Hegseth faces impeachment effort

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has faced criticism from both Democrats and Republicans over his handling of the country's defense policy. Now, Congress is pursuing impeachment, with an initial vote scheduled for later today. What charges does Hegseth face, and what could happen next? It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And we are recording this at 1.11 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, November 10th. And Pete Hegseth faces eight articles of impeachment. Claudia, tell us about who is bringing these charges, who is pushing this to the House floor. Where is this coming from? Right. This is Thomas Massey, Republican from Kentucky. He entered Congress more than a decade ago. And he was for a long time known as a fiscal hawk. He would wear a debt clock on his jacket that he actually invented. But over time, he's become a thorn in Trump's side, especially in the second term, where he's raised concerns about spending and then more recently transparency for the administration, concerns about Trump's war powers. Trump, seeing all of this, became his number one enemy. And he pushed for Massey to be forced out of Congress, pushed for a challenger who succeeded. And Massey, for him, these articles of impeachment are a bit of a last stand. Why is he doing it now? Here's his explanation. Somebody's got to put their foot down and say, are we going to follow the laws that are on the books? Are we going to follow the Constitution? And the best way to do that is to have an impeachment against Pete Hegseth. And these articles are largely tied to Hegseth's conduct during these various years. And he's been doing that for a long time. And he's been doing that for military conflicts for the past nearly two years. Yeah. Ryan, why don't you tell us about these eight articles of impeachment? Sure. I mean, broadly speaking, what Hegseth is accused of is violating the Constitution and federal law. Of these eight, the first three directly relate to the war in Iran, all kind of rooted in the idea that this war is being conducted illegally because there hasn't been a congressional declaration of war or congressional authorization for military force. That's kind of a 30,000 foot view on three of them. The fourth one is really interesting though, because it accuses Hegseth of bulldozing safeguards that were put in place to minimize civilian casualties. And the exhibit A on that is the strike on an elementary school in Iran that took place very early in the war that killed more than 200 people, the majority of them being children, elementary school age children. There are two more articles that directly tie to military action. One of them being the operation to nab the president of Venezuela in January, Nicolás Maduro. The other one is on military action in Yemen last year. There's a very important one in here about he's accused of extrajudicial killings. That's tied to the military strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific that we've seen over the past year plus, killed more than 200 people. He's accused of being a judge, jury, and executioner in those strikes. And then the last one ties, into what the articles of impeachment say is essentially an effort by Hegseth to retaliate against Democratic Senator Mark Kelly over video that he put out urging military members not to follow illegal orders. So those are the articles of impeachment kind of compressed. There are eight of them, but a lot of it just ties into ultimately what Massey says is Hegseth's failure to follow the constitution and federal law. I mean, Hegseth is rejecting this effort entirely. He says that one disgruntled congressman pushing his own agenda, he says it's not oversight, it's not accountability. And he stands by, he says every single thing that he's accused of, he says has been lawful. And he stands by the efforts that they've conducted as a military. Yeah. And Hegseth said that at a press conference this morning at the Pentagon. It was his first one in six months, which in some ways is remarkable because here's a defense in the middle of war, not briefing the American people on the war. But Claudia, my sense is that he also hasn't really been briefing Congress to a level of satisfaction either, which might be part of why this isn't completely dismissed out of hand. Exactly. This is part of why we've seen a growing wave of support behind this effort with Massey because of the concerns of the American people. Of lack of disclosures during the Iran war and other military conflicts. And it's part of a long running list of frustrations with Hegseth, who has stepped out again and again. If you remember, Hegseth has probably been one of the more aggressive, if you will, carriers of the president's message or perhaps his ideals in terms of these military conflicts. Many look at Hegseth as pushing the envelope too far. He's been pushing the envelope too far. And also he has forced out a lot of senior military and civilian officials. And for example, we saw the army and navy secretaries leave this year amid issues with Hegseth. So all of this has been building. One of the things that was interesting listening to Hegseth today, one of the things that he said, and it's something that we've heard from officials in the past who have been subject of articles of this sort, is that there is no legal crime or a misdemeanor. This is not, you know, there aren't any legal crimes that I've committed here. And I think it's important to remember that impeachment is not a legal process. It is a political process. And ultimately, it's members of Congress who get to decide whether someone has committed what they deem to be high crimes or misdemeanors, what they deem to be an impeachable offense. But looking at this from the outside, politically, Claudia, you just talked about how Republicans, as well as Democrats, have frustration, frustrations with Hegseth. He's not popular on the Hill. Politically, Republicans just got absolutely destroyed in the midterms, in part because of the Iran war, in large part, a lot of people say. If Republicans are upset about the Iran war and they're upset with Hegseth, why would Republicans support