Politics
A fateful night in Monterey: Drinking, conservative banter, sexual assault allegations involving Pete Hegseth
On the afternoon of Oct. 12, 2017, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente called the Monterey Police Department to report that a patient had come in for a sexual assault exam.
The woman, the nurse told police, said she had been sexually assaulted four days earlier while at a Republican women’s conference at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel & Spa in the coastal California resort town.
The alleged assailant — though his name wouldn’t be revealed immediately — was a popular Fox News Channel host and the keynote speaker at the conference.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe in police reports, told the nurse she wasn’t sure she wanted to involve authorities and didn’t want to disclose the person’s name at that point. She had been suffering from nightmares and bouts of sobbing after returning home from the conference, but had little memory of the sexual encounter. She feared she had been drugged. The woman, who has not been identified publicly, could not be reached for comment by The Times.
The nurse referred the woman to an emergency room for a sexual assault forensic exam. But the nurse’s call — made as a mandated reporter — triggered a law enforcement investigation that included interviews with hotel staff, a review of surveillance video, discussions with several of the woman’s associates and a conversation with the alleged perpetrator, Pete Hegseth, who assured police the encounter had been consensual.
No charges were ever filed. Monterey County Dist. Atty. Jeannine M. Pacioni said no charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The two parties eventually reached a private settlement, after which Doe signed a nondisclosure agreement.
The story seemed to end there — until Donald Trump nominated Hegseth to be Defense secretary. Now that night in Monterey has become the centerpiece in what could be one of the most contentious Senate confirmation fights in years.
In recent days, a police report on the incident and other details have offered a clearer picture about the allegations. But much remains unknown, including why local prosecutors decided not to file charges against Hegseth.
Shortly after the president-elect’s announcement of Hegseth’s nomination, a friend of the woman wrote a memo to Trump’s transition team saying that Hegseth had raped the then-30-year-old conservative group staffer in his hotel room in the early morning hours after a banquet dinner at the California Federation of Republican Women conference.
In response, Hegseth confirmed the financial settlement, saying through his lawyer that he had agreed to pay the woman to protect his job at Fox. But he vehemently denied committing assault. The woman, Hegseth’s lawyer said in a statement, “was the aggressor in initiating sexual activity.” Hegseth had been “visibly intoxicated” at the after-party in the hotel bar, the lawyer said, and the woman had “led him by the arm to his hotel room.”
“The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m gonna leave it,” Hegseth told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday.
Revelations of the incident have set off a firestorm, both in Washington and among members of the California Federation of Republican Women.
Pete Hegseth
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
The federation is a nonprofit advocacy group composed mostly of retirees. Its members gather for luncheons, conferences and fundraisers to hear Republican politicians speak about conservative issues.
Many in the group were horrified that a favored conservative Republican Cabinet pick could be hurt by allegations.
“This thing is so f— bogus,” one of the organization’s officers yelled before hanging up on a Times reporter who called for comment.
This week, the Monterey Police Department released a redacted 22-page report detailing its investigation, including accounts of the recollections of Doe and Hegseth, along with several other attendees. Though police reports are typically not public in California, the document had been released because Hegseth had previously asked for a copy.
The police report offers the most complete picture yet of what occurred at the Monterey hotel on Oct. 7-8, 2017.
On the second day of the three-day gathering, Doe took a break in her hotel room where she was staying with her husband and at least one of her small children before the banquet dinner and keynote speech — the last major scheduled event of the conference — began at 6 p.m., according to text messages and sources with knowledge of the event.
Forty-five minutes later she texted with her husband from the banquet. The conversation turned to Hegseth.
“Our ladies are freaking drooling over him,” she wrote. She sent a photo of Hegseth standing at a podium holding a microphone and gesturing with his hand as he spoke.
“He doesn’t look even remotely familiar,” she said. “But apparently all the women know who he is.”
She continued: “He wears a ring on his pointer finger. It creeps me out.” She lamented that the event was taking so long.
