Hegseth is now likely to be impeached. Getting him out of the Pentagon is a different matter.

"I'm a hard yes," Hakeem Jeffries said on Sunday when asked whether he would vote to impeach Pete Hegseth. "Pete Hegseth has got to go." The House Democratic leader, speaking on ABC's This Week, said the defence secretary "engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran".

Until now, the question was whether Democrats would back an impeachment drive started by a Republican. Jeffries has answered it. The remaining questions are whether enough Republicans join in, and whether a vote in the House has any bearing on whether Hegseth stays in office.

A vote that could come within days

The vehicle is a resolution from Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who lost his primary and leaves Congress in January. He said he plans to reintroduce eight articles of impeachment, accusing Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution among other things, as early as Monday. Because the resolution is privileged, House leaders must schedule a vote within two legislative days of it being raised.

Jeffries said House Democrats will discuss the measure when they return to Washington on Tuesday, and predicted "incredibly strong support". Hegseth called the effort a "sham" in a video posted on Thursday. Donald Trump has said he has "every intention to keep him".

The mechanics matter here. The House that votes this month is the current one, with Republicans in the majority. Representatives' terms end at noon on 3 January, under the 20th Amendment, which is also when the new Congress assembles. Democrats, who won the midterms, cannot impeach anyone until then. The Republican-run House is the only one that can act before the new year.

That is why Massie's route matters. He needs every Democrat plus some Republicans, and told Roll Call before the election that the measure has "better than a 50 percent chance" of passing.

Who else has moved

Nancy Lacore, the former Navy vice admiral Hegseth fired as chief of the Navy Reserve, told CBS's Face the Nation that she was "never given a reason". She is a congresswoman-elect, so she will not vote in the lame-duck session. But she will sit in the new House.

One Republican is keeping his options open. Asked about Massie's plan on the same programme, Rep. French Hill said: "I want to hear the debate on it to see if it merits impeachment versus some other disciplinary action." He added that the president could act instead if Hegseth is not doing the job. That is not a yes. It is also not the closed door Republican leaders presented in September, when they avoided an earlier Massie vote by sending members home.

Impeachment is priced in. Removal is not.

Traders put the chance that Hegseth is impeached by 31 December at 72% (as of 8 November), up 52 points in a week. A week earlier the figure was as low as 4.5%.

A separate market on impeachment by 31 March 2027 stands at 74.5%, on only $32,000 of trading. That is just two points above the year-end figure, which says traders expect the House to act in this lame-duck session or not at all. They do not expect a Democratic House in the new year to add much.

Whether Hegseth leaves office is a separate question, and traders are far less sure. They put the chance he is out as defence secretary by 31 December at 46.5%, 26 points below the chance of impeachment.

The gap has a constitutional explanation. The House can impeach by a simple majority. Under the Constitution, no one can be convicted without "the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present", which means 67 senators if all 100 vote. The Senate has convicted neither of the two Cabinet secretaries the House has impeached. Majority Leader John Thune has little reason to schedule a trial that looks certain to fall short.

So a Hegseth exit this year has to come another way: a resignation, or Trump pulling him out. Traders give 35.5% to that happening by 30 November.

That is a high number for a president who says he is keeping his man. It suggests traders see impeachment as a way of raising the political cost enough that Hegseth or the White House blinks. Massie has said he will drop the effort only if Hegseth resigns.

Why the market could be wrong

The strongest case against 72% is procedural. Republican leaders sent the House home in September rather than face a Massie vote, and they could try to table the new resolution or adjourn again. Hill's remarks leave room for Republicans to argue that the president, not Congress, should decide. Democrats will also hold the gavel from January, so Republicans who want no part of it can leave it to them.

The case against the removal figure runs the other way. If Republican defections are large, Trump's position becomes harder to hold, and a defence secretary impeached over a war he is running would struggle to stay.

The House can say Hegseth should go. Only 67 senators or Donald Trump can make it so.