House speaker cancels votes as Republican tries to impeach Pete Hegseth

Submitted by Yasmine El-Sabawi on Wed, 09/16/2026 - 18:58 Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home early to campaign for November midterms as Democrats stand in the way of US arms sale to Israel

Republican Congressman from Kentucky Thomas Massie speaks to reporters after delivering a speech on the House floor at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on 16 September 2026 (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images via AFP) Off

US House Speaker Mike Johnson has cancelled the last day of voting in the lower chamber until after the November midterm elections, just after a Republican congressman introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

The move also comes a day after seven Republicans joined House Democrats to vote to limit President Donald Trump's warmaking authority against Iran, and on Wednesday, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Gregory Meeks, said he wouldn't clear the proposed sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

With all 435 lawmakers in the House of Representatives up for re-election every two years, Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that members should now go back to their districts to make their case to voters.

"We're going to modify the House schedule by a day, and let me explain to you why the House has done its work... This House has been the second most productive in terms of legislation in the history of the institution," he said. "We passed over 900 pieces of legislation. Right now, about 700 of those bills are sitting in the Senate, awaiting action."

"I'm excited for my Republican colleagues to go home and talk to the American people, work in their districts, and explain to them not only serving their constituents but explaining to them all the great things we've done for them," he added.

The House has, in fact, cancelled at least 23 voting days on the calendar in 2026 alone.

That figure more than doubles when looking at the full congressional term since January 2025.

Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican congressman whose term ends in January, after losing a bid for the late Senator Lindsey Graham's seat, called Johnson's move "unacceptable".

"The Founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid," he wrote on X.

"If Members of Congress want to go home and campaign instead of doing the job taxpayers sent us here to do, then their campaigns ought to be paying them, NOT the American taxpayer. We still have work to do."

New Mexico Democratic Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury shared a video online indicating that Republican leadership feared too many party members might break rank and vote against the Trump administration's interests.

"They are sending us home even earlier than expected. And there's really only one explanation for this, and that is that Thomas Massie, the congressman from Kentucky, filed articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth," she said.

"And last night we took a vote on a war powers resolution that passed to end the illegal war in Iran, and we had multiple Republicans join us because they understand the writing is on the wall."

Hegseth impeachment

On Tuesday, Massie, who leaves his post in January after losing his state's Republican primary, filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, a brash former Fox News host now known as the secretary of war.

US: Hegseth reads fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction during Pentagon sermon Read More »

He accused Hegseth of "high crimes and misdemeanors", which is the threshold that warrants an impeachment vote.

That vote, though highly unlikely to be successful in a Republican-controlled chamber, was scheduled for Thursday and was largely intended to get members of the president's party on the record.

"And there it is. Just as I predicted. They’re canceling Congress tomorrow to avoid the vote on IMPEACHING @SecWar," Massie wrote on X on Wednesday.

"It will also make it harder for us to reach 218 signatures on the Epstein Discharge Petition before the election. We were at 190+ signatures last night."

That petition is an attempt to have the Department of Justice release three million more pages on child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who is believed to have had close and potentially incriminating relationships with the president's circle.

No one in the administration has been formally accused of any misconduct.

In a nearly hour-long speech on the House floor on Wednesday, Massie took direct aim at Hegseth's conduct in the now seven-month-long war on Iran.

"They bombed schoolchildren on the first day of the war," he said.

"I can understand in the heat of war, in the fog of war, [but] in the first day of a war that you've been planning for a year, you bomb a school? I'm not saying they did it on purpose. I'm saying Peter Hegseth himself personally is culpable for that because he doesn't care about rules of engagement. He has deprecated the rules of engagement. He has degraded the ability to discriminate between civilian targets and valid military targets. He needs to be impeached for that."

Should a House impeachment vote be successful, the official in question is considered impeached.

The ensuing Senate trial could result in an acquittal, in which case the impeachment itself still stands, or a conviction, which would mean the immediate removal of the official from their post.

When asked for comment on Hegseth, the White House referred Middle East Eye to attorney general Todd Blanche’s remarks on Tuesday: “Secretary Hegseth is doing a phenomenal job,” he said. “The Secretary of War doesn’t just go off and do things, so he follows the law.”

Blocking arms sale to Israel

In a separate move rebuffing the Trump administration on Wednesday, Meeks said he would be instituting a “hold” on the proposed $2.8bn sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, “due to concerns that those munitions would not be used in accordance with US and international law”.

US prepares $2.8bn weapons sale, funded by taxpayers, to Israel: Report Read More »

News of the sale broke on Tuesday after conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson reported that the administration informally notified Congress of these plans. When notifications on weapons sales are formally made, they are also publicly announced by the Department of State.

“I remain firmly committed to Israel’s security and its ability to defend itself against serious regional threats. But the Trump administration’s proposed sale of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs, some of the most destructive munitions in our arsenal, raises grave, unresolved concerns about how these munitions could be used in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon,” Meeks said in a statement.

“I will not clear this sale at this time,” he added. “This decision does not diminish Congressional support for Israel’s legitimate defense needs; it reflects Congress’s responsibility to ensure that US-funded weapons are used lawfully, responsibly, and with meaningful safeguards for human life.”

The hold is a temporary measure, but it is also a signal from Democrats to their voters seven weeks before the midterms that they are listening to concerns about Israeli tactics and US support for them.

Progressive Democrats in particular, who have been winning key primary races, have made fierce criticism of Israel central to their successful campaigns.

The Iran war is also becoming increasingly unpopular as the costs trickle down to average Americans.

Congress starts to sour on Iran war

Frustration with the duration and the financial cost of the US war on Iran is growing among Republicans, especially as they are now left to defend high petrol prices to their constituents in their districts.

The upcoming midterm elections on 3 November are seen as a litmus test for a president's policy agenda carried by his party, and the issue of affordability has dominated the discourse among voters of all stripes.

The House of Representatives is strongly expected to change hands to Democratic leadership when the new term begins in January.

Late on Tuesday, all 213 Democrats in the House, along with seven Republicans, voted to invoke the War Powers Resolution and compel Trump to end the war on Iran, which has killed more than 3,500 Iranians and 18 Americans.

It was the fifth such vote, but never had more than half the House responded in favour.

When a similar effort passed the House and the Senate in June, the White House responded that "there are no present hostilities from which to remove US Armed Forces", because "the hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated with the ceasefire ordered by the President on April 7, 2026".

The ceasefire agreed in April, however, has barely held, with the US carrying out multi-day bombings across Iran's southern coast - including a strike on a wedding - late last month.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the National Iranian American Council (Niac) said lawmakers must now take "decisive action" beyond mere votes.

"After months of war and mounting costs, Congress cannot continue to rely on resolutions alone," Niac's policy director Ryan Costello said.

"The question now is whether Congress will use the full scope of its authority to stop an unauthorized war before more lives are lost and more resources are spent. We urge them to match their words with decisive action, in both Congress and the courts."

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