WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is under growing pressure, with victorious Democrats planning to target him in Congress and Republicans blaming the Iran war he championed for their election losses.

Hegseth, a former Fox News co-host and National Guard officer, has survived repeated scandals since taking office in early 2025, but his time may be running out.

President Donald Trump has stood by Hegseth so far, insisting he’s doing “a very good job” when asked whether he would replace the Pentagon chief.

But Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both blamed midterm election losses on the Iran war, for which Hegseth is a key advocate and spokesman.

Opposition Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress this week, giving them the power to launch investigations and to curb funding for the Defense Department and the Iran war.

The conflict, which has seen Iran partially block the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway, has wreaked havoc on the global economy. Resulting price surges, especially of energy, have angered US voters.

“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance said of the Democratic wave — a statement Trump agreed was “largely true.”

‘Not going to work’

Hegseth acknowledged the pressure he is facing in a video message on Thursday in which he defended his record and described the war as a “courageous and historic effort.”

“They attack me, they attack us, because we are effective. It’s not going to work. We will not back down,” he said on the steps of the Pentagon.

Some US lawmakers have made clear that Hegseth and the Iran war are in their sights.

“I’m going after Pete Hegseth. Not only is he incompetent and corrupt, he’s undermining our national security and the safety of our troops,” said Representative Jason Crow, a Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the committee, said its top priority would be “to conduct vigorous oversight of the Department of Defense and the Trump Administration,” including on “the illegal war against Iran.”

Hegseth also faces a threat from a member of the Republican Party — outgoing Representative Thomas Massie — who plans to introduce articles of impeachment when the House is back in session next week.

“There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment: Hegseth resigns,” Massie said.

The anti-Trump lawmaker sought to impeach Hegseth earlier this year, but Republicans sent the House into recess before a vote could be taken.

Repeated scandals

In his video message, Hegseth dismissed the “sham articles of impeachment” from Massie, whom he described as a “disgruntled, defeated congressmen,” and equated the effort to remove him with past impeachments of Trump.

“It’s all about the politics of personal destruction. Didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me,” he said.

Hegseth has been at the center of a number of scandals and controversies over the past two years, most recently over a plan — which Trump ultimately scrapped — for a military firing squad execution to be live-streamed.

A few months after Hegseth took office, the Atlantic magazine revealed its editor-in-chief had been inadvertently included in a Signal chat in which the Pentagon chief and other officials discussed imminent strikes on Yemen.

Strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have also been a source of controversy, especially an attack last year that left survivors who were killed in a follow-up strike.

In other contentious moves under Hegseth, numerous senior military personnel, including the country’s top-ranking officer, Charles “CQ” Brown, have been fired, often with little or no public explanation.

Representative Smith said the boat strikes, Trump’s deployment of troops to US cities, and the “blatant and corrosive politicization of our armed forces” are all “high on the list” of issues to be investigated by the new Congress.