Page A231From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 6 November 2026
As it ran on the front
Secretary Pete Hegseth's position has not moved since September, and neither has the video he keeps posting to defend it. On September 15, Representative Thomas Massie filed articles of impeachment, accusing Hegseth of an unlawful order to impose hostilities against Iran and of running the War Department on money Congress had not approved. Twelve days before that, Frank Kendall, who had run the Air Force until the previous year, told reporters the Pentagon under Hegseth had gone "dysfunctional." Separately, a former top Pentagon official has called him a war criminal who needs prosecution. Hegseth answered none of it.
By September 23, House Republican leaders had a scheduling problem, not a verdict. A vote on Massie's articles before the midterms would have put their most vulnerable members on record weeks before an election. So the vote waited.…
…(cont) The waiting got harder to defend on October 21, when Pentagon officials told reporters they were ready to "spill their guts" to Congress to help get Hegseth impeached. Five days later, Massie said he would move again the moment the House returned from the midterms, if Hegseth still held the job.
He did. On October 29, Hegseth fired the Pentagon's top military planner, the strategist who had been running Iran and Ukraine policy, over what the department described as leaks of classified information. The video said nothing about the firing. It repeated only one line: he will not back down.
On November 6, the midterms arrived, and the reckoning Massie had promised arrived with them. The New York Times reported a bipartisan impeachment push now stands between Hegseth and the rest of his term, with no vote date yet attached. The New York Post reported the date is closer than that: the House is preparing a potential vote as soon as next week, and Republicans who spent two months protecting Hegseth are now saying, on the record, that he is finished — one lawmaker put it as "he's screwed." France24 called his future "in question" after the midterm setback.
Hegseth's answer, again, is the same video. It was recorded before the firing. It was recorded before the officials who ran his own wars offered Congress their account. It was recorded before his own party started saying out loud what Massie filed in September.
“Two months ago it was "dysfunctional," then it was "war criminal," then his own party's guy filed the paperwork. The one thing that actually moved in that whole stretch was the Pentagon worker who offered to talk to Congress — fired, before they could testify. Hegseth didn't answer any of it, he just reran the tape, and that's the tell: when the only move left is the same video, you're not managing the war anymore, you're managing the exit.”
“The Secretary's record speaks for itself — decisive on Iran, zero tolerance for leakers, exactly the discipline this Pentagon needs after it went dysfunc— wait, that's not my word, that's Kendall's, strike that. He answers to the Commander-in-Chief, not to a House vote that can't possibly— actually the House is the one scheduling that vote for next week, so. The message is he won't back down. That's the whole message. We're very confident in the message.”
Earlier in this story
The receipts
The Pentagon has failed its audit eight years running - the only major federal agency never to pass one Military Times, 19 December 2025
Hegseth Faces Impeachment Effort and Bipartisan Scrutiny After Midterm ElectionsA looming impeachment push could put President Trump’s polarizing defense secretary in a standoff with Democrats and Republicans.
Republicans are increasingly turning on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the party’s midterm wipeout, with several lawmakers questioning his leadership and one warning he has a reckoning coming as the House prepares for a potential impeachment vote next week.
· Massie says he'll move to impeach Hegseth if he's not gone after midterms from the morgue, 26 Oct 2026
· Pete Hegseth confronts House with a lame-duck impeachment dilemma from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· Thomas Massie moves to impeach War Secretary Pete Hegseth from the morgue, 15 Sep 2026
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