Jeffries Is a ‘Hard Yes’ on Impeaching Hegseth This Week. Hegseth Fires Back: ‘Sham Articles of Impeachment.’

Democrats haven’t been sworn in yet, and they already know who they want to take down first.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, on track to become Speaker in January, told ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Sunday’s “This Week” that he will vote to impeach War Secretary Pete Hegseth. “I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” Jeffries said. “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, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe. Pete Hegseth has got to go.”

Asked if every Democrat would follow, Jeffries said they’d “have that conversation on Tuesday morning when we reconvene,” but he believes “there will be incredibly strong support.” He then posted the clip himself with five words: “Hard Yes on the Hegseth impeachment resolution.”

Notice the “so-called.” Since last year the administration has called Hegseth the Secretary of War and his department the Department of War. The top Democrat in the House won’t even say the title.

Whose resolution this is

The articles aren’t a Democrat’s. They belong to Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who lost his primary this year to a Trump-endorsed challenger and is serving out his final weeks. Karl said on air that Massie told him he plans to introduce the resolution “as soon as tomorrow.” Massie told Roll Call last month it would be a “week one” item when the House came back for the lame-duck session.

Massie has already said what would stop him. “There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment: Hegseth resigns,” he posted the day after the election. A day later he went further: “If Trump’s going to replace appointees like Hegseth, he should do it while he can still get the replacements confirmed in the Senate. Also, my Hegseth impeachment resolution is a much gentler version of what’s coming when Dem’s control Congress. They’ll have hearings & trials.”

What the eight articles say

Massie first read his 34-page resolution on the House floor in September, for more than an hour. The full text lays out eight articles. Each is an accusation, and none has been tested in a hearing or a trial:

Articles I, II and III say Hegseth waged the Iran war in violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution: starting it without a declaration of war, ignoring House Concurrent Resolution 86 (which the House passed June 3 and the Senate June 23, ordering troops out of hostilities with Iran), and running past the law’s 60-day clock. Article IV says he gutted Pentagon programs meant to limit civilian deaths and quotes his line “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.” Article V calls the strikes on drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific “extrajudicial killings.” Article VI accuses him of retaliating against Sen. Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat who told troops in a November 2025 video they could refuse illegal orders. Article VII calls the January capture of Nicolás Maduro a “kidnapping of a sovereign foreign leader.” Article VIII covers the 2025 strikes on Yemen’s Houthis.

Read the list again. Most of it is a fight over whether the commander in chief can hit Iran, cartel boats, Maduro and the Houthis without asking Congress first. That’s a policy argument presidents of both parties have had with Congress for half a century, now aimed at one Cabinet member.

Hegseth: ‘It won’t work with me’

Hegseth answered two days after the election in a nearly six-minute video recorded on the steps of the Pentagon, under the “Department of War” sign. He walked through his record (DEI ripped out, recruiting “revived to historic levels,” deterrence restored), then turned to the impeachment push.

“A disgruntled defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly, just like they tried against President Trump twice,” Hegseth said. “It’s all about the politics of personal destruction. Didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me.” His message to the troops: “Don’t blink, ignore the noise, never hesitate.”

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told Axios that Hegseth “will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score partisan points or launch phony investigations where no wrongdoing exists,” and that he is “100% committed to leading the Department until the end of President Trump’s term in office.”

President Trump is standing behind him. “I have every intention to keep him,” he told Karl on Thursday. “I get these calls, you know, about him. I don’t understand why.” Asked about Massie, Trump said: “Massie is a guy who is very destructive and is a very bad guy.”

How the vote works

Massie is using a shortcut in House rules called a question of the privileges of the House. It lets him skip the committee line and force the issue without the Speaker’s permission. Once he gives notice, leaders have two legislative days to bring it up.

That doesn’t mean the House ever votes on the charges. Any member can move to “table” the resolution, a no-debate motion that kills it with a simple majority. That’s the vote to watch. Until Jan. 3, Republicans still hold the House, so impeachment only happens if enough Republicans, many of them heading home after losing on Tuesday, cross over and join Democrats. Axios reported Sunday that GOP leaders are bracing for exactly that.

Even if it passes, the Senate decides

Think of a House impeachment as an indictment. The trial is in the Senate, and removal takes two-thirds of the senators present, per Article I of the Constitution. That bar would be hard to clear even after Democrats take the Senate in January.

The House has impeached a Cabinet secretary only twice: War Secretary William Belknap in 1876, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024, by a single vote, 214 to 213, over the border. The Senate threw out the Mayorkas articles without a trial. Senate Democrats voted that those charges didn’t rise to a high crime or misdemeanor. This week they get to decide whether the same rule applies when the target is Trump’s war secretary.

What happens next

Watch for Massie’s notice on the floor Monday or Tuesday, then the motion to table. If it fails, the full House votes on impeachment itself. If Hegseth is still in the job come January, Massie has already said what to expect: hearings and trials from a Democratic majority that, by Jeffries’ own words, has made Hegseth job one.