Republicans quickly turn against Pete Hegseth after midterms rout

President Donald Trump may have made the decision to launch the war that tanked voters’ support for the GOP and dealt them a midterm shellacking. But the historic losses are accelerating a push for someone else to take the fall: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

And the House could vote as soon as next week to impeach the Pentagon’s top leader.

Many Republican lawmakers and allies alarmed by Tuesday’s wipeout are moving swiftly to pin blame for the election results on Hegseth, arguing behind the scenes that he played a chief role in convincing Trump to attack Iran with no exit strategy — and no plan for managing the inevitable political fallout.

The knives-out campaign comes despite private acknowledgement from House and Senate GOP strategists that the party’s problems extended far beyond the war, triggering 2008-level losses that will take years to reverse. But for now, party leaders – and many in their ranks – remain unwilling to directly blame Trump for their woes.

Even among House Republicans who survived Tuesday’s onslaught, there’s zero expectation they will suddenly break from the president with two years left in his term. Yet that fealty does not extend to Hegseth, the combative defense secretary who has made few friends on Capitol Hill since taking over command of the Pentagon.

House Republicans are expected to vote to directly repudiate the defense secretary in a matter of days. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the famously anti-Trump GOP lawmaker, told CNN he plans to trigger a vote to impeach Hegseth when Congress returns next week — and multiple GOP sources said they expect it to pass.

Rep. Thomas Massie speaks to reporters after delivering a speech introducing a proposal to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, to the House of Representatives on September 16.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Hegseth, a vocal cheerleader for the war, oversold the US’ ability to win the conflict quickly and easily, multiple Republicans argued to CNN, describing on condition of anonymity why many in their party are now turning against the defense secretary. They accused him of continuing to advocate for escalation despite little sign that continued bombing has brought Iran closer to surrender.

The conflict has since turned into a quagmire, they said, entangling the US in the Middle East indefinitely, worsening the affordability crisis, and triggering voters’ midterm revolt against the GOP. On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance issued an extraordinary statement that “the reason we lost is the war,” though he did not assign any specific blame for the conflict.

“The pivot is starting” on the war and Hegseth, a former senior Pentagon official said. “This has been primarily a Department of War-led effort because you chose to take military action to resolve a foreign policy matter.”

Still, despite efforts around him to turn up the heat on Hegseth, Trump’s own confidence in his defense secretary hasn’t yet wavered even as he’s continued to survey allies about his performance, multiple White House officials told CNN.

Trump personally likes Hegseth, and has told aides that he believes he should fight back against efforts to impeach him or launch investigations into his decision-making.

“Just two days ago the president was in the room with him, telling him, ‘You’re my best guy. You’re the best guy I have,’” one of the officials said.

Trump may also feel an additional need to keep Hegseth around if he chooses to move forward with additional strikes against Iran, another source familiar with his thinking told CNN, especially with Democrats’ new majority in the Senate likely to complicate any administration efforts to confirm new Cabinet appointees.

Pressed Wednesday on Hegseth’s job status, Trump defended the war effort and denied any plans to fire him, saying he thought the defense secretary was “doing a very good job.”

“If I had it to do again, I’d have to do it again,” Trump said of his decision to go to war.

In an interview with ABC, the president later acknowledged receiving calls from allies unhappy with Hegseth, but brushed off the complaints and vowed to keep him on.

This video screenshot shows a monitor aboard the USS George Washington, displaying a camera feed of a fighter jet landing on the aircraft carrier's deck in the Arabian Sea, on September 13. The aircraft carrier was enforcing a US naval blockade against Iran.
Ed Ou/Reuters

The White House also decried the prospect of Democratic investigations into the Pentagon, with spokeswoman Lauren Bis arguing in a statement that “if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people.”

But some Republicans feel it may be only a matter of time before Trump looks for someone to blame for the midterm losses, and they view Hegseth as an obvious target.

“If the president is serious about anyone taking responsibility for it, it’s Pete Hegseth,” one Republican close to the White House said of the electoral thrashing. “Pete has been either dishonest or incorrect — neither of which are acceptable — about timelines, goals and objectives since the beginning.”

Trump has not yet signaled plans to fire any top officials. But in the aftermath of the GOP’s midterm drubbing, allies and advisers widely expect him to eventually oversee some level of changes within the administration.

Within Trump’s orbit, some have seized on Hegseth’s likely impeachment as additional justification for making him the fall guy in the wake of an embarrassing rebuke of Trump’s presidency — contending that he’s bound to become a central target of Democrats’ ire over the war anyway.

Hegseth, for his part, has been defiant about his ability to withstand the forthcoming wave of congressional scrutiny.

While he has at times discussed his potential future ambitions with allies — including possibly running for office in Tennessee — those closest to Trump don’t believe that’s an immediate goal of his, people familiar with the discussions said. (Some Republicans on the Hill, in the meantime, privately bristle at the prospect of Hegseth serving in Congress.)

In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s midterm election results, one person close to Hegseth told CNN that Trump’s defense secretary still expects to stay in his role and is prepared to fight an impeachment effort.

Hegseth has also communicated to the White House that he’s prepared to own every policy decision and action taken by the Pentagon, the person said, believing that he’s well-equipped to defend those moves in public hearings that would likely grow contentious if Democrats launch them after they take control of Congress in January.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks offstage after presenting President Donald Trump during an event at Sparrows Point Shipyard, in Baltimore County, Maryland, on October 6.
Eric Lee/Reuters

In a statement, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said that Hegseth “will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score partisan points or launch phony investigations where no wrongdoing exists.”

“We will continue to drive President Trump’s agenda at the Department of War — despite threats of sham witch hunts from Democrats — and Secretary Hegseth is 100% committed to leading the Department until the end of President Trump’s term in office,” Parnell said.

Yet once that congressional scrutiny ramps up, Trump advisers and allies have questioned how long Hegseth’s resolve might last. Even before Tuesday, several White House officials, members of the president’s political operation and Trump allies candidly acknowledged the Iran war was — in their view — their biggest liability for the midterms. And Hegseth, one of the biggest proponents of military action in Iran, is intrinsically linked to that liability, they added.

“I think he probably knows he’s dead but would like an exit sufficiently dramatic that it gives him a launching pad to run for POTUS,” one administration official said.

For skeptics of the administration’s open-ended war in Iran, successfully pushing Hegseth out of the Pentagon would mark a critical victory — but only the first step in a broader effort to bring the fight to an end.

After all, Massie noted, Trump has continued to argue for continuing the war in Iran, no matter the political and economic price paid at home.

“You don’t screw up this badly an election with just one issue,” Massie said. “It was completely avoidable if they’d just broken out of the cultish following of Donald Trump.”