The thorny politics of impeaching Pete Hegseth

Congress is already set for its first big legislative clash after Democrats’ historic win in last week’s elections: the potential impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

But as is often the case with impeachment, the issue is a thorny one for both sides.

Democrats, who are riding high after the midterms, are launching headlong into a major fight with the Trump administration with undetermined results.

The articles of impeachment, however, are coming from the Republican side: GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky is triggering a vote early this week. But Democratic Party leaders including the speaker-in-waiting, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have signaled their support.

So how could this pan out for both sides? Let’s examine.

How impeachment could be politically beneficial for Democrats

For the ascendant blue side, the fight makes a lot of political sense — at least on its surface.

The Iran war is a major reason Democrats won the 2026 midterms. And the political pressure that comes from an impeachment effort would seem to be a way to seek some accountability and possibly bring about a change in course from the Trump administration.

There will likely be enough votes to impeach Hegseth, which only requires a majority of the House. As long as all Democrats, Massie and a small handful of Republicans are on board (which GOP leaders seem to think is likely), Hegseth will be impeached.

But it’s very unlikely the effort would ever clear the much higher threshold for convicting and removing Hegseth from office — which requires two-thirds of the Senate (and would need about 20 Republicans.) But perhaps, Democrats hope, the exercise could force Trump to fire Hegseth or at least push the administration to account for the war in ways it simply hasn’t yet.

(The Trump administration has offered extremely confusing signals, for instance, about its justifications and goals for the war.)

Impeaching Hegseth could also help Democrats avoid the much more hot-button and risky proposition of impeaching President Donald Trump, which party leaders have made clear that they don’t think is a good idea right now. Impeaching Hegseth would be real action those leaders could point to as evidence they’re fighting Trump, in case the base doubts Jeffries and likely new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have the stomach for that.

Hegseth also makes an attractive target because he has little public support. A CNN poll in September showed Americans disapproved of him by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, 66%-34%. Even 27% of Republicans disapproved. And a Quinnipiac University poll around the same time showed just 56% of Republicans said they were “very confident” in Hegseth’s leadership of the military.

And lastly, there is real potential benefit for Democrats in pursuing an issue that appears to be dividing Republicans.

GOP Rep. French Hill of Arkansas — who just won his reelection race by a surprisingly tight margin — has signaled openness to potentially impeaching Hegseth, as has outgoing GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska. And last week, GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky — who comes from a district Trump won by 47 points — said repeatedly that Hegseth has explaining to do.

Impeaching Hegseth could cleave Republicans between those who worry about the political impact of the Iran war and want a change in course, and those who are firmly in Trump’s camp of not wanting to give an inch to Democrats.

Trump said late Sunday that Hegseth was only “guilty of winning two wars.”

How impeachment could hurt Democrats

The flipside for Democrats, though, is that impeachments can be fraught.

First of all, they’re following the lead of Massie, a defeated GOP congressman whose political interests might or might not fully align with theirs.

Massie, who lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger, has laid out eight articles of impeachment. But they’re not always the same ones Democrats highlight. Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, for example, is focusing on Hegseth’s treatment of women and Black military personnel, which isn’t among Massie’s eight articles. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware told CNN that the impeachment effort is about “inadequate consultation” with Congress, the American people and with US allies. And Jeffries on ABC’s “This Week” cited how Hegseth “engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran.” But as unpopular as the Iran war is, that’s not a traditional ground for impeachment.

Almost no Democrats are talking about the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro or US intervention in Yemen, which are included in Massie’s articles.

And why aren’t Democrats waiting until January, when they’ll have an apparently historic majority, so that can control the process more?

The risk for Democrats now is that the resulting debate could be less focused than they might want it to be.

And lastly, impeaching Hegseth could leave the base less satiated than Democratic leaders might think.

What if the effort fails to remove him? It could just whet the base’s appetitive for more significant action.

Trump is likely to do a bevy of things that will make some in the Democratic base want to impeach the president again. But Democrats will have slammed the impeachment button rather early in their new era and may be hard-pressed not to also do it with Trump, regardless of the political wisdom of that.

How impeachment could hurt Republicans

Impeaching Hegseth would force Republicans into some uncomfortable positions — largely because the administration has simply avoided accountability on the war.

Not only did it not seek congressional approval, but Trump and Hegseth never really made an extensive case for the war ahead of time. And they stopped holding press briefings on the topic very early on.

The administration has never done a good job of explaining itself — in large part because congressional Republicans never demanded it — and now it would be forced to do so in a high-profile way that could make all of them look worse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson seemed to want no part of a Hegseth impeachment vote ahead of the midterm election, recessing the House before Massie could force it. (Of course, Johnson denied that was the reason.)

The impeachment effort could also up the pressure on Trump to fire Hegseth. Some in the party appear to want that outcome — they’re basically suggesting the administration would do well to get rid of him and avoid a drawn-out impeachment process. But it’s pretty evident Trump is going to resist getting rid of his defense secretary for fear of looking like he’s caving to Democrats.

How impeachment could benefit Republicans

But there are also some potential upsides for the GOP.

By targeting Hegseth rather than Trump, the impeachment effort could give Republicans a scapegoat — when, in fact, it’s clear Trump was responsible for the war and the various other things Massie is targeting.

Whenever Republicans don’t like what’s happening in the administration, they tend to blame Trump’s advisers rather than the most powerful man in the world. And here, one could argue, Democrats are assisting them in focusing blame on someone else.

There is also, as always with impeachment, the real prospect of overreach — which could play into the GOP’s hands.

The idea that House Democrats overreached with their two impeachments of Trump in his first term — which both appeared to have strong public support — is somewhat overblown. Trump lost the 2020 election after his first impeachment, after all. It wasn’t like 1998, when Americans balked at the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and the impeaching party appeared to suffer because of it.

Americans might never care quite as much about the propriety of impeaching Hegseth. But Republicans could argue that Democrats are going too far by trying to remove him for a disparate and inconsistent set of alleged high crimes and misdemeanors that basically amounts to a political disagreement.

And perhaps that could give Republicans a sudden sense of unity — at a time when they could really use it.