President Donald Trump's inner circle is reportedly scapegoating a single official for the Republican Party's historic shellacking in the 2026 midterm elections: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The knives are now out to remove him from power at the Pentagon.

According to a Wednesday report from CNN's Adam Cancryn, Sarah Ferris, Zachary Cohen and Alayna Treene, "the House could vote as soon as next week to impeach the Pentagon's top leader." The journalists wrote that "many Republican lawmakers and allies alarmed by Tuesday's wipeout are moving swiftly to pin blame for the election results on Hegseth, arguing behind the scenes that he played a chief role in convincing Trump to attack Iran with no exit strategy — and no plan for managing the inevitable political fallout." A House impeachment of a sitting cabinet secretary would be an extraordinary step: the chamber has done so only once in US history, impeaching War Secretary William Belknap in 1876 over a corruption scandal, and a Senate conviction on impeachment articles removes an official from office.

The report added that the knives-out campaign against Hegseth "comes despite private acknowledgement from House and Senate GOP strategists that the party's problems extended far beyond the war, triggering 2008-level losses that will take years to reverse. But for now, party leaders – and many in their ranks – remain unwilling to directly blame Trump for their woes."

The CNN journalists offered further detail on how Republicans are turning on the defense secretary. Multiple Republicans, speaking on condition of anonymity, argued that Hegseth, "a vocal cheerleader for the war, oversold the US' ability to win the conflict quickly and easily." They accused him of "continuing to advocate for escalation despite little sign that continued bombing has brought Iran closer to surrender."

In their view, "the conflict has since turned into a quagmire, entangling the US in the Middle East indefinitely, worsening the affordability crisis, and triggering voters' midterm revolt against the GOP." On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance issued an extraordinary statement that "the reason we lost is the war," though he did not assign any specific blame for the conflict.

Even before Democrats retook the Senate and House of Representatives by overwhelming margins, there were reports that Hegseth would be in trouble if they took over Congress. The Washington Post's Noah Robertson and Dan Lamothe reported on Sunday that "two of the officials asserted that Hegseth could work across party lines, depending on how aggressive Democrats were in their investigations." They added that "several others predicted that his critics, both in Congress and in the Pentagon, could feel more emboldened to oppose him if Democrats take power." With a vote possible as soon as next week, the immediate questions are whether the House follows through and how aggressively Democrats pursue their investigations — the variable the Post's reporting said could shape whether Hegseth is able to work across party lines.

"Pete has made so many enemies — and uncontrollable enemies," one person familiar with the matter said.