Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky had reason to believe some of his fellow Republicans would go along with his effort this week to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth was, after all, the primary architect of the disastrous war in Iran, which had fueled the historic wipeout for the party in the midterm election.
Many GOP colleagues “tell me they don’t like Hegseth,” Massie told reporters on Monday, and they “may want to vote for this because they just want to see Hegseth gone.” Others, he said, may “want to put a little daylight between themselves and this war, or themselves and this administration.”
So you might think. But when it came time to go on record against the president, Republicans did what they have always done: They buckled. On Tuesday evening, a lonely Massie stood on the House floor, staring up at the vote tallies projected on the wall: Not a single one of his Republican colleagues voted to impeach.
In the lame-duck House, still controlled by Republicans, the GOP shelved impeachment by a vote of 211-204. Massie folded up his notebook and walked into the cloakroom, speaking to no one.
President Donald Trump celebrated the return of his absolute mastery over his now severely diminished Republican Party. “Every single Republican, except Thomas Massie, a major LOSER, voted in favor of Pete,” he posted on Truth Social, declaring “the EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot.”
On election night, voters sent an unmistakable message to Republicans, and the mind-boggling scale of their defeat becomes more apparent as the numbers keep coming in. Democrats achieved their greatest margin of victory in the House since Watergate. They secured bigger gains in state legislatures than during LBJ’s landslide of 1964.
Yet, a week to the day later, congressional Republicans sent voters an equally clear response: We have learned absolutely nothing.
Trump, of course, has already been sending messages about his contempt for the electorate. He installed as his new chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of the immigration policies that repelled Latino voters. On Sunday, his attorney general, Todd Blanche, threatened Democratic lawmakers with prosecution and perhaps imprisonment over their vows to investigate the Trump administration.
After a brief post-election pause, Trump resumed his insults (CNN’s Kaitlan Collins is a “loser,” an MS NOW reporter is a “joke”). He has begun to share conspiracy theories suggesting the vote was rigged. He even lashed out at the voters when stocks suffered losses: “You only have yourselves to blame.”
And Republicans, at least in the House, seem to be going right back to their old ways. The incoming House GOP minority on Tuesday selected Jim Jordan as its leader over current Majority Leader Steve Scalise, opting for a relentless Trump defender and one of the most belligerent figures in a caucus that has had no shortage of them. Jordan’s 2023 bid for the speakership caused a backlash when colleagues blamed the congressman’s allies for intimidation tactics and even death threats.
In the Senate, Republicans retained John Thune and their other leaders, defying those who said the election defeat required them to pause and rethink. Another sign of business as usual: After midterm elections in which voters resoundingly rejected data centers, the Senate’s first act on returning was to advance a permitting-reform bill that would make it easier to build data centers. (Sadly, 22 Democrats joined 51 Republicans in support.)
Then there’s the Hegseth situation. Massie’s eight articles of impeachment focused on a few particulars: violations of the War Powers Resolution, the “kidnapping” of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the targeting of civilians (including the killing of more than 150 civilians, most of them children, at an elementary school in Iran) and suppressing the free speech of veterans. But there was also an element of rough justice involved in Massie’s move: “In addition to breaking the law and violating the Constitution, he’s not doing a good job.”
And those only scratched the surface of the damage Hegseth has done to the military. His purges of senior officers — particularly those who aren’t white men — has precipitated a military brain drain. His mismanagement of the Iran war has caused alarming shortages in munitions and bungled deployments. And he has politicized and belittled the troops at every opportunity, suggesting that, before his arrival, the armed forces were full of “fatties,” “trannies,” “beardos,” “weirdos,” “wimps” and “radicals.” (Now, they’re “patriotic cowboys.”)
Trump, in his celebratory statement after the Hegseth vote, called Massie’s failed effort “the Democrats’ attempt.”
But the Democrats’ attempt is coming — and it’s going to be a lot more extensive than Massie’s, with hearings, evidence and witnesses under oath. “This is not the end of it,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, likely the incoming speaker of the House, told reporters after the vote. “It’s just the beginning.”
Hegseth must have understood that if he retained Trump’s support, congressional Republicans would fall in line. In a rare news conference Tuesday morning — it was his first in about six months — he spent 25 minutes flattering his Audience of One.
“They impeached President Trump over a perfect phone call. They impeached him again in his final week in office. … Now they’re trying a third time,” Hegseth declared. “They will fail again, and if standing with President Trump puts me in that company, I’ll take that company every day of the week.”
“We’ve never had a better commander in chief, full stop,” Hegseth gushed. “I get to watch him every single day. He lives and breathes America first, and it’s the honor of a lifetime to be his secretary of war.”
Hegseth said that his boss “did the tough, right thing” in Iran and had “the courage to lead and the resolve to win,” but that the reporters in the room wouldn’t acknowledge his triumph because “you hate the president more than you love our country.”
It was more bluster from a guy who cheats on his pull-ups and bench presses — and who banished much of the press from the Pentagon. Reporters from mainstream news organizations were allowed to attend Tuesday’s briefing, but they were assigned seating in the back and threatened with removal if they got “out of line” (no elaboration was given). Hegseth called on questioners from One America News Network, Real America’s Voice News, the Daily Signal and other right-wing outlets.
The cowardly precautions must have served their purpose, because Trump praised his faithful steed. “Pete Hegseth gets an ‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS,” he posted on Truth Social after Hegseth finished. “Great job by Pete Hegseth — A MUST SEE!”
Republicans in the House got the message. Eight hours later, every one of them but Massie voted to keep Hegseth — and his disastrous mismanagement of the Iran war.
Dana Milbank is a Washington Sun Perspectives columnist.
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