Republican lawmaker vows to force a new Hegseth impeachment vote as GOP blames Iran war for midterm rout

A Kentucky Republican who is leaving Congress in January says he intends to force a House vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as soon as lawmakers return to Washington next week, reviving an effort that several Republican colleagues now privately say could actually succeed. The push comes three days after Republicans suffered sweeping losses in Tuesday's midterm elections, which Vice President JD Vance has publicly attributed to voter anger over the war with Iran that Hegseth has overseen since February.

Rep. Thomas Massie told CNN he plans to file a new privileged resolution of impeachment against Hegseth unless the defense secretary resigns first. Because such resolutions are privileged, House rules require a vote within two legislative days of filing, forcing Republican leadership to either allow a floor vote, move to table the measure, or refer it to committee — any of which would require members to go on record. Massie made an identical move on September 15, reading an eight-article, 34-page resolution aloud on the floor for more than an hour, but Speaker Mike Johnson ended that week's House session early, preventing a vote before the election recess.

A measure Republicans no longer dismiss

What has changed since September is the political arithmetic. Multiple sitting House Republicans told Fox News Digital they now expect a resolution to pass if Massie brings it to the floor. "He's screwed," one House Republican said of Hegseth. Another said flatly: "If he introduces it, it'll pass." Republicans hold a narrow majority, and several GOP members who lost reelection on Tuesday may not bother returning for the lame-duck session, further thinning the votes leadership could rely on to block the measure. Still, most Republicans are expected to oppose impeachment, and skepticism remains widespread; one GOP lawmaker said the outcome "depends on if anyone wants to flip off the president walking out the door."

"The reason we lost is the war," Vance wrote on social media the morning after the election, adding that voters frustrated by the conflict with Iran, inflation and the cost of living had turned on the party. "If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. But everyone knows why we lost."

President Trump, asked about Vance's remarks, called them "largely true" while separately telling reporters Hegseth is doing "a good job" and insisting he has "every intention to keep him." Trump has also called Massie "very destructive." A former White House official told Fox News Digital that "Hegseth is on the chopping block," while a current administration official predicted Tuesday's results "would have looked very different without the Iran war" and said Trump would hold Hegseth accountable before year's end. CBS News has separately reported that Trump has been polling advisers on possible successors.

What the numbers show

Exit polling found that roughly a third of voters called the Iran war a crucial factor in their vote, and a July Reuters/Ipsos poll found only about one in three Americans supported the conflict, with 69 percent — including four in ten Republicans — saying Trump had not clearly explained its goals. According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis cited by Military Times, the war has cost more than $47 billion since fighting began on February 28, roughly a quarter above the Pentagon's own July estimate, including about $29 billion for munitions and $6 billion to replace lost equipment. The same analysis found the conflict has depleted as much as two-thirds of the Pentagon's missile-defense interceptor stockpile, which officials say could take at least five years to rebuild. The Pentagon's Defense Casualty Analysis System lists more than 860 troops wounded and at least 23 killed since the war began.

Removing Hegseth from office would require both chambers to act. The House can impeach by a simple majority vote, but conviction and removal require a two-thirds vote in the Senate — 67 votes if all 100 senators are present and voting, a threshold Hegseth's allies consider effectively unreachable regardless of what the House does.

The legal basis: war powers, not scandal

Massie's articles, along with a separate six-article resolution Democrats filed in April, rest primarily on the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which limits a president's authority to introduce U.S. forces into hostilities to three circumstances: a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization, or a national emergency created by an attack on the United States. Massie's version argues Hegseth directed and sustained hostilities against Iran for more than 90 days without any such authorization and failed to consult Congress as required. Other articles accuse him of unlawful strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels, retaliatory investigations of political critics including Sen. Mark Kelly, and operations in Yemen and Venezuela conducted without congressional sign-off.

The Democratic-led measure, H.Res. 1177, introduced in April by Rep. Yassamin Ansari and a dozen cosponsors and still sitting in the House Judiciary Committee, makes overlapping but broader claims. Its text, filed with the House clerk and published through the Government Publishing Office, charges Hegseth with violations of the law of armed conflict tied to civilian casualties in Iran, including the destruction of a girls' school in the city of Minab, gross negligence in handling classified operational details through the Signal messaging app, and obstruction of congressional oversight by withholding casualty and operational information. Under House procedure described in a Congressional Research Service overview of the impeachment process, a resolution offered as a "question of the privileges of the House" — the route Massie has used twice — bypasses committee review and goes directly to the floor within two legislative days, the same mechanism used to force floor action during the 1974 Nixon impeachment inquiry.

Pentagon and White House hold the line

Hegseth's office has shown no sign of backing down. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said this week that the secretary "will not back down or be deterred" by lawmakers he characterized as chasing partisan points, and dismissed earlier rumors that Trump himself was considering removing Hegseth. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Trump is willing to work with anyone in Congress but accused Democrats of pursuing "sham investigations and radical left policies." A separate White House official argued Republicans "still control the federal government and all of its powers" regardless of the House impeachment math.

Democratic leaders, who will take control of the House in January, are pressing from the other direction. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become speaker, wrote on social media Thursday morning: "Why is Pete Hegseth still around?" Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, expected to chair the House Armed Services Committee once Democrats take the majority, has said publicly that Hegseth is "not qualified for the job." Several moderate Democrats have also signaled they could support impeachment, arguing the administration never sought the congressional authorization the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution require before extended military action.

What happens next

The House is due back in session next week, and Massie has said he will refile his resolution immediately unless Hegseth resigns beforehand — in which case, he says, he will not reintroduce it. If filed, Republican leaders will face an immediate choice between allowing a recorded floor vote, moving to table the measure, or sending it to the Judiciary Committee, each of which still requires members to take a position days after an election in which the war was cited by roughly a third of voters as a deciding factor. Any House vote to impeach would then move to the Senate, where Democrats take the majority on January 3 but a two-thirds vote for conviction remains a high bar regardless of which party controls the chamber. For now, Hegseth retains the public backing of the president, even as the vice president's own account of why Republicans lost control of Congress has become the argument his critics are using against him.