Hegseth now when there's an opportunity to potentially get rid of him? Well, one thing I've been thinking about a lot this week, by the way, here at the Capitol, they're holding Republican leadership elections for the new Congress next year. And one thing that was mentioned to me by a Republican strategist in the House is that a vast majority of that conference was elected either with Trump's election in 2016 or after. So they were either made in Trump's mold or they have won because of his image. And so they continue to be very closely tied to Trump. Regardless, of what happened this past week. So when we look at the House Republican conference, for example, we're hearing more voices over there from Republicans who say that this impeachment is just a political push by a disgruntled member in Massey and Democrats who were mad at Hegseth. That's how they're framing it. Even members such as Don Bacon from Nebraska, a military veteran, outgoing member. And also, when we look at the time, especially for Republicans who are in control of Congress for just another couple of months, they don't have much on their hands. And so they want to be working on other things. So there's a multitude of issues going on here, including another test of loyalty to Trump. All right. We're going to take a quick break and we'll have more in a moment. Welcome back. And before we get into it, a reminder that because the news is always changing fast, we try to get new episodes out as quickly as possible. And the best way to do that is to make sure you hear those episodes right when they're available is to follow the show wherever you listen. On Apple, that means look for the big plus sign on our show page. On Spotify and the NPR app, there's a follow button you can hit. Do that and make sure you are always up to date with the latest show. And Claudia, basic math here. Does this have a chance of making it out of the house? It does have a chance. There seems to be a strong unity among Democrats, to line up behind Massey to get this over the finish line. And he'll just perhaps need a few more Republicans to help support this. Also, we should note there have been attendance issues. There were a lot of Republicans that lost races that have not come back. Many did not attend votes last night, for example. So that's another issue playing out of this. So there is a chance it could very well make it out of the house. Now, House Republican leadership is trying to stop this effort by sending it to a committee. But Massey has said if that happens, he'd like to have the chamber vote on each article of impeachment. So eight votes to see whatever he can get across the finish line to the Senate. And if Hegseth were to be impeached by the House, walk us through what would happen next. So if it gets out of the House, if he is impeached, it is sent over to the Senate. TRIAL, HOUSE IMPEACHMENT would present the articles to kick off that trial in the Senate. They could also refuse to take it up. Or there could be a delay to take up those impeachment articles and conduct a trial. So there's a few different directions they could go in. Before the election, there were a lot of observers of the American politics who thought that Hegseth would be the member of the cabinet who would be most likely to be the fall guy, so to speak, if Republicans were to lose in the midterms. Republicans got wiped out in the midterms, but now we have Massey introducing this impeachment process. But the president, instead of dumping Hegseth, is defending him. Why is the president doing that? Because President Trump always doubles down. President Trump, if there's a fight, he's going to have the fight. And in essence, now that Massey has brought this impeachment forward, now Trump is in a position of he has to fight Massey. He has to fight the Democrats. And so he is now defending Hegseth, praising Hegseth, and held a press conference last night where he said he's standing by him. So I do want to ask about impeachment for both of you. Is impeachment a tool that we are going to see more and more of? Has it become. You know, easy? Democrats have said when they take control come January that the vengeance agenda is not going to be a top priority. So that really, really has to play out. We have to see how voters kind of react, the voters who sent Democrats to be in control of Congress, how they react to this approach if they want to see more. I've seen a divide out there in terms of whether Hegseth is the right move for Democrats, if it's something they ultimately have to deal with next year, if they should be moving on. So there's a lot of factors here in terms of what each party may consider when it comes to impeachment. But so far, they're keeping up the rhythm to bring these impeachment efforts up every few years, it seems. So it may continue as long as we remain as polarized as we are in this country. I mean, I will say, though, that this initiative against Hegseth, while it is receiving support from Democrats, has been initiated by a Republican, a Republican who is not happy with the administration, but a Republican nonetheless. I will also say that I recall having this conversation after the first and then possibly the second Trump impeachment as well, where there was the argument of he's not being impeached for legitimate reasons, and this is going to lower the bar for impeachments. And what we ended up seeing was during the Biden administration, there was an investigation launched into potential impeachment of the president. And ultimately, Republicans came to the conclusion that that was not a path that they wanted to head down. It was something that they certainly pursued, but they didn't head down that path. So I don't know if this has lowered the bar across the spectrum for impeachment, which for a long time was really this very, very rare, rare thing. We've had a lot of instances in the past 10 years, but we've also had times where people have taken the off-ramp. So I don't think that we have a clear-cut answer yet at this point. All right, let's leave it there for today. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I cover Congress. And I'm Ryan Lucas. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.