House Republicans thwart Massie's effort to impeach Hegseth

Roxana Tiron and Erik Wasson, Bloomberg News on Nov 10, 2026

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WASHINGTON — House Republicans blocked the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for U.S. military actions in the Middle East and Latin America, effectively killing the effort until Democrats take over Congress in January.

GOP leaders forced a procedural vote to block quick consideration of the impeachment measure introduced on Monday by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. That procedural step, which sends the measure to the Judiciary Committee where it’s expected to languish, passed 211-204.

President Donald Trump hailed the vote, saying in a social media post that Democrats and Massie had “miserably FAILED!” in their attempt to oust Hegseth. He added that the House’s action amounted to the “EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot.”

Massie accused Hegseth of waging the Iran war without congressional authorization, committing extrajudicial killings through strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, ignoring laws designed to minimize civilian casualties including with a strike on an Iranian school, and unlawfully kidnapping Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.

Massie has regularly sparred with the president and lost his Republican primary to a Trump-backed candidate earlier this year.

Hegseth called a rare Pentagon news conference early Tuesday and cast the impeachment motion as a politicized attack on U.S. troops and on lawful military operations ordered by Trump. The president has repeatedly offered support for Hegseth, signaling that the beleagured defense secretary’s job was safe for now.

“The reality is, we’re not indicting him for being bad at his job. In fact, he was very effective at killing school children in Iran,” Massie told reporters Monday. “He was very effective at extrajudicial killings. There’s no argument in these impeachment articles that he’s ineffective. The argument here is that he’s broken laws, and he’s violated the Constitution. And so, that’s the question put in front of my colleagues.”

Hegseth has been the Trump administration’s most prominent and enthusiastic cheerleader for the unpopular conflict in Iran, which spiked energy prices, fueled global inflation and eventually doomed Republicans in the midterm vote on Nov. 3.

Hegseth’s tenure has also been marked by his pushing out high-ranking officers, rhetorical attacks on “woke” diversity initiatives and transgender troops, as well as the rapid depletion of key munitions as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.

He’s also irritated key members of Congress with his lack of transparency about the progress of the war, its cost and its casualties.

Yet Hegseth was aided by a surprising number of Democratic absences — 11 in all. Had they all voted, and joined the rest of the party against him, the outcome would have been different.

Democrats will have the option to start the impeachment process all over again when they hold the majorities in both chambers next year. Whether they will have the necessary two-thirds of the Senate to convict him remains a question.