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Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Disarray! That’s long been a reflexive trope to best explain how Democrats are struggling to get on the same page (while Republicans pounce), but following a historic blue tsunami, the GOP appears to be arranging itself in the same sort of circular firing squad that party leaders cannot help after a big party loss. A lame duck President Donald Trump is no longer benefiting from the abject fealty from which he benefited in the first two years of his second term, and it looks like his Secretary of War is about to be impeached. But it’s not just the right! Dems gonna dem, as they struggle to agree on what mandate, if any, emerged from their record win (despite an approval rating of 29%, which's impossibly lower than Trump’s). Both parties are struggling for relevance in a post-Trump political era that increasingly looks more like a division between the asset class and the wage earners (or the haves vs. the have—nots) is the dynamic replacing Republicans vs. Democrats.
01. Hegseth Ties His Impeachment to Trump as Republicans Stop Protecting Either One
[Gaining Traction]. Pete Hegseth says the president ordered every operation he’s being impeached for. Republicans who oppose impeaching him still predict it passes.
President Trump told Congress on Monday to “stand up for Pete.” He said Representative Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who filed eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “has a lot of hatred in his heart.” Representative Steve Womack opposes impeachment and still told Punchbowl, “My guess is he’ll be impeached, and it probably ends there.”
Senator Ted Cruz revealed on his podcast that the House has been out of session because Republicans “didn’t have the votes to stop a Hegseth impeachment back in September.” Massie conceded he has no confirmed Republican votes and said he isn’t whipping for any, according to Punchbowl. They also reported the outcome is more likely to turn on how many Republicans show up, a week after the party lost more than 40 House seats. CNN reported that Governor-elect Marsha Blackburn doesn’t intend to appoint Hegseth to her Senate seat.
Punchbowl’s Andrew Desiderio said on CNN that a number of Republican senators are leaving open a vote to let a trial proceed, and Senator Thom Tillis said he’d “most likely” support the push. Hegseth told reporters, “We’re not worried about that.”
A defiant Hegseth called the articles “a farce” and said every operation in them was “ordered by the commander-in-chief then ordered by myself,” during a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday morning. He called impeachment “a show trial against the president and secretary of war.”
TAKEAWAY: Hegseth’s cocksure sycophancy has alienated a lot of important figures in DC, save one: the commander in chief to whom he reports. The subtext here is that Massie was primaried by Trump and revenge is a dish best served cold. The Democrats are all too delighted to benefit from this GOP infighting.