WASHINGTON — The push to impeach U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stopped being a one-member protest on Sunday, November 8, when Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives and the man in line to become Speaker in January, announced on national television that he is a “hard yes” on the impeachment resolution. “The so-called Secretary of Defence has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe,” Jeffries said on ABC’s This Week. “Pete Hegseth has got to go.” No resolution has yet been reintroduced in this session of the House, no vote has been scheduled by the leadership that still controls the chamber, and the charges against Hegseth remain allegations in a draft measure — not findings by Congress — according to Bloomberg and The Hill.

Source: Bloomberg, via Moneyweb

This is a follow-up development, and it matters because of who is now behind it. The impeachment articles themselves are not new: Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, read eight articles against Hegseth into the Congressional Record on September 15, alleging among other things that Hegseth violated the War Powers Resolution of 1973 by conducting military operations against Iran without congressional authorisation. Hegseth answered on Thursday, November 5, in a video on X, calling the articles a sham and “all about the politics of personal destruction” — a response Awaaz Punjab reported at the time. What changed on Sunday is that the leader of the party that has just won Congress put his own name, and his future speakership, behind the effort.

Source: The Hill, via Gnosis News summary of ABC This Week transcript, Nov 8, 2026

What Jeffries said, and what happens on Tuesday

Jeffries, a New York Democrat, gave the answer to co-anchor Jonathan Karl on This Week and did not qualify it. Asked whether his colleagues would follow, he gave no headcount but said he believed “there will be incredibly strong support for that resolution” among House Democrats. The caucus is due to discuss the potential resolution on Tuesday, November 10, when House Democrats convene for the first time since winning both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections; lawmakers return to Washington on Monday, November 9, NBC News reported. Jeffries also said Democrats would seek to end the conflict in Iran when they take control of Congress in January and that the party is preparing wider investigations into the Trump administration.

The Republican who wrote the articles

The resolution’s author is an unlikely one: Massie, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump who tried to impeach Hegseth at the start of the conflict for waging the Iran war without congressional approval, and who will leave Congress after losing his primary to a Trump-backed challenger. Massie said last week that he will “definitely” reintroduce the articles when the House reconvenes, and he has said he intends to reintroduce the measure as a privileged resolution as early as Monday, November 9 — a procedural move that would force a vote within two legislative days. On Thursday he added a different pressure point, suggesting that Trump fire Hegseth quickly so that the Republican-controlled Senate can confirm a successor before Democrats take control in January.

Source: Bloomberg, via Moneyweb

The other side: Trump stands by Hegseth, and a Republican draws a line

President Trump has said he has no plans to replace Hegseth, saying the secretary has done a “good job,” Bloomberg reported. Representative French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas, separated the two questions on CBS’s Face the Nation: removal, he said, is the president’s call — “If he’s not conducting his mission in the right way, then the president ought to make a change there” — while “whether or not somebody’s committed an impeachable offence” is, in his words, “very separate” from whether the Pentagon is being led the right way. Hegseth himself, in his November 5 video, compared the effort to the two impeachments of Trump and said it “won’t work with me,” according to CNN reporting summarised on Sunday.

How impeachment would actually work from here

The mechanics explain both the urgency and the limits of this week. Under the U.S. Senate’s impeachment rules, the House impeaches by a simple majority, while removal from office requires conviction by two-thirds of the senators present — a far higher bar. Right now Republicans still hold the House, so a vote forced this week by a privileged resolution would be an uphill fight for its supporters, and Massie himself is leaving Congress. The arithmetic changes fundamentally in January, when Democrats take control of both chambers: with a Democratic House majority, impeachment becomes a realistic prospect, although conviction in the Senate would still need substantial Republican support. That is why Sunday’s endorsement is best read as the new majority announcing, before it even takes the gavels, that Hegseth’s tenure will be one of its first tests.

Background: why the Iran war is the charge at the centre

Every article in Massie’s draft returns to the same war. The draft resolution’s eight articles cite the War Powers Resolution of 1973, civilian casualties, and the seizure of Nicolás Maduro, according to a sixteen-outlet comparison of the coverage published on November 9, and the political fuel is cost: the Iran operation Hegseth championed helped lead to a broad Republican defeat on November 3, Bloomberg reported, and Jeffries’ core accusation on Sunday was economic as much as military — that the war “has skyrocketed prices on the American people.” For Awaaz Punjab’s readers in the United States, that is not an abstract point: fuel costs feed directly into diesel prices on the trucking corridors where a large share of the Punjabi diaspora earns its living, which is why a fight over a defence secretary’s future is also a kitchen-table story in Fresno, Houston and Edison.

What happens next

The House reconvenes on Monday, November 9, and the first question is procedural: whether Massie files the privileged resolution immediately, which starts the two-day clock, or holds it until after Tuesday’s caucus discussion. The White House has given no sign that Trump will move against his defence secretary, and Hegseth has said the effort will not work on him. If the resolution is not taken up this week, it does not die: Jeffries is in line to become Speaker when the new Congress is sworn in in January, and a Speaker who has called himself a “hard yes” controls whether and when the House votes again. Awaaz Punjab will update this report when the resolution is filed, when the caucus meets on Tuesday, or if the White House responds.