Dems Officially File Impeachment Articles Against Hegseth Over Iran

Democrats are mounting a formal opposition to oust Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Arizona Representative Yassamin Ansari filed six articles of impeachment against the Pentagon chief Wednesday, accusing Hegseth of repeatedly violating his constitutional oath.

“Pete Hegseth broke his oath to the Constitution, put U.S. troops at grave risk through the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, engaged in abuse of office and conduct beneath the dignity of his office, and carried out unlawful military actions despite his obligation to refuse—including strikes on civilians and a girls’ school in Minab, Iran,” Ansari said in a statement.

The text of the articles claims that Hegseth engaged in “high crimes and misdemeanors” when he obeyed Donald Trump’s orders, initiating a war against Iran without congressional approval.

“Only Congress can declare war; his actions demand immediate removal,” Ansari wrote on X.

Ansari also accused Hegseth of demonstrating a “willful disregard” for the Constitution, a willingness to abuse the powers of his office, and reckless endangerment of American servicemembers deployed in the Middle East. She further argued that Hegseth’s relative incompetence fronting the war effort caused thousands of civilian casualties.

But his actions in the Iran war were not the only topic of concern. Ansari also said that Hegseth had inappropriately politicized America’s military, and that he had broken the established rules of engagement by approving illegal “double tap” strikes on noncombatant boats in the Caribbean. She even alluded to the March 2025 Signalgate scandal, claiming that Hegseth had “demonstrated gross negligence” in his handling of classified military information.

A dozen other liberal representatives cosponsored Ansari’s bill: Sarah McBride (Delaware), Lauren Underwood (Illinois), Al Green (Texas), Steve Cohen (Tennessee), Jasmine Crockett (Texas), Nikema Williams (Georgia), Dina Titus (Nevada), Dave Min (California), Shri Thanedar (Michigan), Melanie Stansbury (New Mexico), Mike Quigley (Illinois), and Brittany Pettersen (Colorado).

This story has been updated.

President Trump failed to remember that one of his biggest GOP critics—Thom Tillis—is still a sitting senator, right before forgetting when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Both mistakes occurred in an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo that aired on Wednesday morning.

Tillis came up while Bartiromo asked the president if he’d have enough support in the Senate to confirm his preferred replacement for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Board of Governors member Kevin Warsh.

“And you think Kevin Warsh can get confirmed? You think Thom Tillis is gonna give you a vote—”

“Well, we’re gonna have to find out, he might not. But that’s why Thom Tillis is no longer a senator,” Trump replied. Tillis is very much still a senator, although he’s stated he won’t seek reelection in 2026.

“OK,” Bartiromo said, staring blankly at Trump before trying to change the subject. But he didn’t let her.

“Thom Tillis is no longer a senator right, he quit?”

“Well, he’s on his way out.”

“But he quit.”

This isn’t just some minor slipup. As Bartiromo herself said, Tillis could stand in the way of more than a few of Trump’s goals, from confirming the next Fed chair and attorney general to passing his desired budget. In this same interview, Trump claimed that Ginsburg died after his 2020 election loss, when in fact she died a month before. The whole interview added yet another chapter to Trump’s long record of mental instability.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has come out on the side of the White House in its recent aggression toward the Vatican, suggesting that Pope Leo XIV had it coming.

“A pontiff or any religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously if you wade into political waters, I think you should expect some political response and I think the pope has received some of that,” Johnson said Wednesday.

Last week, reports emerged that the Pentagon had openly threatened an ambassador of the Holy See in January, days after the pope made antiwar remarks during his State of the World address. In the days since that report, Donald Trump has fired off several antagonistic comments against the leader of the Catholic Church, repeatedly trying to sour the pope’s reputation by claiming that Leo is “terrible for foreign policy” and “weak on crime.” That is despite the fact that religious leaders are neither responsible for foreign policy nor in charge of lowering crime rates.

