Massie pushes surprise impeachment vote of Hegseth — overshadowing a Democrat’s bid to impeach Trump

By Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — House Democrats were privately dreading a politically charged — but purely symbolic — vote on impeaching President Donald Trump triggered by one of their own members.

Then came something unexpected.

Just hours before that vote, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie surprised his colleagues with a push to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a stunning act of intraparty warfare that deepens the rogue congressman’s rift with Trump and GOP leaders.

Massie’s push to impeach Hegseth, like the Democratic push to impeach Trump, is doomed to fail. Yet both votes have created headaches for their respective party leaders, neither of whom want to spend the final days in session before the midterms dealing with impeachment drama that exposes intraparty rifts.

Massie told reporters Tuesday that he did not inform party leaders of his plans to introduce the articles of impeachment against Hegseth.

Republicans do not want to watch Massie make history as the first member of Congress to try to impeach a Cabinet member of the same party — particularly after he lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent this spring.

Democrats, meanwhile, are irritated that their colleague — Rep. Al Green, who also lost his primary in May — is forcing the impeachment vote at a time when Republicans would otherwise be facing pressure on tariffs, gas prices and AI. Their moods lifted, however, once Massie took to the floor to announce his intention to force a vote to impeach Hegseth.

“Just when you think Al Green screws us, Massie turns around and gives it right back to the Rs,” one Democratic aide quipped.

Just ahead of a seven-week recess, the House is now confronting dueling impeachment headaches — both from members who won’t be in Congress next year and who have proved uncontrollable by party leaders.

The House is set to hold a vote to table — or block — the Trump impeachment resolution Tuesday afternoon. It’s not clear when a vote will be held on the Hegseth impeachment measure, but it could take place this week. Party leaders must hold a vote within the coming days — unless they decide to send the House home early.

Massie told reporters Tuesday afternoon, “I didn’t give anybody heads-up because when they found out I was doing the Epstein discharge petition, they canceled two weeks of Congress, and I think if they found out I was going to do this, they might have canceled even more days.”

Democrats, in particular, have a tricky political calculus for how to handle the impeachment conversation. The party has impeached Trump twice already when they held the majority in his first term.

But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team have been careful to keep their political focus on the rising cost of living. Democrats’ path back into the majority will need to come through battleground seats that Trump has previously won — and they do not want to alienate independent and GOP voters with impeachment rhetoric. But Democrats also know their base detests Trump, with many voters eager to see him impeached a third time.

Jeffries and his leadership team said in a joint statement Monday night that they will vote “present” — rather than an up or down vote — on a procedural measure related to Green’s impeachment push.

“Impeachment is a sacred constitutional vehicle designed to hold a corrupt executive accountable for abuse of power, breaking the law and violating the public trust,” they said, noting the process requires “comprehensive investigative” work to lay out the evidence and convince the American public, which they said Green has not done.

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CNN’s Lauren Fox and Ellis Kim contributed to this report.