Pete Hegseth stood at the Pentagon podium on Tuesday and called the whole thing a farce. A political spectacle. A stunt by one disgruntled and defeated congressman. He thanked the president for standing with him and said he would take that company every day of the week. Hours earlier, the House had set a procedural vote for late Tuesday on eight articles of impeachment filed the day before. The man who filed them is leaving Congress in January. The people cheering him on are the ones who just won the midterms and are about to take the gavel.
The Eight Charges on the Table
The articles come from Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, who lost his own primary earlier this year to a candidate backed by the president. They cover military operations under Hegseth since he was sworn in as the 29th secretary of defense on January 25, 2025. The department has since been renamed, but the job is the same.
Three of the articles concern the war in Iran. Massie says Hegseth directed, authorized, and sustained military action against Iran with no declaration of war, no statutory authorization, no attack on the United States, and no imminent threat. He says the secretary kept the fight going after Congress passed a resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces and after the 60-day clock in the War Powers Resolution had run out. A fourth article accuses him of ignoring laws meant to minimize civilian casualties. It points to a cruise-missile strike on February 28, 2026, the first day of the conflict, against a girls’ school in Minab that killed scores of children.
Two more articles cover Venezuela and the Caribbean. One charges Hegseth with directing the seizure of Nicolás Maduro and his wife in January 2026 without constitutional authority. Another charges him with replacing ordinary maritime law enforcement with lethal strikes on boats suspected of carrying drugs, resulting in more than 220 deaths. There is an article on the 2025 air campaign in Yemen and one on the treatment of Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy officer, after Kelly joined a video telling service members they could refuse unlawful orders. Hegseth’s department moved to reduce Kelly’s retired rank and pension.
Hegseth has denied wrongdoing. He says the articles describe policy disagreements, not the high crimes and misdemeanors the founders had in mind. He has said he stands behind every operation and would do it again.
Listen to this in its entirety and repost away…
‘A FARCE’: Hegseth BLASTS impeachment effort, takes questions https://t.co/HJboTujEOo via @YouTube— The smITH Factor™️ (@SmithFactor) November 10, 2026
Why the Left Is Driving This Now
The midterms just delivered the House and the Senate to the other party. Voter anger over the Iran war played a role. A fresh poll found that 71 percent of Americans, including 51 percent of Republicans, want the new Congress to pass legislation ending the conflict. Another survey showed roughly two-thirds of the public disapproving of the way the president has handled the fighting. Tracking averages put support for the war itself in the mid-30s and opposition in the mid-50s. Americans have repeatedly said they would rather avoid higher prices at home than achieve every military objective in Iran.
Hegseth has been the public face of the campaign. He has defended the strikes, the continuation of the fight, and the broader effort to reshape the force around what he calls a warrior ethos. That has included large reductions in the number of generals and admirals and the removal of several senior officers. Critics on the left and some on the right have called the management inept and the firings ideological. After the election, Democratic leaders said openly that one of the first priorities of the new majority would be to run him out of town. They view a third attempt at the president as a bad idea that has already failed twice. A cabinet secretary is simpler.
Massie’s resolution gives them the vehicle. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has called himself a hard yes. No Democrat is expected to vote the other way. The current Republican majority is 218 to 214 and thin on attendance. A handful of Republicans joining Massie would be enough for a majority. If the resolution carries over or is reintroduced after January 3, the new Democratic majority of roughly 254 seats makes passage routine.
Will They Actually Remove Him
Impeachment by the House is one thing. Removal is another. It takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Republicans currently hold 53 seats. Even after the new Congress is seated and Democrats hold a majority around 54, conviction still requires roughly 13 to 20 Republican senators to break ranks. The president has already called Massie a total loser and given Hegseth an “A” plus for his defense of the record. Trump has said he has every intention of keeping him. Some Republican senators have criticized the management and the lack of consultation on personnel cuts, but public calls for resignation have been limited.
History offers little precedent for success. Only two cabinet secretaries have ever been impeached by the House. One resigned before the Senate could act. The other was not removed. The charges against Hegseth rest on long-running arguments about war powers, civilian-casualty rules, and the scope of executive military action. Those arguments have been made against previous administrations of both parties. They have rarely produced removal.
The left has the numbers in the House and a clear motive: the war is unpopular, the midterms were costly, and Hegseth is the most visible symbol of both. They also have a willing Republican partner who is already on his way out the door. What they do not have is a realistic path to the two-thirds Senate vote that would actually put someone else in the job. The vote this week, or the one that comes in January, will test how many Republicans are willing to join the effort while the president still holds the White House. It will not, on the evidence available now, end with Hegseth packing his desk.
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