WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Tuesday turned aside a resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, halting an effort to remove the Pentagon chief for his conduct in office and his handling of the war in Iran.
The vote came as Republicans grapple with the fallout from sweeping midterm losses that some in the party have blamed on the war in Iran and the resulting surge in gas prices. But after President Donald Trump signaled strong support for Hegseth, GOP lawmakers largely stood by the secretary Tuesday. They rejected the impeachment effort led by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie and backed by Democrats.
The vote may only delay an impeachment push against Hegseth, with Democrats set to take control of the House and Senate in January.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to become the next speaker when Democrats take charge in January, stood firmly behind the push, saying Hegseth has “abused his power” and “undermined America’s national security.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer endorsed Hegseth’s impeachment as well.
Hegseth rebuked the effort Tuesday in his first news conference in months, portraying Massie as a rogue lawmaker and arguing he had committed none of the high crimes required in the Constitution for his removal. He framed the effort as an indictment against the nation’s service members and their successes and said it was undermining American forces “in real time.”
“This is not patriotism,” Hegseth said. “This is sabotage.”
Yeah, impeachment failed in part because Hakeem Jeffries couldn’t even be bothered to whip the vote.
For those who don’t know what that means, to whip the vote is to go around all your party members, make sure you know how they’re going to vote, nudge any stragglers into line if you can, and make sure they all know when the vote is scheduled so they can actually be there.
That’s where the name “whip” comes from: the party whip literally goes around and does whatever they have to do to get the vote of their party’s members on a specific bill, almost as if with a physical whip, like corralling horses or herding cattle to get them where they need to be and vote.
To do this is one of Jeffries’ main responsibilities as current minority leader, it’s done on every important bill, and he doesn’t even have to do the leg work himself: he has actual appointed whips that do it for him. If you’re a Speaker and you don’t care about this bill, or worse, you actively want this bill to fail because you could not prevent it from coming to a vote, you don’t bother to whip. It’s kind of a soft sabotage.
And Jeffries couldn’t be bothered to whip the vote to impeach Hegseth on actual war crimes. He told the House Dems, “Vote your conscience,” and then just dropped it. All the Dems who did vote got themselves there because they cared about it enough to do so. There is at least one who was not present because of illness, and I understand another tried but didn’t make it because of an unforeseen traffic problem: the vote closed before they could get there. But the rest? Hell, it wasn’t even important enough for Jeffries to whip, why would they bother?
This apathetic turnout vote is another perfect demonstration of WHY HAKEEM JEFFRIES NEEDS TO GO.
House Republicans quash effort to impeach Defense Secretary Hegseth
Editorialized title. They couldn’t have done so without the help of Democrats:
The Republican-controlled House voted 211-204
The 11 Democrats recorded as not voting were Julia Brownley, Lou Correa and Nancy Pelosi of California; Laura Gillen of New York; Steven Horsford of Nevada; Jonathan Jackson of Illinois; Brittany Pettersen of Colorado; Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico; Haley Stevens of Michigan; Marilyn Strickland of Washington; and Frederica Wilson of Florida.
Edit: To be fair, the time slot was short, which Rs had in their hands as they chose a priviledged resolution.
Thank god the blue wave was big enough to hopefully render hacks like these* powerless. The fact that Schumer and Pelosi always place themselves firmly on the wrong side of history tells us all we need to know about Democrat leadership.
*edit to clarify that there could be valid reasons for not making it, but that’s not the case for all of them. Pelosi and Stevens are obvious examples of people who do not belong anywhere near power.
Edit edit: Here are some reasons for not making the vote. Many valid. The fact that Pelosi is too busy harvesting rewards to actually be there and do her job is, however, questionable. https://mastodon.social/@randahl/117596857937113573
And this is why people in Canada aren’t looking to be friends with 'Merica again, same shit different day.
Different party, same people though
To be fair, they jumped the gun big time on this and the new progressive people we elected aren’t in office until January. A Republican pushed this impeachment now specifically as a propaganda tactic so people would get confused and think the new Democrats we elected are just as bad as the old ones when this inevitably failed.
This was filed by a republican before the elections but was pushed back by another republican so that the vote happened in a new session that started after the elections. Them republicans voted against it and killed it. Nobody “jumped the gun”.
Filing the articles of impeachment while the majority still clearly would not support it, whether before the election or after, sounds 100% like jumping the gun to me
Thomas Massie was trying to impeach him before the midterms. While I might not have the same morals as Thomas massie I do feel like he stands by what he believes in.
Fucking pussies.
Might as well hang this one up. Now that we see, once again every Republican is going to line up to suck Trump’s dick, it won’t get past the Senate in January.
Don’t care. Get their treachery on the record. They’re just racking up more reasons why they don’t deserve power.
For real. This was one last chance to not be on the wrong side of history, at least not completely. And they made their choice
Their plan is to never relinquish power. Then they can write history. The donors will surely open their wallets wide to bribe enough of the new coming congress to betray their constituents.
Exactly, I feel like in the past people really haven’t followed this much. These days I absolutely feel like they are catching on and seeing these decisions finally and holding them more accountable… finally! Time will tell I guess.
They make it sound like it wasn’t on purpose.
Do we have a cross compare list of the republicans that voted no to the ones that were voted out?
