Facing Hegseth impeachment vote, House Republicans bail out early until November

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the House of Representatives abruptly canceled their last day of work before a roughly eight-week recess, punting a politically sensitive vote on impeaching Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth until after the midterm elections in November.

Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Sept. 16 that the decision to leave Washington earlier than planned was unrelated to the push to remove Hegseth. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican and outspoken political foe of President Donald Trump, introduced the articles a day earlier, to the surprise of GOP leaders.

Johnson said it was "time for our members to go home to their districts and make the case to the American people" ahead of the fall elections. He derided Massie's longshot impeachment resolution, which due to special procedural rules has a privileged voting timeline, as a "publicity stunt."

"It will immediately be tabled, of course," he said. "We will do it when we come back."

Massie blasted the speaker for what he labeled a "Hegseth holiday." Talking to reporters after a lengthy speech on the House floor, he accused GOP leaders of worrying too much about "bad optics."

"They do not want to debate this," he said.

The prior night, three more Republicans — Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Iowa Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks — flipped for the first time to vote to end the Iran war. With seven supporting that symbolic measure, the House rebuked President Trump for the third time over the conflict, which is continuing to hike fuel prices and contribute to broader economic inflation.

Democrats criticized the GOP's latest scheduling decision as part of an effort to avoid several approaching headaches for Republicans at a politically sensitive moment.

"They are afraid that the House of Representatives will vote to impeach Pete Hegseth," Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-New Mexico, said. "So instead, they're just going to send us home."

Some Republicans beyond Massie weren’t happy about the shifting calendar, either. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina, said canceling another day of votes was "unacceptable."

"The Founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid," he wrote in a social media post.

Massie also has been collecting signatures, to the chagrin of top Republicans, to force another vote related to the Epstein files. Among the provisions of the new legislation, the Epstein Files Transparency Act II would give victims of the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein standing in court to sue the Justice Department for allegedly not fully complying with Congress' first law to publicly release an accounting of all its Epstein-related documents and investigations.

Zachary Schermele is the congressional correspondent for USA TODAY. Reach him by email at [email protected] and on Signal @zachschermele.02. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.

This story has been updated to add new information.