Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testifies to Congress during his confirmation hearing in January 2025. Hegseth is likely to face articles of impeachment in the lame-duck House session, and almost certainly in the ensuing Democratic-majority session starting in January. (Shutterstock/Joshua Sukoff)
Could Pete Hegseth Actually Be Impeached? Here’s What to Know
Hegseth is likely to face challenges from both the incoming Democrats and disgruntled outgoing Republicans in the lame-duck session.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has fewer than 60 days remaining in office, but he appears ready to dish out some vengeance before he leaves Congress on January 3, 2027.
A libertarian Republican who broke with President Donald Trump over the ongoing war in Iran, Massie lost his highly contentious primary bid in May to retired US Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, a Trump ally. Yet while Gallrein won his general election on Tuesday, the Democrats scored massive wins elsewhere in the country, flipping at least seven Senate seats and dozens of House seats in historically “red” states such as Kansas, South Carolina, and Texas. With newfound majorities in both chambers starting in January, some Democrats have suggested that they would pursue articles of impeachment against Trump allies in the cabinet such as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
They may be too late. With nothing on the line, and perhaps with some of his fellow Republicans who already lost their House races ready to support his efforts, the outgoing Kentucky representative has made clear that he would push to impeach Hegseth, who he accused of violating the Constitution during the conduct of the Iran war.
“There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment: Hegseth resigns,” Massie wrote on X on Wednesday evening. That post had more than 1.7 million views as of Thursday afternoon, with more than 52,000 likes.
Massie had previously attempted to impeach Hegseth in September, claiming that the secretary “has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as secretary of defense and subversive of constitutional government.” After it became clear that the September impeachment effort could have actually succeeded—Massie and three other Republicans, combined with the Democrats, would have put it over the top—Speaker of the House Mike Johnson put the chamber into recess until after the midterm elections.
Why Does Massie Want to Dump Hegseth?
Hegseth was one of the strongest proponents for a war with Iran in early 2026—a conflict that had severe negative effects on the US economy and that Vice President JD Vance labeled as the number one cause of the “blue wave” in a postmortem analysis posted to X on Wednesday.
“If the president is serious about anyone taking responsibility for [the midterm loss], it’s Pete Hegseth,” one Republican close to the White House told CNN. “Pete has been either dishonest or incorrect—neither of which are acceptable—about timelines, goals and objectives since the beginning.”
Insiders suggest that Hegseth misled the president on how quickly the war could be won, but also on its cost. As of late October, the US military has spent at least $47.1 billion on the war since the launch of “Operation Epic Fury” on February 28. That includes approximately $29 billion to replenish expended missiles, interceptors, and other precision-guided weapons; roughly $11.9 billion for daily military operations; and another $6.1 billion to replace lost aircraft, drones, and other military hardware. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the war continues to cost between $2 billion and $3 billion per month in direct costs—to say nothing of the costs of higher fuel prices for the US economy.
So far, Trump has insisted that the war was necessary to ensure that Iran couldn’t build a nuclear weapon, but critics have noted that he previously promised that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” in strikes the previous year.
Speaking to reports on Wednesday—while showing off the now-under-construction White House ballroom, one of his signature projects—the president told reporters, “If I had it to do again, I’d have done it again.”
Hegseth’s “Crusader” Mentality Hasn’t Won Him Many Friends
Since he took charge of the Pentagon, Hegseth has also undertaken a cultural crusade to emphasize “warfighting” within the armed forces. It was primarily at his direction that the Trump administration renamed the Department of Defense to the “Department of War,” arguing that the military should focus on warriors rather than defenders.
As part of his call to return to a “warrior ethos,” Hegseth has also fired numerous career officers—typically women and racial minorities—who he felt did not fit that ethos. In addition to regularly working out with military personnel, he’s overseen efforts to remove grooming standard waivers, including for shaving—not getting the memo that throughout history many warrior cultures embraced the wearing of beards!
Yet Hegseth’s crusade hasn’t been just within the halls of the Pentagon. His 2020 book on how conservatives could win political victories against the left was literally named American Crusade. The secretary even sports prominent medieval-inspired tattoos, including the Jerusalem Cross and the words Deus Vult (God wills it), harkening back to the First Crusade to retake the city of Jerusalem from Muslim rule from 1096 to 1099. (Left unsaid is that the Muslims recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, and the Crusades ended in defeat by the late 13th century.)
This fascination with the Crusades hasn’t won Hegseth favor within the Pentagon. Recent surveys indicate that most servicemembers oppose Hegseth’s leadership generally, and in particular his obsession with “warfighting.” Moreover, critics and multiple civil rights groups—including the Military Religious Freedom Foundation—have documented hundreds of complaints from troops alleging that Hegseth has framed active military engagements, such as conflicts involving Iran, through a Christian millennarian lens, effectively blending church and state inside the armed forces in ways long considered taboo. In July, he cut the list of recognized religions inside the armed forces from around 200 to 31 and narrowly defined “Christianity” to exclude some denominations. In October, he announced the new Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs, which reports directly to him.
Here’s How Hegseth Might Get Impeached
Hegseth has a number of potential threats facing him over the course of the next year. First is Massie, who is not the only sitting Republican lawmaker gunning for him. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina also told CBS News that a “reckoning” is coming for the Secretary of Defense, and with it the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget request.
“I think after the election, we need to determine whether or not he’s the best person to bring those needs to Congress if he wants something done before the end of this Congress, which is only 60 days away,” Tillis suggested.
In defending the impeachment, Massie also made a more cogent point to the Trump administration: if Trump wants to change secretaries, he has only 60 days to do it under a Republican-controlled Senate. After January 3, it will be far harder for the president to get anyone he likes through a Democratic Senate.
If Hegseth does remain at his post into the New Year, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives may opt to impeach him for many of the same reasons Massie espoused.
The tricky part is that in order to actually remove Hegseth from office, Hegseth’s challengers would need to whip up 67 votes in the United States Senate. They are on track to secure between 54 and 56 seats after the midterms, meaning they would need at least 11 Republicans to back them up even in a best-case scenario.
It is not inconceivable that the Democrats could find Republicans like Massie who are opposed to Hegseth’s leadership. One lawmaker they cannot rely on will be Tillis, who is also leaving in January. They might have better luck with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), another libertarian Republican who has repeatedly clashed with Hegseth.
Much will depend on how Trump reacts to the impeachment process. If he aggressively signals that Republicans should back Hegseth, they will almost certainly line up behind him, making a conviction impossible. But if Trump determines that Hegseth is a liability, he could leave it up to Republicans to make their own decisions on the secretary’s fate.
Whatever happens, Hegseth will need more than a warrior ethos to fight his way out of his current predicament.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. He has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines, and websites over a 30-year career in journalism, including Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author at Editor@nationalinterest.org.
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