The US Mid-Term Elections have delivered a comprehensive rebuke of US President Donald Trump’s last two years in office, but while Trump still has two years left to serve as a ‘lame duck’ president, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth could be in an even more precarious position.
In the early hours of 4 November 2026 it became clear that the ‘Blue Wave’ – the dominant Democrat showing in the US Mid-Term Elections that the polls were increasingly predicting – had actually arrived.
With the Democratic Party now in control of the Senate as well as the House of Representatives, some are even calling it the ‘Blue Tsunami’. Indeed, there have been unprecedented reversals in numerous formerly red/Republican states. For example:
In the Senate, among 35 seats being contested on 3 November the Democrats had a net gain of seven with all but two of them counted as of 2100 GMT, giving the Democratic Party control of at least 54 of the Senate’s 100 seats (with 51 needed for control). In the House, where all 435 seats were being contested, Democrats had won at least 237 seats by that point, compared to 139 for the Republicans, with 218 required for overall control.
When President Donald Trump was campaigning for Republican candidates in the run-up to the Mid-Terms, he entreated his Make America Great Again (MAGA) faithful to vote as if he were on the ticket. Unfortunately for Trump, that’s precisely what a majority of non-MAGA voters did; there can be no doubt that the results of the Mid-Terms are a powerful rebuke of Trump’s latest two years in power, in particular his waging of the war against Iran and the consequently detrimental effects that had on energy prices and the affordability of food and other goods for the average American.
Amid the Republican defeat, Trump was uncharacteristically reserved, telling Fox News that “The Democrats did a good job” and predicting that, after using presidential vetoes against Democrat policies for a couple of months, “They’ll call and they’ll say ‘How do we get this stuff done?’”
However, as Trump is presented with a ‘lame duck’ final two years, he is almost certain to point a finger of blame for the Mid-Term results anywhere other than at himself. Given that the Iran War was a major cause of the Republican Party haemorrhaging votes, one particular scapegoat could be self-styled ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth, but even if Trump resists this temptation, a Democrat-controlled Congress is likely to target Hegseth.
Other Trump Administration officials potentially in the impeachment cross-hairs include less-then-scientific Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr, whose undermining of vaccines exacerbated a measles outbreak in the southwestern US, and Attorney General Todd Blanche, who as a former personal lawyer for Trump has led partisan prosecutions in a ‘revenge tour’ of those Trump considers his enemies, including former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey.
Even during his confirmation hearings to become defence secretary, Hegseth, a former US Army National Guard officer and subsequently a TV presenter for right-wing news outlet Fox News, was a controversial pick. Allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse, combined with his relative lack of experience in government, led to a ‘50 for, 50 against’ vote in Hegseth’s Senate confirmation hearing, requiring Vice President J D Vance to cast a deciding vote to secure his confirmation.
Sworn in on 25 January 2025 as the new defence secretary (he subsequently rebadged himself as the ‘Secretary of War’ and the US Department of Defense as the ‘Department of War’), Hegseth immediately embarked on a ‘war on woke’ in the US military.
Among other measures, this initiative involved reverting US bases back to their original names after the previous Biden Administration had renamed bases that originally celebrated Confederate generals of the American Civil War. This led to the bizarre situation of personnel in the Pentagon scrabbling to find US war heroes with the same surname as those of the original Confederate generals. For example, Fort Bragg, the Pentagon insisted in February 2025, had been renamed after Private Roland L Bragg – a US airborne infantryman who received the Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry as well as a Purple Heart for wounds sustained during the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War – rather than originally being named after slave-owning Confederate General Braxton Bragg, widely regarded as one of the worst generals to serve in the American Civil War.
Then, in March 2025, came the ‘Signalgate’ affair, in which US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz inadvertently copied in a US journalist, The Atlantic editor Jeff Goldberg, into a group chat among senior Trump Administration officials on messaging app Signal that discussed classified information prior to US Central Command initiating a large-scale operation against Iran-backed Houthi targets in Yemen.
In those Signal group chats Goldberg asserted in a subsequent 24 March interview with CNN – and subsequently proved with evidence from the conversation – that Hegseth “was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans, when targets were gonna be targeted, how they were gonna be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening”.
Significant alarm over the security breach was expressed on both sides of the US political aisle, but Hegseth ultimately emerged from the controversy unscathed.
In May 2025 Hegseth instigated a regular ‘Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service’ inside the Pentagon, drawing significant scrutiny from civil rights advocates, historians and legal experts who argued that holding official, exclusive evangelical Christian services during government hours violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
On 30 September 2026 Hegseth established an Office of Religious Affairs within the Pentagon, reporting directly to him, that elevates his own Christian nationalism over other faiths (or the lack of them) held by US service personnel.
Moreover, a UN report in September 2026 concluded that US military strikes over the previous year against vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific allegedly trafficking drugs, overseen by Hegseth, breached international law and could constitute crimes against humanity. Hundreds killed in those operations, despite being suspected of illegal activities, were never given the opportunity to surrender.
Meanwhile, both Trump and Hegseth have repeatedly claimed since Operation ‘Epic Fury’ against Iran was initiated on 27 February 2026 that the war was won, the Iranian military was decimated and the Strait of Hormuz was under US control, despite there actually being no successful resolution to the conflict prior to the Mid-Terms.
From 7 July 2026, as the result of a temporary truce in the Iran conflict, the US Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) stopped attributing killed and wounded US service personnel to Operation ‘Epic Fury’, with its total casualty count thus becoming frozen at 14 deaths (seven of which were due to hostile action) and 417 wounded (all of which were due to hostile action).
