Hegseth was always a horrible choice for defense secretary. At long last, some in the GOP are admitting it.
Pete Hegseth speaks at an Oshkosh Corporation facility in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on Monday, August 24, 2026.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie is proving that a lame duck can be dangerous. As an anti-war Republican with a strong libertarian streak, Massie has been a major thorn in the side of Donald Trump, spearheading the movement to release the files of the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and also strongly criticizing the Iran War.
Earlier this year, Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, worked overtime to end Massie’s career by supporting his congressional primary challenger, MAGA lickspittle Ed Gallrein. Hegseth even spoke at political rallies on Gallrein’s behalf, breaking with a long tradition of defense secretaries staying away from the campaign trail. More insidiously, Hegseth gave high-level Pentagon jobs to social media influencers who had strongly attacked Massie. Gallrein won the primary race in March, but his victory was tainted by Hegseth’s support, which amounted to an unprecedented politicization of the Pentagon.
Massie hasn’t taken his defeat lying down. He’s clearly intent on using the time he has left in office to hold Trump and Hegseth accountable—which is why he introduced an impeachment resolution against Hegseth last week. This resolution appears to be the primary reason House Speaker Mike Johnson abruptly adjourned Congress; there was a real possibility that it could pass the House despite Trump’s opposition, in the same way Massie’s pressure campaign around releasing the Epstein files bore fruit.
Massie understandably has hostility toward Hegseth. But his impeachment resolution transcends their personal feud. It’s a strongly principled document, especially welcome in an age when Congress has shirked its constitutional responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable.
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The “high crimes and misdemeanors” that Hegseth is accused of include waging the Iran War without congressional authorization and violating the laws of war by the killing of civilians in the bombing campaign in the Caribbean, as well as the February strike against the girl’s school in Minab, Iran, which killed more than 150 people, including at least 123 children. Other counts against Hegseth include “denigrating women, LGBTQ+, and people of color serving the United States, including by forcibly separating transgender people from service” and “personally intervening in promotions to deny the elevation of qualified Black and women officers.”
Coming from a right-wing Republican representative, these are a remarkable set of accusations against a government official. They also seemingly spooked Johnson enough to call a quick recess rather than allow a vote. Speaking to CNN, Massie said, “The fact that they didn’t vote on it tells me that they did a whip check, and they probably found that there were some other Republicans, besides me, that were going to vote for this, or at least didn’t want to be on the record supporting Hegseth.”
Massie’s assessment that Republican lawmakers are turning on Hegseth is well-grounded. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that support for Hegseth in Congress was “slipping.” The newspaper added that there was “mounting criticism among lawmakers that the Pentagon chief is politicizing the military with his ousting of top generals and crusade against ‘woke ideology, ’ all while directing an increasingly unpopular war that still lacks a clear exit strategy.”
Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska told the Journal, “I really don’t like that 80 generals and admirals were fired or redlined for promotion.” The Republican lawmaker added, “I don’t know that this is impeachable. Being dumb is not a crime.” This is hardly a ringing endorsement.
On Thursday, another Republican, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis (who, like Massie, is leaving Congress at the end of the year), called on Hegseth to be fired, saying, “He needs to go, whether it’s impeachment or the most expedient route—just the president to replace him—would be great.”
Republicans have many reasons to be angry at Hegseth. Not only is the Iran War a fiasco but the consequences of the war, especially rising oil prices, are intensifying at the worst possible moment for the GOP, as voters head to the ballot box for the midterms. Hegseth has also been dividing the Army with his absurd culture war fixation and purging of dissenting officers. He’s started implementing mandatory testosterone testing for male troops over 30, in order to ensure that the military employs only what he thinks are the manliest men.
This celebration of machismo might play to the MAGA base, but it does little to solve the problem of winning wars, or avoiding unnecessary conflicts.
Further, Hegseth can’t even show respect to the soldiers who are being wounded and dying under his watch. He has repeatedly fudged the casualty lists coming out of the Iran War.
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On Friday, The Washington Post reported, “More American service members have died in the Middle East during the ongoing Iran war than the Pentagon has disclosed publicly.” Officially, there are 18 American fatalities in the war, although previously Hegseth tried to deny that four of those deaths counted since they occurred during a nominal ceasefire. The Post suggests that the true number of fatalities is either 22 or 23. More than 800 soldiers have been wounded, some of them with severe life-altering injuries. The US public has not been given anywhere near an accurate account of the costs of war.
Hegseth and Trump have been equally evasive on the costs of war in terms of civilians killed. Trump has repeatedly said it is not sure who bombed the school in Minab. Hegseth has not challenged or corrected the president on this lie. As Bloomberg reports, within hours of the bombing, the Pentagon knew for certain that the US was responsible for the massacre.
It’s not surprising that Hegseth has been a disaster as defense secretary. Writing in New York magazine last June, Kerry Howley detailed Hegseth’s long history of managerial incompetence:
Pete Hegseth had run a nonprofit called Veterans for Freedom for several years, an organization that employed fewer than 20 people, and resigned after alleged financial mismanagement nearly bankrupted the organization. He had run a group called Concerned Veterans for America, which employed around 160 people, and resigned amid allegations of misconduct and, once again, financial mismanagement. In choosing Hegseth, Donald Trump did not choose from the large set of people who had never managed an organization, or the considerably smaller set of people who had managed an organization without incident, but from a smaller still set of people who had managed multiple bureaucracies and resigned multiple times under complex circumstances.
All of this was known about Hegseth before he was nominated to be defense secretary. Yet almost all Senate Republicans, save for three defectors, confirmed Hegseth to a post he never should have held. The GOP is responsible for the Hegseth disaster. It’s a testament to how big a fiasco he is that even a party otherwise in thrall to Trump is starting to turn on one of the president’s worst nominees.
Between the reemergence of right-wing red-baiting and Donald Trump’s use of the chilling National Security Presidential Memorandum–7 to criminalize left political organizing, we’re seeing McCarthyism reborn before our eyes.
This assault on democracy cannot be ignored or wished away. Resisting it requires bravery in the face of threats and repression, a steadfast commitment to the truth, and the unwavering belief that we can—and will—overcome this darkness.
We must have an independent media that sets the record straight, unearths corruption and abuses of power, and advances a politics of justice and dignity for all if we’re to win this fight.
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Onward,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
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