‘Knives out’: Will Congress impeach Pete Hegseth after GOP midterms loss?

The Republican Party’s stunning defeat in the United States midterm elections on Tuesday has prompted calls from within the Trump administration and from its critics for accountability over a focus of voter discontent: the US-Israel war on Iran.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears to have emerged as a central target of those demands since the Democrats’ sweeping victory, in which they won control of both chambers of Congress.

Some Republican lawmakers and other critics have argued that the Pentagon chief played a leading role in convincing US President Donald Trump to attack Iran with no exit strategy.

On Wednesday, Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky who has repeatedly locked horns with Trump and his aides, called on Hegseth to resign. An impeachment vote in the House could come as soon as next week.

If that happens, Hegseth’s fate would be decided by a Congress still dominated by the Republicans, with new members elected this week only taking office in January. But some reports suggest that Republican lawmakers are increasingly inclined to push Hegseth out of the Pentagon.

Trump, who has described the defense secretary as a champion of the Iran war, told reporters on Wednesday that he was not considering replacing him. “I think he’s doing a very good job,” the president said.

The Republican congressman filed eight impeachment accusations in September against Hegseth.

In an interview with CNN, he said he plans to trigger a vote when Congress returns next week. The US news outlet said multiple Republican sources said they expect it to pass.

Massie lost his Republican House primary in May and only has the current session of Congress to pursue the impeachment.

He argued that Hegseth’s “constitutional violations extend beyond the illegal war in Iran.”

“He is abusing the power of his office to ignore congressional war powers resolutions, to kidnap foreign leaders and to intimidate critics of the Trump administration by retaliating against them for exercising free speech,” Massie said.

In January, the US abducted then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought them to New York to face trial on charges including drug trafficking — accusations they deny. Venezuela has since effectively been a US protectorate, with its economy and unmatched oil reserves controlled from Washington.

Massie, who lost to a primary challenger backed by the president, has long been at odds with Trump.

Aside from being critical of the war on Iran, he has denounced the president’s military support for Israel, pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and voted against Trump’s signature tax legislation.

Many Republicans remain unwilling to directly blame Trump for the midterm defeat, yet they recognise the war in Iran as the main reason for the electoral wipeout.

While not pinning blame on anyone, Vice President JD Vance conceded that “the reason we lost is the war.”

“Any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there,” he said.

Hegseth, one of the biggest proponents of military action in Iran, is seen by many as having played a pivotal role in convincing the president to enter a conflict that worsened the affordability crisis and consumed expensive US munitions.

“You can already see the knives out for Secretary Hegseth,” Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis said Hegseth would face “a reckoning” in the post-election “lame duck” Congress and claimed Trump would not be able to get the necessary Pentagon funding if he remains in his job.

“I think after the election, we need to determine whether or not he’s the best person to bring those needs to Congress, if he wants something done before the end of this Congress, which is only 60 days away,” the North Carolina senator said, according to US media.

Tillis, who in January 2025 backed Hegseth’s confirmation, said that vote was the “biggest regret of my career”. Last month, he urged Trump to fire him for his “inept management of the brave men”.

CNN quoted Republican Party sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, who said that Hegseth oversold US ability to overpower Iran and continued to advocate for escalation, even when it was clear that military force would not bring Tehran’s government to surrender.

An impeachment vote needs only a simple majority to pass in the House of Representatives. The Democrats currently have 214 members in the chamber, and would need just a few Republicans to back Massie’s motion to reach the 218 votes needed to secure a majority.

If the vote takes place after the new House takes shape in January, Democrats will not need any Republican support: The party is on track to amass the largest majority since at least the 2008 election, with 240 seats confirmed so far and more on the way.

But an impeachment in the House would need to be approved by a two-thirds majority in the Senate to force Hegseth out.

The Democrats are currently in a minority in the Senate, and even in the new Congress, will have a maximum of 56 seats out of 100. That means they would need at least 11 Republicans to join them to secure the 67 votes needed for the two-thirds majority.

That threshold explains why Trump, twice impeached by the House, was acquitted by the Senate in both cases. That is also why the only two cabinet secretaries ever impeached by the House — William Belknap in 1876 and Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024 — were both subsequently acquitted by the Senate.

But analysts say that regardless of what happens with the Massie impeachment motion, pressure on Hegseth to quit will likely grow — including from within the Republican Party.

Richard Johnson, a senior lecturer in politics at the Queen Mary University of London, said the poor Republican showing in the midterms may push those with party leadership ambitions to eventually portray themselves as “more MAGA than Trump”. Ending and avoiding foreign wars has been a central pillar of the Make America Great Again movement that Trump built.

Such candidates would argue that Trump and his inner circle had succumbed to the US “deep state” on the question of Iran, Johnson said, “betraying the promise of no new wars and pushing up the cost of living for ordinary Americans”.

As a result, Johnson added, Republicans may not opt for a more “establishment” candidate going forward but for a more anti-establishment choice.

In the meantime, they might seek to distance themselves from the war — as Vance is already trying to do.