WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump offered full-throated support for Pete Hegseth, signaling that the embattled defense secretary’s job was safe for now amid a congressional effort to impeach him for his conduct of the Iran war.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie introduced a measure on Monday to impeach Hegseth, roughly one week after the president’s party lost its majorities in both chambers of Congress in part because of the conflict in the Persian Gulf.

“He has won the war in two places, two big places, very important, very impactful, and they were won,” Trump told reporters on Monday, referring to Iran and Venezuela. “Really what has Hegseth done?”

Massie introduced a resolution outlining the articles of impeachment, setting up a floor vote on the motion as soon as Wednesday. The motion may pass the House but is unlikely to make it through the still Republican-controlled Senate. After January, the Democratic-controlled Congress is likely to start the effort again, with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries describing himself as a “hard yes” for impeachment of the Pentagon chief.

“The reality is, we’re not indicting him for being bad at his job. In fact, he was very effective at killing school children in Iran,” Massie told reporters Monday. “He was very effective at extrajudicial killings. There’s no argument in these impeachment articles that he’s ineffective. The argument here is that he’s broken laws, and he’s violated the Constitution. And so, that’s the question put in front of my colleagues.”

Massie, who is retiring at the end of the year, is accusing Hegseth of waging the Iran war without congressional authorization, committing extrajudicial killings through strikes on alleged drug boats, ignoring laws designed to minimize civilian casualties including with a strike on an Iranian school, and unlawfully kidnapping a foreign leader — Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.

“He has violated the norms of war, and it’s to the disadvantage and the dishonor of our country, and to the danger of our soldiers,” Massie said at a news conference hours after filing the impeachment resolution.

Massie complained about Hegseth ordering a second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean when survivors were clinging to wreckage and said that ignoring international law encourages U.S. adversaries to do the same.

Hegseth has been the Trump administration’s most prominent and enthusiastic cheerleader for the unpopular conflict in Iran, which spiked energy prices, fueled global inflation and eventually doomed Republicans in the midterm vote on Nov. 3.

Trump called Massie a “stone cold loser,” for the impeachment motion.

Massie’s resolution is similar to his previous impeachment effort, which was thwarted ahead of the midterm election when House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed lawmakers just one day after it was introduced.

Speaking on Monday, Johnson called Massie’s effort a “cheap trick,” adding that “it would be a terrible thing for our allies and enemies to see that.”

Hegseth is scheduled to brief reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday in what is expected to be a rebuttal to Massie’s charges. Last week, Hegseth posted a six-minute video on X defending his tenure, calling Massie a “disgruntled, defeated congressman” who has filed “sham articles of impeachment against yours truly.”

Hegseth’s tenure has been marked by numerous controversies, most notably the Iran war and the legally questionable strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. He’s also been criticized for pushing out high-ranking officers, rhetorical attacks on “woke” diversity initiatives and transgender troops, and the rapid depletion of key munitions as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.

He’s also irritated key members of Congress with his lack of transparency to them and the U.S. public about the progress of the war, its cost and its casualties.

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