Impeachment Vote Looms for Hegseth

Calls for self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ouster have grown louder on Capitol Hill as a possible impeachment vote looms this week. At the same time, Hegseth has shored up support at the White House and among MAGA faithful, according to dismayed Pentagon officials.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced articles of impeachment on the House floor Monday afternoon, charging Hegseth with “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Top Democrats have indicated a desire to join Massie’s effort since their midterm election landslide. “I am a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who is poised to be the next House speaker, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the current House Oversight Committee chair, told Newsmax on Friday it is “very possible” the votes exist to impeach Hegseth.

Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., one of the leading voices for Hegseth’s impeachment, agreed. “I think there’s a high chance that it will be successful,” she told The Intercept of Massie’s effort. In April, Ansari filed six articles of impeachment against Hegseth, including violations of the law of armed conflict and targeting of civilians, abuse of power, and obstructing congressional oversight. She called for a floor vote on his ouster this week.

“Hegseth has demonstrated that he is wholly incompetent. He’s committed what I believe to be war crimes in Iran and the Caribbean and he is ill-equipped for the job,” said Ansari. “My reason for introducing the articles of impeachment back in April had a lot to do with his conduct and the war crimes in Iran, including the bombing of the children’s school. But it’s refreshing to see that since then, more and more Republicans are also recognizing that his leadership has failed and that he’s putting all of us in danger.”

In the wake of a devastating election rout of the GOP that handed Democrats firm control of the House and the Senate, Congress begins a five-week lame-duck session on Monday. With dozens of Republican lawmakers ending their tenure in the House, it’s unclear how many will even show up for votes. Such absences, as well as outright defections in the GOP ranks, make it increasingly likely that Massie’s measure will pass, staffers on Capitol Hill told The Intercept.

On Sunday, GOP Rep. French Hill of Arkansas left open the possibility of backing the measure. “I want to hear the debate on it to see if it merits impeachment versus some other disciplinary action or action by the president,” he said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” Outgoing House speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not answer when asked by Politico if GOP leaders would whip the Hegseth impeachment vote. House leaders must take up the matter within two legislative days; opponents could table the resolution or refer it to committee instead of voting directly on impeachment.

After narrowly being confirmed by the Senate, which required Vice President JD Vance to break a 50-50 tie, Hegseth’s tenure has been marked by fiascos and failures beginning with Signal-gate, the sharing of secret war plans in a chat group with a journalist. In that case, according to the Pentagon’s own inspector general, “Hegseth violated security protocols and endangered U.S. troops and objectives.” Since then, Hegseth has been under perpetual fire for the unsuccessful Iran war in 2026, specifically a strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, that killed more than 150 civilians, most of them children. He faces pressure over his campaign of extrajudicial killings in attacks on so-called drug boats in the waters off Latin America. And questions continue to mount about his purge of top military leaders — many of them women and minorities.

“The fact that many career officials from the department have left citing his leadership, I think, is very telling,” said Ansari. Last week, The Intercept published an exposé quoting six current and former defense officials who currently serve or served under Hegseth and called for his ouster. “He is conducting state terrorism. He is 100 percent a war criminal. He needs to be prosecuted,” said Wes J. Bryant, one of those officials and, until last year, a senior targeting adviser and policy analyst at the Pentagon who was pushed out of his job for blowing the whistle on Hegseth’s efforts to undermine protections for civilians.

As calls for his ouster have grown louder, Hegseth launched a desperate bid to whip up support at the White House, including a nakedly obsequious video seeking Trump’s support that he posted on X. It was accompanied by a coordinated campaign of social media posts by Pentagon underlings tying Hegseth’s fortunes to the president with the text “STAND. FIGHT. DEFEND THE REPUBLIC.”

Hegseth’s hand was strengthened on Friday when Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles stepped down and was replaced by his hard-line domestic policy adviser, raging xenophobe, and illegal boat strike proponent Stephen Miller, according to two Pentagon officials. The embattled war chief was quick to offer “Huge CONGRATS” to Miller on X, and posted a photo of himself alongside Trump’s new consigliere. The same coterie of Hegseth devotees at the Pentagon followed with similar posts featuring Miller.

Wiles had reportedly soured on Hegseth, blaming his woeful management of the Iran war for flagging Republican fortunes. A senior Trump administration official also told MS Now that Miller and Hegseth “have been extremely close since the beginning of the administration.”

If the House impeaches Hegseth, removing him from office would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate — a high bar, even when Democrats take control of the chamber in January. Neither of the two Cabinet secretaries impeached by the House — William Belknap, the secretary of war, in 1876; and Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, in 2024 — were convicted by the Senate.

An Armed Services Committee staffer who spoke with The Intercept was skeptical that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would bring the measure to a vote. Ansari held out hope. “Thune is very much aligned in terms of his view that Hegseth is not fit for the job,” she said, adding, “I do think that the resounding victories on Tuesday night will impact the way Republicans operate moving forward.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is retiring at the end of the year, has said for months that he regrets his vote to confirm Hegseth and rebuked the war chief for his desperate video address aimed at Trump. “[C]abinet secretaries shouldn’t be wasting taxpayer dollars on campaign style videos. Kristi Noem learned that the hard way,” he wrote on X on Friday, also laying into Hegseth for “the incompetence you’ve displayed, the bad advice you’ve given to president, and your shameful and embarrassing episodes from firing our top generals to texting war plans to reporters.” Tillis had also previously said Hegseth “needs to go.”

Massie suggested his impeachment resolution is the legislative equivalent of a mercy killing, calling it “a much gentler version” of what Democrats will do when they take control of Congress in January. Congressional committees have broad investigative powers, and Ansari said that if Hegseth survives this year’s impeachment push, there were “many ways” for Democrats to hold him accountable in the next session, specifically compelling him to testify before the American people. “I would be surprised to see him last the next two years in this administration,” she told The Intercept. “I think that he is not only one of the most incompetent members of the administration, but also the most unpopular — and it’s on a bipartisan basis. So the pressure will continue to grow for there to be some change at the Pentagon.”

Trump expressed mild “confidence” in Hegseth in a “60 Minutes” interview taped on Friday, touting the U.S. victory over Venezuela, but stopped short of praising his Pentagon chief for it. Asked if he credited Hegseth for what he considers a major victory, Trump replied: “No, but he was a part of it.” On Saturday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that calls for impeachment of administration officials amounted to “extortion at the highest level” and ordered the Justice Department to investigate those making the push.

Attorney General Todd Blanche, himself a potential target of impeachment, said on Sunday that the Justice Department would represent Hegseth during any impeachment proceedings. He added that he “would be very worried” if he were a Democrat threatening to investigate administration officials. Asked if he considered those threats to be a crime, Blanche said, “It depends on what’s said. So yes, there could be.”

The White House did not respond to questions about Trump’s support for Hegseth.

Update: November 9, 2026, 2:50 p.m. ET
The article has been updated to note that Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced articles of impeachment against War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday afternoon.