On Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., moved to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran, introducing a resolution which accuses him of high crimes and misdemeanors. Massie will force a House vote on the matter no later than Thursday, and though it is not expected to succeed, it could have profound impact on the midterm elections by forcing Republicans to choose a side on the unpopular war.
“While the bulk of congressional Republicans have defended Trump’s war, the Hegseth impeachment measure could be a difficult vote for lawmakers like Reps. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio),” Bloomberg reported. “Those three Republicans bucked the party to support a previous measure rebuking Trump’s war powers without congressional approval in Iran. Barrett and Fitzpatrick will face competitive reelection battles in November.”
Others have made similar predictions about these impacts. Election Analyst Adrian Beaumont wrote in The Conversation this week that “If disruption caused by the Iran war continues until the midterm elections, with increased petrol prices and inflation, Republicans are likely to lose control of both the House and the Senate, possibly with huge losses.”
The Trump administration, alongside Israel, attacked Iran more than six months ago. Also on Tuesday, the Pentagon told Congress that the cost of the war has climbed to $42 billion, a bit over the most recent estimates of $38 billion from the Congressional Budget Office. Some experts have estimated the cost to be even higher, such as Linda J. Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan senior lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, who told The Hill it could be as much as $100 billion — and that was back in July.
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The war has fueled inflation, creating a self-inflicted energy crisis that has driven up gas prices to historic highs around the globe. Although some, like Vice President JD Vance, has said it is not even technically a war, it has resulted in the deaths of at least 18 U.S. soldiers and more than 750 wounded. According to the independent defense research portal MilitarySpend, between 1,800 to 3,800 civilians across the Middle East have died in the war, most of them Iranian.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump suggested the U.S. could stay in Iran and “keep the oil like Venezuela,” referring to the kidnapping of the country’s President Nicolás Maduro in early January. Trump claimed the revenue from Venezuela has “paid for the war many times.”
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