The House is back today, and the first fight of the outgoing Congress’s post-election session has a name on it. Rep. Thomas Massie plans to force a Hegseth impeachment vote this week, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he is a “hard yes.” With Democrats fresh off a midterm landslide, the votes may finally be there to impeach a sitting Defense Secretary.
Massie has a real point about the war. But impeachment is the wrong tool, and Pete Hegseth is the wrong target. The Iran war has run more than eight months without a congressional authorization, and the White House’s war funding request has stalled. Removing one Cabinet officer changes none of that. Only Congress can.
What Happens This Week
Massie, a Kentucky Republican who lost his primary earlier this year, first read his articles on the House floor on Sept. 15. Leadership canceled the planned votes, and the House left town early to campaign. Now he says he will raise the resolution again as early as Monday. Because it is a privileged resolution, ABC News reports, leaders must schedule a vote within two legislative days. That points to a showdown by midweek.
Republicans still run this House until Jan. 3, and dozens of members are on their way out. Leaders could move to table the resolution, which kills it without a vote on the articles. As of Monday morning, though, Punchbowl News reported that the House looks poised to impeach.
Jeffries made his case on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security, and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran,” he said. “Pete Hegseth has got to go.” He said House Democrats will discuss it Tuesday morning.
Hegseth, for his part, is not backing down. In a video last week he called Massie “a disgruntled, defeated congressman” and dismissed the effort as “sham articles of impeachment.” President Trump backed him on 60 Minutes Sunday night. Trump said he still has confidence in Hegseth and called the push “very unfair.” He also said he expects “a few changes” to his team, which began with Stephen Miller replacing Susie Wiles.
What the Hegseth Impeachment Articles Actually Say
It is worth reading the document instead of the headlines. The full text is in the Congressional Record for Sept. 15. There are eight articles:
- Articles I-III: violations of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 in Iran. The war was unlawful from the start, the articles say. Hostilities continued after both chambers directed withdrawal, and they ran past the law’s 60-day limit.
- Article IV: failure to minimize civilian casualties.
- Article V: “extrajudicial” killing through lethal strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean.
- Article VI: retaliation against Sen. Mark Kelly over a video he made with other lawmakers.
- Article VII: the January operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, which the article calls kidnapping a foreign leader.
- Article VIII: unauthorized strikes in Yemen under Operation Rough Rider.
Notice what dominates. Most of the articles charge Hegseth with carrying out military operations the President ordered. The first three are about the Iran war itself. In other words, this is a fight over policy and war powers, framed as personal misconduct by the man who ran the Pentagon.
Massie Has the Constitution Right on War Powers
Conservatives should not wave this away. Article I gives Congress the power to declare war. The War Powers Resolution, passed over Richard Nixon’s veto, requires a president to end unauthorized hostilities within 60 days. Operation Epic Fury began Feb. 28, so that clock hit on May 1. The administration then argued that the April 7 ceasefire had “terminated” hostilities, even as the blockade and the Strait of Hormuz fight went on.
Congress did push back. The House passed H.Con.Res. 86, 215-208, on June 3. The Senate agreed, 50-48, on June 23. That concurrent resolution directed the President to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. However, it never went to the President’s desk, and concurrent resolutions are widely treated as non-binding. The war went on.
So Massie is right that the executive has stretched the law past its breaking point. That is a constitutional problem, and it would be one under a Democratic president too. Limited government means limits on war-making, not only on spending.
Why Hegseth Impeachment Is the Wrong Tool
Here is where the argument falls apart. The Secretary of Defense does not start wars. The Commander in Chief does. Even Trump, asked on 60 Minutes whether he credits Hegseth for the Venezuela operation, answered: “No. But he was a part of it.” If Hegseth left tomorrow, the next secretary would take the same orders, and the same war would go on.
Impeachment is meant for treason, bribery, and other high crimes. It is not meant to settle policy disputes. Only two Cabinet officers have ever been impeached: War Secretary William Belknap in 1876, over a bribery scheme, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024. The Mayorkas vote passed 214-213 over border policy. Then the Senate dismissed both articles without a trial. Many conservatives defended that impeachment. Consistency now requires admitting the obvious. Turning policy fights into impeachments cheapens the remedy for both sides, and Democrats will hold the gavel for at least two years.
The math says the same thing. Removal takes 67 senators, and no Cabinet officer has ever been convicted. A House vote this week would make a statement. It would not end a war or save a dollar. Meanwhile, it would hand Hegseth exactly the “politics of personal destruction” story he is already telling.
Congress Already Holds the Real Lever
If Congress wants this war to end, or to continue on firm legal ground, it has a better tool. It is the power of the purse, and the bill is already on the table.
In June, the White House asked for an $87.6 billion supplemental, with $67.1 billion for the Pentagon. The Center for Strategic and International Studies went through it line by line. Only about a third appears to be driven by the Iran war. Budget director Russ Vought told Congress the war had cost about $30 billion at that point. By CSIS’s reading, about $32.7 billion of the request covers war costs across all agencies.
The rest is a familiar Washington habit. There is $11.1 billion for crop and winter-storm aid. Another $1 billion would go to renovating Penn Station in New York, and $1 billion to nonmilitary pension plans. Even $600 million for federal building upkeep, elevator repair included, made the list. CSIS calls these “Christmas ornaments.” That is the term for items that failed in the regular budget and got hung on an emergency bill instead.
A fiscal conservative should not accept that, whatever he thinks of the war. Government funding runs out after Dec. 11. That deadline is the honest place to settle this question. Congress should vote openly on whether to authorize and fund the Iran war, and it should vote on war costs alone, stripped of unrelated spending.
The Vote Congress Keeps Dodging
Both parties have spent this year avoiding the hard vote. Congress has never passed an authorization for this war. Instead, it passed a resolution that bound no one. Now the conversation has jumped to impeachment, even as Democrats debate whether to use the Dec. 11 funding bill as leverage.
Voters noticed. Vice President JD Vance and others have blamed the war for part of the losses we tracked in our midterms week in review. Even House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Republican, told NewsNation on Friday, “We have no idea what the strategy is moving forward in Iran.” Even its supporters, like those who backed the Qeshm Island strikes, should want it on solid legal and financial footing.
Hegseth has made plenty of enemies, and some of the oversight questions around his Pentagon are fair. We asked the Pentagon to back up its claims after it fired Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia. Hearings can sort those out. But this war was never his to declare. It is Congress’s to authorize, or to defund. For that reason, a Hegseth impeachment vote would not decide whether Congress authorizes or funds the war. Instead, a Hegseth impeachment lets 435 members cast a symbolic vote against one man while they skip the vote the Constitution assigns to them. Make them vote on the war and the money, line by line, before Dec. 11.
Sources: ABC News on Jeffries and the Massie resolution; CBS News on Trump’s 60 Minutes interview; Congressional Record, Sept. 15, 2026 (articles of impeachment); Congress.gov, H.Con.Res. 86; CSIS on the $87.6 billion supplemental.
