Republicans warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that a “reckoning” is coming as Democrats prepare to take over both chambers of Congress.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) delivered the warning on CBS News on election night, as results showed Democrats winning the House and the Senate.
Tillis tied his warning to the Pentagon money that the outgoing Republican Congress still has to pass.
“Pete Hegseth has a reckoning,” Tillis told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan. “He is one of the reasons why we don’t have the funding or guarantee for defense that we need.”
Citing Tillis' remarks, The Daily Beast concluded that fallout would be a "nightmare" for Hegseth.
The defense secretary also faces impeachment, and the latest push comes from a fellow Republican. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) filed eight articles of impeachment in September, accusing Hegseth of launching an illegal war in Iran that Congress never approved.
“If he’s still SecDef,” Massie wrote on X in October, describing his answer when a reporter asked whether he would bring the articles back once Congress returns. He told Roll Call his impeachment resolution had a “better than a 50 percent chance of passing.”
Starting in January, Democrats will control the House, where impeachment takes only a simple majority.
“The Democratic hammer is about to come down hard on Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth,” Punchbowl News defense reporter Briana Reilly wrote on X.
That gives Hegseth two impeachment threats to survive, a lame-duck vote that needs Republicans to join Massie and a Democratic House that could act on its own after January.
“Lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the incoming House Oversight Committee chairman, said in a statement after Democrats won the House. The statement said he has vowed to take on the “Trump Crime Family.”
“Hegseth can resign, get fired, or get impeached. There is no 4th option,” MeidasTouch editor Ron Filipkowski wrote on X.
“They get to impeach. So they’re going to impeach everybody. They already have a list,” far-right streamer Nick Fuentes said on his podcast after the results came in. “They’re going to impeach Trump. They’re going to impeach Hegseth. They’re going to impeach probably RFK Jr., Vance. They’re gonna go for everybody.”
Tillis and Massie are not the only Republicans who have criticized Hegseth.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS), Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) all told The Hill last month that they learned of Hegseth’s latest cuts to the ranks of generals and admirals only shortly before he announced them. Collins called the cuts “deeply troubling.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) has called Hegseth “more of a performer than he is a leader,” though he told CNN he is leaning against impeachment.
All three still vote in the lame-duck session, where Massie wants his impeachment vote and Tillis wants the Pentagon funded.
“I think he’s terrific actually,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal on election night about Hegseth, even as he acknowledged the Iran war was part of why Republicans lost.
However, The Atlantic reported that Trump is “searching for a scapegoat” and has focused on those who told him the war would be quick and decisive. Hegseth was among the most publicly optimistic in the war’s early stages, it reported.
To add to Hegseth's humiliation, Democrat Nancy Lacore, a former Navy admiral Hegseth fired, was projected to flip a House seat in a South Carolina district Trump won by 13 points after a campaign.