US casualties, however, have continued to mount under the category ‘Overseas Operations’, while the consequences of Operation ‘Epic Fury’ have continued to spread.
Arguably the most damaging influence of Hegseth on the US military has been his ousting of experienced senior military officers whose commands and actions were deemed to be at odds with Hegseth’s ‘war on woke’ and the Trump Administration’s direction of travel: a process that began as soon as Trump and Hegseth took office.
The commandant of the US Coast Guard, Admiral Linda Fagan, was fired on 21 January 2025 (Trump’s first day in office), while 21 February 2025 also saw the dismissal of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C Q Brown, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Lisa Franchetti and US Air Force (USAF) Vice Chief of Staff General James Slife. Gen Brown was the first African American to lead a branch of the US military, while Adm Fagan was the first woman in US history to lead a military service and Adm Francetti was the first woman to be the US CNO.
US Air Force General Timothy D Haugh, commander of US Cyber Command, was relieved of his position on 3 April 2025, apparently after far-right activist Laura Loomer had called for his ouster for perceived ‘disloyalty’ to Trump.
Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was dismissed on 22 August 2025 after a leaked DIA assessment stating that US airstrikes had only set back Tehran’s nuclear programme by a few months.
The USAF chief of staff, General David Alvin, announced in August 2025 that he would retire in November of that year after serving only two years of his four-year term. The Washington Post reported that he was ‘asked to retire’.
US Army Lieutenant General Joe McGee, a former commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division who was serving as the director for strategy, plans, and policy within the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, was forced into retirement in October 2025 after clashing with Hegseth.
General Randy George, serving as the US Army vice chief of staff, was asked in April 2026 by Hegseth to leave his post and retire a year-and-a-half before the completion of his four-year term. The Washington Post reported that Hegseth wanted Gen George to stop the military’s procedural investigation into an unauthorised flyby by two Apache attack helicopters of the home of pro-Trump musician Kid Rock.
On 23 June 2026 The Atlantic reported that US Army General Chris Donahue, the commanding general of US Army Europe and Africa and NATO’s Allied Land Command, would be stepping down soon due to pressure from Hegseth.
In the week prior to the US Mid-Terms US Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, a senior military planner on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, was fired over accusations of leaking information to the news media. Hegseth has set up task force within the Pentagon to identify the source of leaks, which has included the widespread use of polygraph tests on senior officials.
It’s worth remembering at this point that in October 2025, in a move to stamp on any leaks, Hegseth attempted to impose draconian restrictions on the Pentagon press corps, forbidding them from reporting on any news – even if unclassified – without official approval. That led to a mass walk-out involving almost news organisations with a presence in the Pentagon. On 20 March 2026, following a lawsuit filed by the New York Times, Hegseth’s press policy was found to be unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. A further attempt by Hegseth to skirt round this court order was struck down in early April 2026.
The above is by no means a definitive list of senior US military officers ousted under Hegseth, but on 3 November at least one of those senior officers got some degree of payback.
Nancy Lacore, a US Navy helicopter pilot who rose during over three decades of service to become a three-star admiral as chief of the Navy Reserve, was fired by Hegseth in August 2025. In January 2026 Lacore announced a run for Congress in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District and has now won that district, despite it having been recently gerrymandered to favour the GOP. She beat Republican Jenny Costa Honeycutt, winning 49.7% of the vote against Honeycutt’s 48.6% (AP estimate after 99% of votes counted).
Lacore, who has always asserted that she was removed without cause, criticised Hegseth’s management of the Pentagon on the campaign trail and painted him as the public face of the increasingly unpopular Iran war, which resonated with voters in a district President Trump won by 13% two years ago.
Numerous Democrat Congressmen and -women have countenanced against a third attempted impeachment of Trump as US president, figuring that, even with their now-diminished presence in the Senate, Republicans would rally round their president. Democrats have also shown concern over what a third failure to impeach Trump would do to the overall perception of US democracy.
Hegseth, however, is another matter. Initial articles of impeachment against Hegseth over the conduct of the war in Iran were actually presented in the House of Representatives on 15 September 2026 by a Republican: Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
“By engaging in hostilities in Iran for more than 90 days without congressional authorisation, Secretary Hegseth is breaking the law and must be held accountable,” Massie said in a statement after reading the text of his resolution on House floor.
“Secretary Hegseth’s constitutional violations extend beyond the illegal war in Iran,” Massie added. “He is abusing the power of his office to ignore congressional war powers resolutions, to kidnap foreign leaders, and to intimidate critics of the Trump Administration by retaliating against them for exercising free speech. If we are to remain true to our oath to ‘support and defend the constitution of the United States’, Congress must not turn a blind eye to Secretary Hegseth’s unconstitutional and illegal actions.”
To head off a damaging vote on that ahead of the Mid-Terms, then Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned the House early on 16 September, sending lawmakers home to campaign.
The process to impeach Hegseth – or any other secretary within the Trump Administration – is the same constitutional mechanism used for the president, vice president or any other civil officers of the United States. An impeachment resolution is usually referred to the House Judiciary Committee, which conducts investigations, reviews evidence, holds hearings and votes on whether to report the articles to the full House floor. To officially impeach the official, a simple majority vote of House representatives present is required.
Once the House votes to impeach, the charges are then sent to the Senate, which transforms into a High Court of Impeachment. After evidence and arguments are presented, a two-thirds majority is required for the official to be removed from office.
Given Hegseth’s precarious initial confirmation and everything that has happened since then, combined with the Democrats now controlling the Senate with 54+ seats out of 100, the maths mounted against Hegseth look considerable.
