Eleven Democrats Skip Vote, Hegseth Impeachment Dies Quietly

The House voted 211-204 on Tuesday to send eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to committee, which shelves the effort until January. Eleven House Democrats didn't show up. Only one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted in favor. That's the whole show: a war, an accusation of illegal abduction, and a roll call that ended with empty chairs.

Who Has the Power

Massie's resolution accused Hegseth of conducting the Iran war without congressional authorization and of illegally abducting Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Those are serious charges against the man who runs the machinery of American war. The House didn't weigh them. It referred them to committee, the polite graveyard where inconvenient business goes to wait.

The absent Democrats were Reps. Julia Brownley, Lou Correa, Laura Gillen, Steven Horsford, Jonathan Jackson, Nancy Pelosi, Brittany Pettersen, Melanie Stansbury, Haley Stevens, Marilyn Strickland and Frederica Wilson. Some blamed traffic, saying they were stuck behind the police escort of a bus. Others cited personal matters or medical procedures. A spokesperson for Pelosi said she was attending a Veterans Day event. Hours earlier, the House Democrats' official account on X had declared, in all caps, "PETE HEGSETH OUT NOW."

Several Democrats condemned their own colleagues' absences as inexcusable.

What They're Calling "Order"

Massie, who lost his Republican primary to a Trump-backed candidate and is on his way out, wasn't surprised. "I'm not surprised because I didn't have anybody commit to this, and I didn't see anybody in the media committing to it," he told MS Now's Mychael Schnell. Then he got specific about the Republican conference. "I think it's interesting that my colleagues are still in the suicide pact with this administration and the Iran war."

He said the consequences of the Iran war are "why they lost the election, but they can't bring themselves to do anything about it." And he drew his own lesson: "I think Trump still has control over this conference. Like that's the big lesson I learned here."

President Trump celebrated on social media and called Hegseth a "Great American Patriot."

Hegseth, in a rare press conference Tuesday morning, called the effort "driven by ego and personal resentment" and "political spectacle." He said it was "timed for one man's final days in Congress to try to do damage to this president, this country and, most irresponsibly, the warriors who defend it." His verdict: "It's a farce, and it's a stunt, and everybody knows it." He also rejected accusations that some U.S. military operations under his watch were illegal.

The Election Trap

Three days ago, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas offered a forecast on his "Verdict" podcast. "Either Hegseth is going to step down, [meaning] either he will resign voluntarily, or [President Donald] Trump will fire him," he said. "Or, if that does not happen, I think it is extremely likely, if not certain, that the House will impeach him." He noted that "it only takes a majority" and that the Democratic votes "are there" after midterms in which Democrats won back both the House and Senate.

Cruz even sketched the sequel. If Sen. Chuck Schumer, expected to become Senate majority leader in January, has the option of conducting a trial, "I would anticipate that he would conduct an extended trial," spending "weeks, if not months" prosecuting opposition to the Iran war.

So the pitch is simple: wait for January, trust the new majority, and let the process work. The party can renew impeachment efforts then. Meanwhile, the Iran war continues, and eleven members who could have been in the chamber were not. Hegseth holds a net approval rating of -29 percentage points in an aggregate of polls highlighted Sunday on CNN. Voters have said their piece. The institution answered with a motion to refer.