U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday dismissed the impeachment drive against him as "a farce that will fail," hours before the House of Representatives was due to take its first vote on the effort.
Hegseth spoke at his first Pentagon news conference since May, a day after Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, filed eight articles of impeachment against him as a privileged resolution, forcing the House to act within two legislative days.
"This is not patriotism. This is sabotage," Hegseth said, adding that attempts to impeach President Donald Trump had failed before. "They will fail again."
Defending the war with Iran, he added: "I stand beside every one of these operations. I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow."
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon in April 2025. Photo: U.S. Department of Defense, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
What the eight articles allege
Three of the eight articles relate to the war with Iran, which the United States opened alongside Israel on February 28. Massie accuses Hegseth of directing and sustaining military action beyond the 60-day limit set by the War Powers Resolution of 1973 without a formal declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force from Congress.
A fourth Iran-related article accuses Hegseth of ignoring laws requiring U.S. forces to minimize civilian casualties. It centers on the February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab, on the first day of the conflict, which reports say killed at least 168 people, most of them children.
Two articles concern Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, was removed by U.S. forces in January 2026. Hegseth is accused of directing the seizure of a sovereign foreign leader and authorizing lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed more than 220 people.
The remaining articles cover the 2025 U.S. and British air and naval campaign against Houthi fighters in Yemen, known as Operation Rough Rider, and the alleged suppression of free speech. The charges are allegations in a political charging document, not findings by a court, a military tribunal or an inspector general, and Hegseth has not been charged with any crime.
A vote forced by a lame-duck Republican
Massie first filed the articles in September, when Speaker Mike Johnson ended the House session early before the midterm elections and no vote took place. He returned to the House floor on Monday, the first day of sessions after the elections, and read the articles aloud before filing them again.
Under House rules, the privileged resolution forces the chamber's leadership to act within two legislative days: table the measure, send it to committee, or allow a floor vote. Massie said on X that the House would hold a first vote on Tuesday on a procedural motion to kill the resolution. "If we can overcome that effort, we will proceed to a real debate and vote on the Articles of Impeachment," he wrote.
Massie, who lost his primary in May to a Trump-backed challenger, leaves Congress in January. He has said the one thing that would stop him bringing the articles back is Hegseth's resignation.
President Trump has rejected the effort, telling reporters that Hegseth had "won two wars" in Venezuela and Iran and that he would stand by him, while calling Massie a "stone cold loser." Hegseth has called Massie a disgruntled, defeated congressman and the articles a sham.
The arithmetic — and the politics behind it
Impeachment requires only a simple majority in the House. With Democrats expected to vote as a bloc, three Republican defections would be enough to pass the resolution, according to ABC News. Conviction in the Senate would require two-thirds of the chamber, where Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats, making removal unlikely.
The push follows heavy Republican losses in the November 3 midterm elections, which many in the party — including Vice President JD Vance — have blamed on the Iran war and its effect on fuel prices. An Associated Press voter poll found about six in ten voters judged the decision to take military action against Iran to be the wrong one.
Democrats won their largest majorities in the Senate and House since at least 2008 in the midterms, according to Reuters, and will take power when the new Congress is sworn in on January 3. A separate Democratic impeachment effort against Hegseth, six articles introduced in April by Representative Yassamin Ansari, remains distinct from Massie's resolution.
What happens next depends on Tuesday's procedural vote. If the motion to kill the resolution fails, the House would move toward a debate and a vote on the articles themselves, possibly as soon as Wednesday — putting every member of the outgoing Republican majority on the record over the Pentagon chief and the war.
Sources: Reuters, Associated Press, USA Today.