House sends Hegseth impeachment vote to lame duck session

The House scrapped Thursday’s scheduled votes and sent lawmakers home a day early, kicking a resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth into the lame duck session. House GOP leaders canceled the day’s session rather than allow a floor vote on the impeachment push, which Rep. Thomas Massie unveiled the day before.

Democrats and Massie quickly accused GOP leaders of scrapping Thursday’s session to avoid the vote.

“And there it is. Just as I predicted. They’re canceling Congress tomorrow to avoid the vote on IMPEACHING @SecWar,” Massie wrote on X. Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has been a vocal critic of the Trump White House.

“These people are such incredible cowards,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a video clip, referring to Republicans. “Mike Johnson and Donald Trump are so afraid that the Republicans and Democrats in Congress would vote for that resolution of impeachment and that it would pass because they know that what Pete Hegseth has done, his role in driving us into this war, is absolutely wrong, and he needs to be held accountable for it.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) dismissed the criticism, telling reporters that it is “ridiculous” to suggest GOP leaders altered the schedule to avoid a tough vote. He called Massie’s move a “publicity stunt by someone who wants attention,” predicting the impeachment resolution will “immediately” be rejected in the lame duck.

“It’s a stunt. Secretary Hegseth has done an extraordinary job, the Department of War. We’re in the middle of international conflicts right now, and we should not be playing games with national security. And I think that’s how the members see this,” Johnson said.

The move sent lawmakers onto the campaign trail a day early as both parties race for House control next year.

Johnson had canceled the last two weeks of the September session earlier in the month, arguing that much of the GOP’s remaining legislative agenda has been stalled in the Senate and that lawmakers could use the extra time to campaign.

“Right now, it almost feels like a pointless exercise for us to continue sending and stacking legislation over there, when members could be in their districts campaigning in this very fateful moment,” Johnson said. “That’s a critically important thing.”

Johnson said that if the Senate begins to move on legislation, he will bring “everybody back and we’ll get it all going.”

With the House gone, the lame duck session is scheduled to begin on Nov. 9. Of the eight impeachment articles, four pertain to Hegseth’s conduct of the war, which Massie deems illegal because Congress has not authorized it.

A number of other bills are lingering in the Senate, including a cryptocurrency regulation proposal dubbed the Clarity Act, legislation to reauthorize food and agricultural programs for the next five years known as the Farm Bill, and a $95 billion reconciliation package that Republicans have sought to move unilaterally.

That partisan package includes $10 billion in incentives for states to adopt tougher election rules and $73 billion in new funding for the Iran War.

Some conservatives also criticized the House’s early exit. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus who lost the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial and special Senate primaries, wrote on X that canceling another day of votes is “unacceptable.”

“The House has now canceled at least 63 scheduled voting days this Congress, including nine days this month alone, and now we’re leaving Washington until after the election. The Founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid,” he wrote.

“If Members of Congress want to go home and campaign instead of doing the job taxpayers sent us here to do, then their campaigns ought to be paying them, NOT the American taxpayer,” Norman added. “We still have work to do.”

The tone of the lame duck session will hinge largely on the midterm results, when both the House and Senate are up for grabs.