House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) came out in support of impeaching Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Sunday, telling ABC News he’s a “hard yes.”
“I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of defense 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.”
Asked by “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl if he’s confident all House Democrats will join him in supporting the potential resolution, Jeffries said his conference will “have that conversation” on Tuesday morning, when members convene in Washington for the first time since the midterm election.
“But I believe there will be incredibly strong support for that resolution,” Jeffries said.
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, the outgoing Republican lawmaker who has often clashed with President Donald Trump, told ABC News he intends to reintroduce a privileged resolution to impeach Hegseth as early as Monday. By raising a question of privilege on the floor, leaders are required to schedule a vote on it within two legislative days.
Massie’s resolution contains eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, accusing the defense secretary of violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973, in addition to other alleged offenses.
Thus far, Trump has defended Hegseth, telling reporters Thursday that he has “done a fantastic job.” The president also told Karl the same day, “I have every intention to keep him.”
Hegseth also defended himself Thursday in a video posted on social media.
“A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly, just like they tried against President Trump twice,” Hegseth said. “It’s all about the politics of personal destruction — didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me.”
‘Irresponsible’ decision to make Stephen Miller chief of staff
Jeffries, who is likely to become the next speaker of the House in January, said Sunday that he has still not spoken to Trump since the midterm elections, which he described as a “tremendous repudiation of MAGA extremism.”
“The country clearly has had enough. And we got to fight for an affordable America,” Jeffries said. “People are drowning in this failed Republican economy. And enough is enough in that regard. That’s why we’re going to fight to lower the high cost of living on all the things. And we have to.”
While Trump told ABC News in a phone interview after the election that he thinks he can work with Democrats, Jeffries questioned the president’s intentions, given his decision announced Friday to elevate White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump loyalist, to the position of White House chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles.
“It’s an awful choice. Stephen Miller is the architect of Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine and has unleashed billions of taxpayer dollars to brutalize and kill American citizens, like Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, and at the same period of time to violently target law-abiding, immigrant families and communities all across the country. So, you know, it was an irresponsible decision in my view,” Jeffries said.
“There’s not going to be an opportunity, certainly, to work with Stephen Miller and what he represents. And we’re committed to forcefully pushing back against the extremism that they may try to continue to unleash on the American people,” he added.
Karl pressed Jeffries to clarify if he means that he won’t be able to communicate with Miller in the way he sometimes communicated with outgoing chief of staff Wiles.
“It’s not going to happen with the new chief of staff to the extent that he lacks — because he clearly represents, along with Pete Hegseth and a few others, a really toxic brand of political engagement, of politics and of governance. And the American people just voted for that kind of MAGA extremism to be eradicated,” Jeffries said.
Democratic priorities for legislation and investigations
Bringing down costs for housing, groceries, gas and healthcare will be top priorities for his party in the new Congress, Jeffries said, as well as ending the war with Iran, stopping “the Trump tariffs,” and “[reversing] the Medicaid cuts that put the health insurance of millions of Americans at risk and threatens to close hospitals all over the place.”
“The American people clearly want change that’s bold, change that’s transformational, and change that is dramatic,” Jeffries, said, adding “we certainly need to reverse the SNAP cuts, and we need to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. And hopefully we’ll see some courage by a few of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to work on these issues to get things done.”
The Democratic Party is “committed to moving aggressively during the first 100 days of the new Congress and beyond to keep our word,” said Jeffries.
According to ABC News national voter polls, 55% of voters who voted for U.S. House races said that government corruption was “crucial” to their vote; another 36% said it was a “major factor.”
In a two-word statement released late Tuesday after Democrats were projected to take control of the House, Rep. Robert Garcia, the presumptive chairman of the House Oversight Committee, stated: “Lawyer up.”
“Well, there’s a cost to corruption. And throughout this campaign we’ve promised that we would focus certainly on affordability and driving down the high cost of living, and on accountability in the face of the unprecedented corruption that we’ve seen unleashed on the American people by the Trump cartel,” Jeffries said. “We’re committed to cleaning up the mess wherever it’s found. That’s in Congress, in the Supreme Court and with respect to this administration.”
For its part, the administration is saying it will investigate Democrats. Trump said Saturday that he ordered the Department of Justice to examine what he deemed “criminal” acts by Democrats, though he did not provide examples to support his allegations. Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday echoed the president’s statement.
“What we’ve seen over the past several days and even over the past several weeks are outright threats, many, many by elected members of Congress and some senators against anybody that’s conservative and anybody that that happens to be a Republican,” Blanche told CNN. “Over the last several days, we’ve seen it, that rhetoric even rise up to the point where they’re already — before they’re even in power, they’re already talking about investigations and impeachments with no basis, no facts, just out there running around — that that should be something that that President Trump is very concerned about. And certainly I am as well.”
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