“I was taken a little bit aback, just honestly, frankly, by something that he said, I think he said several days back, something about ‘those who engage in war, Jesus doesn’t hear their prayers’ or something,” Johnson continued.

The Republican House leader was referring to the pope’s Palm Sunday Mass, in which the pontiff said that “Jesus is the King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

Johnson went on to preach against the highest Catholic’s teachings, claiming that it’s a “very well settled matter of Christian theology” that war is sometimes justified, and invoking the “just war” doctrine within military ethics.

The House speaker added that Iran was the “largest sponsor of terrorism” in the world and that the Trump administration’s siege had potentially saved “millions of innocent people” from “being killed by terrorists.”

The war has so far cost the lives of more than 3,000 people in Iran, including dozens of political leaders, reported Reuters. At least 13 U.S. soldiers have also been killed, and nearly 400 have been wounded, according to U.S. Central Command.

Meanwhile, gas prices in the U.S. have surged beyond $4 a gallon. In five states—California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington—gas has risen above an average of $5 a gallon. The soaring price has driven up the cost of practically everything else, as inflated transportation and shipping costs get off-loaded to the customer.

Trump imposed a formal blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil tradeway between Iran and Oman, on Tuesday, and has promised repeatedly that the war is “very close to being over.” In the same breath, however, he added that his administration is “not finished” with Iran.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo Wednesday.

Despite President Trump claiming that the war is almost over, the U.S. is sending thousands more soldiers to the Middle East.

The Washington Post reports that about 6,000 troops are heading to the region on the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier, and about 4,200 troops from the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which can conduct limited ground operations, will arrive in the region at the end of the month. There are already an estimated 50,000 U.S. soldiers in the Middle East, and a two-week ceasefire with Iran is set to expire April 22 unless a peace deal is reached.

Negotiations between Iran and the U.S. could resume this week in Pakistan after hitting an impasse over nuclear enrichment. But Trump’s new blockade on Iranian ports, aimed at forcing Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by squeezing its economy, may not help the situation. Still, the president told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo that he thinks the war with Iran is “close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to being over.”

“You know what? If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country, and we’re not finished. We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly,” Trump said.

Is Trump planning to escalate the war by sending more troops, or is he trying to intimidate Iran into agreeing to terms more favorable to the U.S.? It’s impossible to say, as Trump is unpredictable and impatient. In fact, it was he who begged for the ceasefire in the first place. The question is whether he’s willing to continue an unpopular war that’s hurting the economy and his poll numbers.

Kansas Senator Roger Marshall has doubled down on his delusional pitch for voters to get excited about higher gas prices.

Speaking to CNN Tuesday evening, Marshall was asked if he actually expected his constituents to buy into his earlier claim that national security was “more important than your pocketbook.”

Marshall insisted that Kansans understood the “long game,” and that things could be a lot worse if the United States had not attacked Iran.

“I would argue that if Iran ever had nuclear weapons, and then they controlled the Strait of Hormuz, that gasoline would be $10 a gallon,” Marshall said. “The good news, what gas in America right now is $3.14 a gallon on average, something—oh no, $4.14, forgive me, $4.14 a gallon. In Europe right now it’s $7 a gallon. So, it’s not great. I’m concerned about it.”

Of course, experts say Iran was nowhere near having nuclear weapons. And while the country didn’t control the flow of trade through the Strait of Hormuz before, it certainly does now.

Meanwhile, the “short-term sacrifice” Marshall describes is hurting Americans—and his own party’s chances at reelection. A recent poll from CBS News/YouGov found that 51 percent of Americans found gas prices presented a significant financial hardship. At the beginning of April, Donald Trump’s approval on the economy hit a new low, and gas prices have only continued to climb.

But Marshall claimed there was an upside to paying more at the pump.

“The good news is we’re the largest oil producer in the world right now. That we’re a net exporter,” he said, as if average Americans would ever benefit from oil executives’ war profiteering. That’s sure to be a winning message for the midterm elections in November—hey, we should get this guy a regular spot on Fox News!