After the banquet, the woman went to an after-party in another federation member’s hotel suite, where she had a glass of champagne. Hegseth was there too. A federation member who was there told police later that the woman “did not seem intoxicated, but had a buzz” at the event.
Around midnight, Doe, Hegseth and a second woman walked toward Knuckles, the sports bar in the hotel. Inside the bar, which has since closed, televisions and football helmets lined the walls. She texted her husband an update, saying that she was headed to the bar with a group of ladies. “Omg I have so much to tell you. This Pete dude is a … toooool,” she wrote.
While they were drinking at the bar, Hegseth allegedly put his hand on another woman’s knee. She told police that she made it clear it was “not acceptable,” but he still invited her to his room. She declined, according to the report.
Monterey’s Cannery Row
(Zen Rial/Getty Images)
The same woman tried to get Doe’s attention so she could act as a “crotch blocker” to deter Hegseth’s sexual advances, according to the report.
Doe told police that her memory started to get “fuzzy” while she was at the bar.
Around 1:30 a.m., Doe argued with Hegseth near the hotel pool about his behavior with women at the conference. He responded that he was a “nice guy,” according to the report. She later told investigators that Hegseth would rub women on their legs and she thought his actions were inappropriate.
A hotel employee who had been working that night told an investigator that guests had called the front desk to complain about two people causing a disturbance by the swimming pool about 1:30 a.m. The employee said that when he approached Hegseth and Doe, Hegseth cursed at him and said that he “had freedom of speech,” the report states. The woman intervened and said that “they were Republicans and apologized for Hegseth’s actions,” it said.
The staffer said the woman was “standing on her own and very coherent,” while Hegseth was “very intoxicated,” according to the report.
Doe placed her hand and arm on Hegseth’s back and escorted him toward the building where his room was, the employee told police. Hegseth later told an investigator he didn’t remember being chastised by the pool.
In the early morning hours, Doe’s husband sent her a text message: “Holy smokes lady…I don’t remember the last time you were socializing at nearly 2:00 a.m.” She responded, “Hahaha I know. I gotta make sure that to” — ending midsentence — and then stopped texting.
Her husband wrote back: “Doing ok? My love? Worried about you.”
Around 2 a.m. her husband went looking for Doe at Knuckles, but no one was there, he told investigators.
Doe next recalled being in a hotel room alone with Hegseth. She had her phone in her hand and Hegseth asked her who she was texting before taking her phone, she told police. She tried to leave the room, according to the report, but Hegseth blocked the door. She remembered saying “no” a lot, she told police.
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Defense, speaks with reporters in Washington on Thursday.
(Rod Lamkey/Associated Press)
Her next memory, she told police, was lying on a bed or couch with Hegseth’s dog tags hovering over her face. She said he ejaculated on her stomach, threw a towel at her and said to “clean it up” before asking her whether she was OK, according to the report.
Hegseth recalled the situation differently in an interview with authorities.
He told police that Doe led him to his hotel room, where things progressed between the two of them, according to the report. There was “always” conversation and “always” consensual contact between himself and Doe, he told police.
Hegseth recalled Doe displaying “early signs of regret” after the incident and said she would tell her husband she fell asleep on a couch in someone else’s room, according to the report.
Around 4 a.m., Doe returned to her hotel room and explained to her husband that she “must have fallen asleep.” She told police she didn’t start remembering what happened between her and Hegseth until she returned home the next day.
