👋🏾 HI, HEY, HELLO! Welcome back to Congress Nerd Daily. I hope today was everything for you. The midterms are in 13 days.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
President Donald Trump announced today that American Stephen Hubbard has been released from a Russian prison following a direct appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call last week. Trump said Hubbard is returning to the United States and that Washington did not have to release a prisoner or offer anything in exchange.
Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired teacher from Michigan whom the U.S. government designated as wrongfully detained, had been held in Russia for four years. He was sentenced in 2024 after a closed trial on allegations that he fought for Ukraine, which his family disputed.
Trump also defended his decision to delay sanctions against Russia, claiming they would have derailed the negotiations for Hubbard’s release. He criticized former President Joe Biden for failing to secure Hubbard’s freedom and claimed that people who had pushed for immediate sanctions were now calling to apologize. The president offered no evidence to support that assertion.
Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff drew criticism for praising Putin as a humanitarian during a meeting with the Russian leader.
“You are a humanitarian also, sir. I salute you, and I commend you,” Witkoff said.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) blasted the remarks, pointing to Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians. “Calling him a humanitarian is like calling Witkoff qualified or capable of doing this job,” Coons wrote on X.
VIEW FROM THE HILL
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) is on a personal mission to get Pete Hegseth out of the Pentagon.
He made it absolutely clear this afternoon when I asked him about the prospect of impeaching the Defense Secretary during Congress’s lame-duck session and whether a change of leadership in the Pentagon would in any way alter the trajectory of President Trump’s war in Iran.
“Pete Hegseth is a special project of mine to make sure he doesn’t stay in the Pentagon any longer than he needs to,” Crow told me in a press call arranged by Defend America Action. “I will do everything I can to get him out of that position.”
Crow, a former Army Ranger with three combat tours, took Hegseth to task for what he said was the antithesis of military training. He described the secretary’s leadership as a threat to American service members and said he wouldn’t be satisfied until someone else led the Pentagon.
The comments come as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has indicated he intends to force a vote on Hegseth’s impeachment when the House reconvenes after the midterms. That would give members a chance to make their views on the Pentagon chief’s leadership public while the administration still grapples with the war’s escalating costs, American casualties and the state of military readiness.
Crow knows something about impeachment, having served as one of the House managers in Trump’s first impeachment trial in the Senate. He’s not committed to Massie’s approach, though, just that the objective should be removing Hegseth regardless of how you get there.
“Impeachment is a tool. It’s not an end in itself,” he said. “The objective in the case of Hegseth is to get him out of office.”
