Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home Wednesday, a day early, for a seven-week campaign recess. Members vote Wednesday evening on a Russia sanctions bill and are gone until after the election. Thursday's vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth goes with them.
Asked whether he was protecting his members from that vote, Johnson told reporters the recess had nothing to do with Hegseth. Then he said what happens to them: "It will immediately be tabled of course. But we probably won't do that today, we will do it when we come back."
Rep. Thomas Massie filed eight articles Tuesday as privileged, which forces a vote within two legislative days, and read all 34 pages aloud on the floor. He hid the resolution from his own leadership, he told reporters, because they "might have canceled" voting days.
They did.
Republicans would have voted it down; Massie lost his primary in May to a challenger Trump backed. Johnson's members feared the roll call itself. Hours earlier, seven Republicans crossed to pass Rep. Seth Moulton's resolution ordering an end to hostilities with Iran — Roll Call 307, 10:32 PM Tuesday, 220–204, Republicans 7 to 203. The seven: Massie, Tom Barrett, Warren Davidson, Brian Fitzpatrick, Nancy Mace, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, the last three for the first time. All seven would have had to choose again on Hegseth, on the record, seven weeks before the midterms.
Narativ wrote it May 21, the night Republicans pulled an Iran war powers vote they were about to lose: a pulled vote keeps the loss off the books. It is barely better than losing — and they know it. Wednesday they pulled the whole House.
What Massie charged, what deployed soldiers photographed at two bases, and what Hegseth and the attorney general said are below.