Politics
Trump-aligned House holdouts accused of holding ‘life-saving’ veterans bill ‘hostage’ over SAVE America Act
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A sweeping veterans package supporters describe as the largest expansion of veterans’ health care and benefits in more than a decade is expected to return to the House floor when lawmakers come back from the July recess, but backers warn the legislation could once again become collateral damage in the Republican standoff over the SAVE America Act.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act rolls roughly 60 veterans bills into a package that would dramatically expand veterans’ health care and benefits. At its core, the legislation would cement veterans’ access to community care outside the VA while increasing benefits for combat-wounded veterans, caregivers and Gold Star families, expanding mental health services and enacting dozens of additional reforms.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., told Fox News Digital he intends to bring the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act back for a vote as soon as the House reconvenes next week.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – MARCH 17: Eugene Simpson, 29, from Dale City, Virginia goes through physical therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. with Michael Minor, a kinesiotherapist with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs on March 17, 2006 in Washington, D.C., USA. (Photo by Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images) (Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
The legislation was held up last month after a group of House Republicans joined Democrats to defeat a procedural vote, stopping the House from taking up the bill.
“I’m feeling good as long as my members stay with us on the rule,” Bost said. “Right now, there’s some politics being played, not about this bill, but just in general.”
The bill became entangled in a broader House Republican fight over the SAVE America Act, legislation championed by President Donald Trump that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
On June 30, the House voted on H. Res. 1398, the procedural rule governing floor consideration of several bills, including the National Defense Authorization Act and the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. The rule failed after 14 Republicans joined Democrats in opposition, preventing the House from taking up the veterans package and bringing floor business to a standstill. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., claimed to have voted against the rules vote in protest against House leadership’s handling of the SAVE America Act. As a result, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sent the members home early.
Bost accused the holdouts of effectively putting veterans legislation on hold.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs building is seen in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. (Photo by Alastair Pike / AFP) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Images) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Image)
‘IT’S A MESS’: GOP TURNS ON HOUSE CONSERVATIVES AS VOTER ID BLOCKADE STALLS TRUMP’S AGENDA
“They’re holding all bills hostage,” Bost said. “They’re not voting for any rule. Any bill that has to pass a rule before it comes to the floor—which this bill does because of its size—can’t move.”
Although Bost said he supports the SAVE America Act and has voted for it three times, he argued the Senate’s failure to act should not stop the House from advancing unrelated legislation.
“I agree with that bill,” Bost said. “But the Senate still has to do their work. We don’t stop our work because the Senate isn’t doing it.”
With 23 legislative days left in the Congressional session, Concerned Veterans for America Strategic Director John Byrnes, a supporter of the bill, said time is of the essence.
“There are lots and lots of things that have to get done,” Byrnes told Fox News Digital. “There’s also the National Defense Authorization Act, which is a must pass every year, so these things eat up time. There’s requirements to have debate on these, which eat up session time.”
Byrnes argued that every procedural delay pushes other legislation further down the calendar.
“This bill will save lives in 2027,” Byrnes said. “If we lose veterans because they could have had faster, better access to health care, we’re never going to get those veterans back.”
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill. ( )
TRUMP’S SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWS SIGNS OF LIFE IN THE SENATE DESPITE REPUBLICAN REVOLT
But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who also voted no on the procedural vote, told Fox News Digital that he has concerns about how the bill is financed.
“I appreciate what the chairman’s trying to do in some respects, but there’s a few issues,” Roy said.
Among them, Roy pointed to provisions offsetting new spending through changes affecting other veterans.
“You’re taxing certain veterans to provide some sort of benefits and changes to other veterans,” Roy said. “There are concerns about some of the pay-fors.”
Veterans of Foreign Wars has also taken issue with Section 108 of the bill, warning that it would codify changes to future disability ratings for tinnitus and sleep apnea to help finance other veterans priorities.
But Bost said this is inaccurate.
“No veteran is going to have their benefits reduced,” Bost said. “If you’re receiving a benefit right now, that’s not going to be reduced at all.”
Roy, who previously served two years on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he supported a lot of what the bill was seeking to accomplish; but said other pieces of legislation are priorities, too.
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“There is a block of us for whom border security, the SAVE Act and demonstrating our leadership on major issues is critical,” Roy said. “Some of these other bills may or may not get hung up based on a desire of many in the conference to see movement on other things.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Luna’s office and the White House for comment.
