House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday he would vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, backing a Republican lawmaker’s effort to bring the issue before the House as early as this week. The endorsement puts the top House Democrat behind a measure that could come up while Republicans still control the chamber, weeks before Democrats are due to take over in January.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, told ABC News he intended to bring back his impeachment resolution as soon as Monday, Nov. 9, when the House returns. Jeffries said on ABC’s This Week that he expected strong Democratic support and that he would discuss the measure with Democrats on Tuesday. Neither lawmaker presented a vote count, and Jeffries’ public endorsement did not commit other Democrats to voting for the measure.

What Massie is asking the House to consider

Massie outlined eight articles in September, three of them concerning the war in Iran. He accused Hegseth of helping wage the war without congressional authorization and continuing military operations beyond the limits Massie says federal law imposes. The other articles accuse Hegseth of misconduct involving military operations and retaliation against a senator. The September proposal treated the decision to enter the war and the decision to keep fighting as separate grounds for impeachment. It also challenged Hegseth’s use of military force against boats suspected of trafficking drugs, a separate allegation from the dispute over who could authorize hostilities in Iran. The articles state Massie’s allegations; the House has not adopted them as charges.

Hegseth has rejected the effort as politically motivated. In a video on Thursday, he defended the war and said he would fight the push to impeach him, Reuters reported. President Donald Trump has defended his defense secretary and told ABC that he intended to keep him. Jeffries, by contrast, told ABC that he believes Hegseth abused his power and argued that the war has made the country less safe. Those are competing assessments from the officials involved, rather than findings reached through the impeachment process.

What a privileged resolution can do

Massie plans to use a procedure that can bring the measure to the floor without relying on Republican leaders to volunteer a vote. Under Rule IX, when a member gives notice of a qualifying question of the privileges of the House, the speaker designates a time for its consideration within two legislative days. That clock runs on legislative days, which can differ from calendar days. The rule gives a qualifying resolution priority but does not guarantee a vote on the substance of the charges.

One option for the chamber is to table the measure, ending its immediate consideration without deciding whether the allegations justify impeachment. A motion to table could therefore be the first recorded test of support, even if no member gets to vote directly on impeachment. That distinction was already at issue in September. Speaker Mike Johnson said then that the House would table Massie’s effort, but Republican leaders canceled the final day of votes before the election recess, and the expected vote did not happen, Stripes reported. Johnson said the early departure gave members more time to campaign; Massie said it was intended to avoid a vote on Hegseth.

Impeachment would leave removal to the Senate

Under the constitutional process, a simple House majority can approve an article of impeachment. That would formally charge Hegseth and send the matter to the Senate for trial. Removing him through impeachment would require a conviction, which takes two-thirds of senators present. Even with all 100 senators present, a House vote in favor would leave supporters needing 67 votes in the Senate.

Those steps make the immediate floor decision narrower than the fight over Hegseth’s future. The House can decide whether the charges should proceed even if senators have made no commitment to convict. The president could separately replace his defense secretary without either chamber voting, but Trump’s stated position last week was that he planned to keep Hegseth in office.

Why the timing matters

Democrats won control of both chambers in last week’s midterms, the Associated Press reported, but those results do not change who runs the House during the remainder of this Congress. If the resolution reaches the floor now, it will do so with Republican leadership in charge. Massie’s effort therefore tests whether a Republican sponsoring the measure and a Democratic leader supporting it can assemble a majority in the outgoing House. Jeffries also described a broader oversight agenda for Democrats after they take power. That work can proceed through committee investigations without an impeachment vote.

The first sign of what happens next will be whether Massie follows through when the House reconvenes and what procedural question the speaker puts before members. The second will be whether Democrats line up behind the resolution after the Tuesday discussion Jeffries announced Sunday, and whether other Republicans join Massie. Until then, the endorsement makes Jeffries’ position clear and raises the prospect of a floor fight, but it does not establish that the House has the votes to impeach.