Pete Hegseth now stands where Donald Rumsfeld once stood: a wartime defense secretary confronting the fallout of a midterm rout. George W. Bush insisted on keeping Rumsfeld, then announced his exit — tapping Robert Gates as his successor — the day after voters handed Congress to Democrats in the 2006 midterms. Hegseth, according to a report by The New York Times, may be headed toward a similar reckoning after Tuesday's Republican losses, which even his own bosses tie to the Iran war he loudly championed.

Hegseth has built a record of political survival. He weathered the disclosure that war plans were shared in a commercial chat app that accidentally included a journalist, allegations of war crimes in the Caribbean, and anger over his purge of senior generals. His job security, however, is now in doubt.

Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become the next House speaker, drew the comparison directly. "Why is Pete Hegseth still around?" he asked in an interview with the Times. The speaker's gavel would also put committee subpoena power behind the probes his party has threatened.

The war, now eight months old, has pushed prices higher at gas stations and grocery stores, and voters took notice — giving an overseas conflict a direct pocketbook dimension. Vice President JD Vance posted on Wednesday that "the reason we lost is the war" — a line several Pentagon officials interpreted as a pointed critique of their boss.

Publicly, President Trump is standing firm. On election night he said he was not planning cabinet changes, and when reporters asked about Hegseth on Wednesday, he replied: "I think he's doing a very good job." Privately, according to two people who have spoken with him, he has mostly blamed his political team, the Times reported.

Hegseth, for his part, is digging in. "We don't back down, and that especially applies now," he said in a defiant video on Thursday. His spokesman, Sean Parnell, said Hegseth intends to serve until the end of Trump's term, dismissing Democrats' threatened probes as "sham witch hunts."

Some of the sharpest pressure, though, is coming from within the president's own party. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie said Wednesday night that only one condition would stop him from refiling impeachment articles: that "Hegseth resigns." Lawmakers and aides believe the charges could clear the House with Republican votes, though Senate conviction is considered a long shot, since removing a Senate-confirmed official requires a two-thirds vote in the chamber. House Oversight Chair James Comer, also a Republican, told NewsNation there are "a lot of questions about Hegseth."

Allies have floated a soft landing: an appointment to the Senate seat held by Marsha Blackburn, now Tennessee's governor-elect, though Republican aides describe that scenario as unlikely.

The uncertainty is already being felt inside the Pentagon. Officers whose promotions Hegseth blocked had been preparing to retire; on Wednesday, some were told to wait, with a new secretary potentially reviving their careers. Sen. Jack Reed, expected to lead the Armed Services Committee, suggested a change may be coming, saying that stopping the damage probably requires Hegseth's departure "one way or the other." Any successor would need Senate confirmation, a process Reed's expected committee would anchor, and the near-term markers are concrete: whether Massie follows through on his impeachment articles, how the frozen promotions are resolved, and whether Trump's public posture holds.