Politics
Assassinations unleashed under Trump haunt Iran war endgame
WASHINGTON — Shortly before President Trump ended a ceasefire with Iran this week, Israeli officials presented his team with intelligence indicating Tehran was hatching new plots to kill him.
It was not the first such warning. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have tracked evidence for years of Iranian efforts to target the president, with signals only increasing since the start of the war.
Their desire to target Trump and his top aides began six years ago, just outside Baghdad International Airport, when the president ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general. The assassination of Qassem Suleimani brought the two countries to the brink of war.
Yet even as full-scale war was averted, top Iranian officials vowed revenge for the strike, authorizing attempts on the lives not just of the president, but of his secretary of State and national security advisor, among others, even after they had left office.
Now, calls for revenge have reached a sharper pitch in Tehran, after a joint U.S.-Israeli operation killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war in February.
At Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies this week, red flags of vengeance flew throughout the capital as protesters explicitly called on their government to “kill Trump.” His son, Mojtaba, the new supreme leader, was absent from the commemorations, fearing assassination himself.
Mourners hold an anti-President Trump banner at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque during mass funeral prayers for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family in Tehran on Sunday.
(Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The prospect of foreign assassination plots targeting U.S. leaders puts the United States in dangerous new territory, where its embrace of political killings could ultimately place its own officials at unprecedented risk. And experts fear the existential threat of assassination has pushed peace further out of reach: When both sides believe their survival is at stake, the trust required for diplomacy becomes far harder to achieve.
Israeli news organizations have reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cited Iranian attempts to kill Trump in recent years as part of his case to go to war in the first place.
A U.S. official told The Times that a range of serious threats exist against the president, including from Iran, but that Israel’s intelligence pointed to a more specific plot. The official did not provide further details. Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said in recent months that the government sees vengeance against U.S. officials as “its legitimate duty and right,” and “will fulfill this great responsibility and duty with all its might.”
“The Suleimani killing accelerated a lifting of restraints on foreign assassinations — and the taboo on targeting and killing foreign leaders, with U.S. military assets, has been more or less lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political professor at George Washington University.
“If the United States sets the example of how to conduct international relations, and it is using assassination of foreign leaders as a political weapon, it’s only logical that other countries will be more inclined to also engage in assassinations,” Dallek added. “It does seem likely that Trump will have a bigger target on his back.”
Returning from a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, Trump was forced to switch back to an old model of Air Force One — equipped with specialized defensive technologies — from a new plane given as a gift by Qatar, after the Secret Service warned of potential threats to the aircraft from Iran.
“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,” Trump told reporters aboard the plane. “I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long.”
The threat has remained on his mind in the days since. In an interview with the New York Post, Trump told the reporter, “I hope you’ll miss me,” adding that he has “been on their list for a long time.” And in a subsequent social media post Friday night, he warned of a catastrophic response he instructed the administration to pursue in the event Tehran succeeds.
“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote, “with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!”
The United States had a decades-old prohibition against assassinating foreign leaders before Trump’s presidency, codified in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 over concerns of a CIA plot to kill Fidel Castro.
The policy was only strengthened further by subsequent administrations, fearing a new international standard for targeted killings could result in unintended consequences in the halls of Washington.
Other administrations have been accused of targeting foreign leaders before. Under the Obama administration, an international coalition targeting the Libyan regime of Moammar Kadafi during the country’s 2011 civil war struck his fleeing convoy, leading to his capture and killing by rebel fighters.
But experts say Trump’s explicit targeting of Suleimani and Khamenei — and his public celebration of their deaths — marks a new paradigm.
“Through words and actions, President Trump has done more to normalize political violence than any other U.S. president, certainly in modern times,” said Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and author of “Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism.”
“On the international front alone, the president routinely brags about killing Iranian leaders and seizing the leader of Venezuela, among others,” he added, “to the point that assassination is becoming the new normal in international politics.”
