House Democrats tried to impeach Pete Hegseth and couldn’t even get their own team to show up. Eleven House Democrats went missing for the vote, and the impeachment articles died by just seven votes. That’s not a political strategy. That’s a fire drill where half the firefighters stayed home.
Now the progressive base is losing its mind. Phone lines are reportedly getting flooded with angry calls from Democrats demanding answers. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, apparently living in a parallel universe, is insisting that nobody’s calling. Sure, Hakeem. The phones are just ringing themselves.
Larry O’Connor broke the whole embarrassing episode down on the Hegseth impeachment vote fallout, covering everything from the missing Democrats to the revolt now bubbling up inside the party itself.
And it’s not just the base turning on leadership. Bernie Sanders announced he won’t be backing Chuck Schumer, which is a remarkable thing when the most famous democratic socialist in America decides the Senate Democratic leader isn’t worth his support. Meanwhile, Chris Van Hollen is apparently out there counting votes, which is what you do when you sense blood in the water and the bleeding is coming from your own side.
The Democrats walked into this impeachment push looking like they had a plan, and walked out looking like they couldn’t organize a potluck dinner. Thomas Massie’s articles needed just seven more votes to survive. Seven. The party that constantly lectures Americans about the importance of showing up to vote literally did not show up to vote. The irony is so thick you could serve it at that potluck.
There’s also a New York Times bombshell in the mix involving Ilhan Omar’s former bodyguard, plus a defiant new video from Omar herself, piling more chaos onto an already spectacular Democratic meltdown. When your impeachment attempt collapses and the story of the week still isn’t over, you’ve had a genuinely rough stretch.
What happens next is anyone’s guess, but the cracks inside the House Democratic caucus are getting harder to paper over. Jeffries is trying to hold the coalition together while his members skip votes, his Senate counterpart loses support from the left, and his base melts down on the phone lines he insists aren’t ringing.
At this rate, the Democrats’ biggest threat to Pete Hegseth isn’t an impeachment vote. It’s another scheduling conflict.
