The House voted 211-204 on Tuesday, 10 November, to refer H. Res. 1655, Rep. Thomas Massie’s resolution impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to the Judiciary Committee, according to the House Clerk’s roll call 317. The vote, at 6:02 p.m. Eastern, was on a motion to refer, not on the articles of impeachment themselves.
Republicans voted 210-1 for the motion, with Massie the one Republican voting no, and Democrats voted 0-203, the Clerk records. The one member recorded as an independent, Rep. Kiley of California, voted yes. Eighteen members did not vote: 11 Democrats and 7 Republicans.
Business Pill · Guardrails
A short general explainer on guardrails, the limits placed around a system. It does not discuss Congress, this resolution or this vote.
The key insight: As we read the roll call, the decisive question on 10 November was procedural: the House voted on where the resolution goes, the Judiciary Committee, and the 211-204 margin came down to party lines plus 18 members not voting.
The Clerk’s floor summary shows the sequence. At 4:17 p.m., Massie rose to a question of the privileges of the House and offered the resolution, which the Chair ruled privileged. At 5:34 p.m., Rep. Issa, a California Republican, moved to refer it to the Judiciary Committee. After debate on that motion, the House agreed to it by the yeas and nays, 211-204, at 6:02 p.m.
The Democrats recorded as not voting were Brownley, Correa, Gillen, Horsford, Jackson of Illinois, Pelosi, Pettersen, Stansbury, Stevens, Strickland and Wilson of Florida. The Republicans were De La Cruz, Dunn of Florida, Fry, Letlow, Tiffany, Van Orden and Yakym. The roll call does not record reasons for absence.
How each party voted on the motion to refer H. Res. 1655 to the Judiciary Committee, House roll call 317, 10 November 2026. Source: Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives.
What Was Posted on X
BREAKING: Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach Pete Hegseth fails in the House 211-204, after 11 Democrats failed to show up for the vote.
If those 11 Democrats had showed up, Hegseth would have been impeached 215-211.
— Power to the People ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) Nov 10 23:48
The account @ProudSocialist posted at 23:48 UTC on 10 November that the resolution to impeach Hegseth failed 211-204 and that 11 Democrats did not vote. The House Clerk’s roll call 317 confirms the 211-204 count and 11 Democrats not voting; it records the question as a motion to refer the resolution to the Judiciary Committee, which passed, and 7 Republicans also not voting.
TOTAL VICTORY!
The referral of these baseless impeachment articles to the House Judiciary Committee marks total victory for Secretary Hegseth, the Department of War, and the American warfighter. From the beginning, this effort has been a political exercise devoid of merit, evidence, or seriousness. It collapses under the weight of Secretary Hegseth’s record of restoring the warrior ethos, delivering results, and putting the mission first. The American people see through it.
We will not indulge the political theater driven by a disgruntled soon-to-be former congressman and others who have chosen grandstanding over governing. We look forward to ending this sham impeachment in the committee room, where facts will continue to prevail and this distraction can be put to rest.
We will always stand tall and fight to defend the Republic!
Sean Parnell, identified by Fox News Digital as chief Pentagon spokesman, posted at 23:09 UTC on 10 November that the referral of the articles to the House Judiciary Committee was a ‘total victory’ for Hegseth. The piece quotes his post as the Pentagon’s response.
The Post and the Count
A post on X by the account @ProudSocialist, viewed about 3.4 million times by Wednesday, said the resolution “fails in the House 211-204, after 11 Democrats failed to show up for the vote” and that with them “Hegseth would have been impeached 215-211”.
The Clerk’s record matches the 211-204 total and the 11 Democrats not voting. It also shows 7 Republicans not voting. The question put was the motion to refer; the House did not vote on impeachment itself. Had the 11 Democrats voted no, the motion would have stood at 211-215, by our arithmetic, a count on referral rather than on the articles.
What the Articles Charge
Massie’s 9 November release summarises eight articles. Three charge Hegseth with waging the Iran war in contravention of sections of the War Powers Resolution of 1973; the others concern laws on civilian casualties, lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers, alleged retaliation against Sen. Mark Kelly, the seizure of Nicolás Maduro and an operation in Yemen. They are Massie’s charges and have not been adjudicated.
Massie said in the release: “By engaging in hostilities in Iran for more than 90 days without congressional authorization, Secretary Hegseth is breaking the law and must be held accountable”. He is a member of the Judiciary Committee, the release says.
The Responses
Sean Parnell, whom Fox News Digital identifies as chief Pentagon spokesman, posted on X after the vote: “The referral of these baseless impeachment articles to the House Judiciary Committee marks total victory for Secretary Hegseth, the Department of War, and the American warfighter”.
Before the vote, Hegseth told reporters that criticizing the operations means “taking issue with the troops and what they accomplished, which is historic”, according to The National Desk. House Speaker Mike Johnson said impeaching a Cabinet secretary “especially the Department of War in the middle of hostilities abroad, would be a terrible, terrible look”. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters he was a “hard yes” on impeachment.
As we read it, the viral post’s count of 11 absent Democrats matches the Clerk, but it leaves out the 7 Republicans who also did not vote, and it describes a referral vote as an impeachment vote.
As we read the record, Massie voting against referring his own resolution and Kiley voting for it were the only departures from the two parties’ lines among members who voted.
Rep. Thomas Massie, as printed by The National Desk, 9 November 2026
“We should have a vote and a rigorous debate on these eight articles of impeachment”
Three Implications
FOR THE RESOLUTION It now sits with the Judiciary Committee, the Clerk’s floor summary shows, after the House agreed to the motion to refer.
FOR THE COUNT The Clerk records 211 yeas, 204 nays, 0 present and 18 not voting.
FOR THE PENTAGON Its chief spokesman called the referral a “total victory” for Hegseth in a post on X.
What Is Not Established
The text of the resolution was not yet posted on congress.gov when we checked; we read the articles as Massie’s release summarises them. When or whether the Judiciary Committee will take up the referral has not been stated in the sources we read. The roll call records how members voted, not why members were absent.
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The House referred Massie’s Hegseth impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee 211-204, with Republicans 210-1 in favour, Democrats 0-203 against, and 18 members, 11 Democrats and 7 Republicans, not voting, per the Clerk’s roll call 317. The vote was on referral, not on impeachment itself.
A note on sourcing. The vote counts, party breakdown, names of members not voting and the floor sequence come from the House Clerk’s roll call 317 (read as the Clerk’s XML) and its floor summary for 10 November. The articles are as summarised in Rep. Massie’s own release; the resolution text was not yet on congress.gov when we checked. Quotations from Hegseth, Johnson and Jeffries are as printed by The National Desk; Parnell’s is from his X post; his title is as Fox News Digital gives it. The 211-215 figure is our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