Politics
Trump takes unusual step, lets bipartisan housing bill become law unsigned amid SAVE pressure campaign
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A bipartisan housing bill became law Saturday at midnight after President Donald Trump declined to sign it, capping a weeks-long saga over whether the president would veto the measure amid frustrations with Congress over his stalled agenda.
Trump refused to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act — legislation aimed at expanding the nation’s housing stock and lowering costs — in an attempt to pressure Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, despite the housing bill clearing both chambers with overwhelming majorities.
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97% with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” he declared on Truth Social Friday morning.
The Trump-backed election measure, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and impose voter ID requirements, has struggled to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
Meanwhile, the House has not passed a version of the bill that includes the president’s proposed crackdown on mail-in voting and banning men from women’s sports.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
Under the U.S. Constitution, Trump had 10 days, not including Sundays, to sign or veto the housing measure after the House formally transmitted the legislation to the White House in late June. The president ultimately chose neither option, allowing the measure to become law without his signature.
Though Trump declined to veto the legislation, he sharply criticized elements of the bill and argued it should not have been a legislative priority in recent weeks.
“It’s so unimportant … compared to the SAVE America Act,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in late June. “I think the SAVE America Act is exactly what it says. It’s saving America from crooked elections.”
Trump went on to call the housing bill “a yawn,” adding, “compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”
It would have taken a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a veto — a margin the House and Senate exceeded when they passed the legislation. However, it remains unclear whether so many Republicans would have defied the president had he vetoed the bill.
Trump also appeared to criticize the bill over a provision restricting Wall Street investors from purchasing single-family homes — a policy he first proposed during his January State of the Union address and later urged Congress to pass. Trump previously argued the investor ban would give individual homebuyers a leg up against private equity firms in the housing market.
“I don’t want to hurt people that own houses, too,” Trump later told reporters, appearing to reference the provision. “These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses. They’ve become rich. I don’t want to hurt them either. What you want to do is what’s good for everyone, get the interest rates down.”
The law also aims to boost housing supply by streamlining federal environmental reviews, loosening rules around the construction of factory-built homes, and incentivizing local governments to modify their zoning laws to allow more housing, among roughly 60 provisions.
Trump’s souring on the legislation created headaches for Republicans, who touted the bill as an affordability win as voters grapple with high housing costs.
“It’s irresponsible to postpone signing the Housing bill due to the SAVE Act,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a retiring lawmaker who lost re-election to a Trump-backed challenger, wrote on social media. “We need to start delivering relief to people for the high cost of housing ASAP!!”
Construction workers stand on the roof of homes under construction at a new housing development on June 24, 2026, in Valencia, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WARREN TELLS TRUMP TO ‘SIGN THE DAMN BILL’ AS BIPARTISAN HOUSING PACKAGE REMAINS STALLED IN WASHINGTON
Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the legislation at the U.S. Capitol in June with GOP leaders. The stage had already been set, with at least one senior Republican arriving unaware the president had called off the event shortly before it was scheduled to begin.
The president then declared he would not sign the legislation until Congress passed the SAVE America Act, despite Senate GOP leaders insisting the votes do not exist to advance the measure.
Trump has also expressed frustration with the Republican-controlled Senate for declining to weaken the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the upper chamber.
“GET SMART REPUBLICANS, IF YOU DON’T, YOU WON’T BE IN OFFICE FOR LONG!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
Before Trump came out against the bill, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history” and said it included an array of policies “long championed” by Trump.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15, 2025. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Trump political operative James Blair touted the legislation for including the president’s Wall Street investor ban, which he referred to as a “signature commitment.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has argued that Republicans will still promote the landmark housing bill ahead of November.
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“We’ll still celebrate it, but he’s trying to make a point, and I think he’s making it very effectively,” the speaker recently told reporters, referring to Trump. “And the fact that you all ask me every three steps down the hallway illustrates that he has achieved the desired objective, and that is to make SAVE America the number one thing, because if we don’t get that right, everybody’s concerned about what happens next.”
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