The House is poised to impeach Hegseth. Removing him takes 67 senators, and Trump says he stays.

Thomas Massie has done what he said he would. On Monday the Kentucky Republican introduced eight articles on the House floor of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which accuse him of waging the Iran war without congressional authorisation, among other charges. Because impeachment resolutions are privileged, House leaders must bring the measure to a vote within two legislative days, whether to adopt it, table it or send it to committee.

Trump's answer was to dig in. He said he will stand by Hegseth even if the House impeaches him: "He won two wars. He was in charge," and "He's done a very good job."

Impeaching Hegseth now looks likely. Getting rid of him, short of Trump changing his mind, looks much harder.

A lame-duck House with a thin majority

Republicans hold the House 218-214, so a handful of defections would be enough to pass the articles if every Democrat votes yes. Hakeem Jeffries, who held back before the midterms, now calls himself a "hard yes" and says Hegseth "has abused his power, undermined America's national security."

The Republican side is less settled. Speaker Mike Johnson opposes the move, saying that impeaching Hegseth amid hostilities abroad "would be a terrible, terrible look". Massie, who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger and leaves Congress in January, said on 5 November that he believes enough Republicans will defect to pass it.

Timing matters. Republican leaders recessed the House early, which delayed a vote until November. This time the two-day clock is running, and Democrats take control of Congress only in January, so the current House decides whether Hegseth is impeached before the next Congress can act.

What traders see

Traders have moved sharply. They now put the chance that Hegseth is impeached by 31 December at 81% (as of 10 November), up 60 points in a week. For impeachment by the end of March 2027 the figure is 84%. The three-point gap says traders think a House vote either happens in this lame-duck session or not for a good while after it.

Removal is priced very differently. Traders give a 34% chance that Hegseth is out as defence secretary by 31 December, on more than $2mn of trading, and that figure counts any route: a firing, a resignation or a Senate conviction. It has slipped 9 points in a day, after touching 60% earlier in the week. The chance he is gone by 30 November is 19%, and by 14 November just 5%.

Read together, the two sets of numbers say the same thing. If impeachment alone were enough to end Hegseth's tenure, the two would sit close together. They are almost 48 points apart. Traders expect the House to act and expect Hegseth to remain in post through the autumn.

Why the Senate is the harder room

Removal requires conviction by two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 of 100 votes. That means a large bloc of Republicans would have to vote with Democrats. The record is discouraging: the Senate acquitted War Secretary William Belknap in 1876, and the charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas were dismissed without a trial.

There are Republican critics. Senator Thom Tillis wrote on X: "This is about you: the incompetence you've displayed, the bad advice you've given to the president." Cornyn, Tillis, Cassidy, Murkowski, Curtis and Young are among the Republican senators whose votes are uncertain, and none has said how they would vote in a trial.

Massie noted that the articles would carry into the next Congress, which will have a Democratic Senate majority, but a conviction would still need Republican votes.

Why the market could be wrong

The strongest case for a faster exit is political rather than constitutional. A replacement would be easier to confirm before Democrats take over in January, and Massie wrote in October that firing Hegseth is "the honorable thing to do". Massie has also said he will not refile if Hegseth resigns. A Pentagon chief facing a House vote on his record, with some Republican senators openly critical, could become more of a burden than the White House wants. At 34%, the market leaves room for that outcome.

The case for Hegseth is that Trump has repeated his support for a week, that Johnson is opposed, and that impeachment by itself does not remove anyone.

Hegseth is likely to be impeached, and his position is still safe unless the president decides it is not.