to this era-defining drubbing? Indulge their worst instincts.
First, Trump elevated Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff. Miller is quite possibly one of the most loathed men in America. He is the personification of everything that people hate about the MAGA movement: the casual cruelty, the demagoguery, the downright unpleasantness.
House Republicans are intent on staying the course and pursuing the kind of losing politics that just got them wiped out in both chambers of Congress.
Of course, Miller is responsible for some of the least popular policy decisions of this administration, whether it’s the weird messaging that appeals to extremely online white nationalists or the mass deportations and the immigration raids in American cities.
The fact that he’s getting promoted should tell you a lot about how Trump is handling his midterm losses.
Meanwhile in Congress, Republicans just chose Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to be the next House minority leader. The extremist congressman is as MAGA as it gets, and his elevation to the top job signals that there will be no attempt at course correction from Trump’s party. Jordan ousted the already very conservative Steve Scalise of Louisiana for the job.
It is clear that House Republicans are intent on staying the course and pursuing the kind of losing politics that just got them wiped out in both chambers of Congress.
In fact, the very MAGA Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who is currently behind in her re-election bid, said her party got wiped out because its “too moderate.” Based on last week’s results, I don’t think voters agree with that sentiment.
Possibly the most baffling decision of Trump’s party, though, has been its choice to stand by Hegseth. The former Fox News host is, far and away, the least qualified person to ever lead the Pentagon. He has been forced to deny allegations of everything from a serious drinking problem to sexual assault. He even had to reckon with a since-recanted email from his own mother, who called him “an abuser of women.”
On top of all that, Hegseth is — more than anyone besides Trump himself — the public face of the Iran war, arguably the biggest reason that Republicans just suffered a historic electoral defeat.
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Chris Hayes is the host of “All In with Chris Hayes.”