Discussing the impeachment effort against Defense Secretary Hegseth

You see that countdown clock in the bottom right corner of your screen? That is when we will have a test vote on possible impeachment articles against Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth. Want to break down what all of this means? And for that, we're bringing in Oakland University Professor of Political Science, Dave Dulio. Long week for you last week, Dave, and we're keeping you busy to start this week as well. It's always great to be with Fox 2, Aaron. Thanks for having me. We appreciate you joining us. So obviously, Republicans still control the House at this point. But what's notable about these impeachment articles is they're being brought by Republican congressman, an outgoing one, but a Republican nonetheless, Thomas Massie. First of all, does this even have a chance at passing at this point? And what does this process look like? I don't think it does. I think that Massey is trying to extract a pound of flesh from President Trump on his way out. As you know, Massie has ruffled Trump's feathers for a long It's been a long time, and Trump actively sought to defeat Massey with another Republican. You know, I think that this is just the latest salvo in that battle. President Trump has expressed support for Pete Hegseth. So at this point, I don't think you'll see Republicans break from the president and support I support these articles. And it's interesting to mention this as well, because we're just a couple of months from Democrats taking control of everything. But there have been questions about whether any impeachment, whether it's against the president, whether it's against whether it's against cabinet members will be brought because there's rumors that they might want to focus on affordability, which is really what got them into office to begin with, Dave. So really kind of a quagmire that Democratic Democratic lawmakers are going to have to deal with. Yeah, I think that the leadership of the Democrats in the next Congress, whoever that might be, and we've got some, our own current senator, Alyssa Slotkin, and senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed weighing in on some of that recently, but I think that, again, the leadership will iron that out. Um, certainly Democrats want to investigate and, and frankly perform their, their oversight responsibilities on the Trump administration. But to your point, they can take it too far. And, and if, if they are viewed by voters and, uh, and, and Americans as, uh, you know, turning their attention away from the issues that, that they were, uh, elected to deal with, And then... They'll have their own problems. And I think one of the ways that they can do that is if they get into an impeachment palooza. We'll coin that term here on Fox today. You know, if they start to go after mass, excuse me, if they start to go after Hegseth in the new year, if they go after RFK Jr., if they go after Trump again, right, and they just start to. file these articles of impeachment and have impeachment votes, and then the Senate's got to take it up, right? It just becomes a distraction and frankly, something that is a, again, taking them away from what they were elected to deal with. Yeah, certainly a delicate balancing act there, Dave. A quick question for you as well, and we should point out live now from Fox. The Lisa McClain, Michigan congresswoman, won a three-way race for conference chair on the first ballot. So just a quick notable leadership vote there. Congresswoman Lisa McClain remains conference chair for the House, albeit she'll be in the minority this time around. Do want to ask you though, Dave, as far as the process goes for impeachment with cabinet members versus a president, is it a similar process or are there differences that we're talking about here? Yeah, it's a similar process, right, where the articles of impeachment would be filed as they have been here by Representative Massey. They would go to, I believe, the Judiciary Committee and that would have to be voted on. Those articles would have to be voted out of the committee favorably and then they'd be taken up by the entire chamber. And if articles of impeachment were passed. Uh, the Senate would take up the, you know, for lack of a better term, the punishment phase and, and, you know, even if they were able to be passed in, um, The remaining days of this Congress, they could be taken up again by the Senate in 2027, which is a different process than with normal legislation. So that could be something to keep an eye on, right? But again, I don't think that you'll have the votes in this Congress to even pass the House. And the differences that you're talking about, you're referring to the fact that the legislation can hold over from one Congress to the other. Can you break that down a little bit for us, Dave? Yeah, sure. Legislation that is introduced in one Congress, we're in the 119th Congress right now, it will end in January. And anything that isn't legislation that's been Finalized. I can't carry over or pick up from the same spot in the process where it left off in the next Congress. Right. So if there's a let's say that there's a bill introduced in the next day or so about tariffs that would rein in the president's tariff authority and frankly, give it back to or take it would be Congress taking back that authority. If it wasn't signed into law by the end of the Congress, it would have to start all over again in the 120th Congress in the first week of January. My understanding, though, is that articles of impeachment are treated differently and And that they could carry over. And to that point as well, the Senate would still need a two-third majority to oust him, right? So that's a tall bar there as well. And we found this out when, you know, we had the two impeachment processes with President Trump during his first term, where, you know, the And the last time we'd had a real impeachment process was 1997 with Bill Clinton. So not a lot of folks were familiar with it. So, you know, it was a big deal and always is. Right. But it was a big deal when the process started with President Trump's first impeachment. And I think a lot of people learned a lot about how these go. Right. And what the standards are. And frankly, the standards in the House to get somebody impeached are fairly low because it only takes a majority vote and high crimes and misdemeanors are whatever the House of Representatives thinks are high crimes and misdemeanors. The bar in the Senate is so much higher to remove somebody from office that it really is, again, an indication of the checks and balances and shared powers that are there on Capitol Hill. In a sense, it's kind of like what you see in a courtroom, Dave, where the district court getting a case. To trial, the bar is lower where it's probable cause, where that beyond a reasonable doubt that you have at trial, that is a completely different bar and certainly a much higher one as well. Yes, that's a great, I think that's a great comparison. And so as we look at this leadership battle that is playing out here, Dave, on Capitol Hill. Questions about who the Senate will choose as its minority leader. We already saw House Speaker Mike Johnson say he's not running. Congressman Jim Jordan is getting that role instead. Certainly some big changes on the horizon after just those massive losses that the Republicans took in the midterms last week. Yeah, and really, honestly, the leadership for the minority party in the House of Representatives is almost meaningless, and it's just because the way that chamber is structured and the way it conducts its business. The fact that Jim Jordan is going to be a minority leader isn't going to make much of a difference than if it was Steve Scalise or Mike Johnson. I mean, the minority party in the House of Representatives shows up and takes it on the chin every day just because they don't have the votes. And it'll be even more the case in January in the 120th Congress because Democrats are going to have such a sizable majority. And, you know, on the Democratic side, I think it's more interesting to think about, you know, somebody like Chuck Schumer, who we're seeing more and more members of the Senate on the Democratic side come out and say that they are open to somebody else. I think, and we saw just today that our own Senator Alyssa Slotkin has said that she's not going to support Schumer. Abdul El-Sayed, our senator-elect, has said that he's interested in somebody else. You wonder if there's a point at which... We start to see a bit of a snowball effect where it takes on a life of its own, and Senator Schumer finds himself without much support. Senator Slotkin has called for a new generation of leadership, and there are more and more Democrats that are making those calls. Who that would be, I think, is an open question. If we go over to the Democrats in the House, Hakeem Jeffries is, I think, very likely to be the next Speaker of the House. I find it hard to believe that today's Democratic Party would step in the way of Representative Jeffries becoming the first African-American Speaker of the House. We've got a lot to follow here, Dave, and we're going to be doing it along with you. And we should point out that Senate Majority Leader, now Majority Leader Thune, was re-elected Republican leader for the Senate. That coming down within just the last couple of minutes. Dave Duilio, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. You got it. Thanks, Aaron. We will be right back here.