Congress takes stock live as GOP elects leaders, Hegseth faces impeachment vote

Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said “most of us are probably ready to vote and move forward” as Senate Republicans consider whether to delay their leadership elections.

“We can still continue discussions next year,” he told reporters. “But I think today is the right time to put our leadership in place.”

Rounds said: “There’s nothing wrong with having a discussion about what changes would be made in terms of what’s working.”

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri expressed frustration as the Republican Senate leadership election approaches, telling CBS News he hopes to hear leaders talk about a “different direction.”

“This is the worst string of losses since Watergate, and Watergate comes on the heels of one of the biggest political scandals in American history,” Hawley said. “I mean, it’s an incredible rejection of the goal of this Congress over the last two years.”

Hawley said he didn’t hear from Thune before the leadership election.

“For my part, I haven’t heard a word from the leader. So it can’t be very important to vote today if the leader doesn’t make calls and ask people to vote for him,” he said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defiantly denounced the impeachment effort led by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie on Tuesday, calling it a “farce” and a “political spectacle” ahead of an expected House vote on the measure later in the day.

“What a disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight, nor accountability. It is a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment,” Hegseth said.

The defense secretary called Massie’s impeachment attempt an attempt to harm President Trump because of his own “personal animosity” toward the president and his dislike of the Trump administration’s policies.

“It’s a prank, it’s a set-up, and everyone knows it,” he said.

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Thune on Monday spoke favorably of efforts to unite on the path forward after the bruising midterm elections, and said the decision on whether to delay the leadership election would ultimately be up to his conference.

Thune said he was willing to hear arguments in favor of postponing votes.

“But as I said, this will be a decision that will ultimately be made by Republican senators,” he said. “We will listen to them.”

“I think ultimately, I think it’s important that, moving forward, we resolve some of these issues as quickly as possible,” Thune told CBS News on Monday. “We’ll see what our members think tomorrow.”

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who is leading a campaign to delay the GOP leadership election, explained where things stood Monday night, telling reporters that leaders had agreed to hold a conference at 9 a.m. Tuesday, “and we’ll see how convincing those of us who believe we should delay the leadership election are.”

Asked if there was a need for new leadership, Johnson said Senate Republicans “simply cannot continue business as usual” after a “stunning defeat” in the midterm elections.

“I mean, this kind of defeat demands change,” he said.

Johnson admitted there was no clear alternative to follow him as leader, saying: “That’s part of our problem. Who would want the job?” But he argued that at a minimum, Senate Republicans need to hear from their leadership team on what strategy to follow.

“You have to do some real soul-searching, some deep discussions, and give people a chance to think, ‘maybe I want to run for a leadership position,’ and then give them a chance to talk to their colleagues to try to build support,” Johnson said. “You can’t do that, you know, one week outside of Washington and come back the next day. I mean, it’s abhorrent.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Monday night that Republicans can’t delay their leadership elections because new members are in Washington getting their bearings and “it’s just not something we could do logistically.”

“Those dates were published in advance and everyone knew it. I guess if you’re running for office, you’re always going to need more time to do it,” Johnson said. “But the reason we can’t change the date is because this is all set in stone, we have all the new members here and we’re doing all the member orientation. If we delay the leadership election, it interferes with all of that.”

“There are a lot of logistics to this,” he added.

Earlier Monday, Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, argued that the election should be delayed so the conference can address rules that have allowed a small group of Republicans to delay legislative activity over the past two years.

“Failing to resolve these issues before choosing someone new to lead our Conference does a disservice to whoever we choose as Republican leader,” he said. “We should delay our leadership elections until we decide how to hold each other accountable and what the path forward should be. Our rules must never again allow a leader to be held hostage by the whims of an individual member.”

Senate Republicans are scheduled to meet Tuesday morning as several Republican senators have pushed to delay their leadership elections.

Led by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a small group of Republicans signed a letter seeking to force a conference to meet and vote on postponing the election before moving forward. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday that Republicans “will have a conversation” before seeing where the conference stands on holding leadership elections.

“I think we need to have a very comprehensive, robust conversation about where we go from here, and then we’ll see what the consensus of the conference is,” Thune said. “I mean, ultimately, that’s a decision that will be made by Republican senators tomorrow.”

Thune is expected to be re-elected as president, and no Senate Republican has challenged his leadership. The South Dakota Republican said he was willing to hear the arguments for postponing the leadership election, adding, “I don’t know if that solves anything.” But he reiterated that the decision would be up to the GOP conference.

House Republicans are expected to meet at 9 a.m. to begin thinking about their next leadership team.

The GOP leadership in the House could see the most significant change among the parties in both chambers after House Speaker Mike Johnson stepped down from conference leadership in the minority.

Johnson’s decision leaves Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, fighting for minority leader.

“We have two amazing guys coming up to run the conference. I’m close to both of them, and we’ll see how it goes,” Johnson said Monday.

Rep. August Pfluger of Texas is challenging Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota for minority whip.

Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan has two opponents: Reps. Erin Houchin of Indiana and Greg Steube of Florida.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has not explicitly committed to serving the full two-year term to which he was re-elected last week.

“We’re working to finish the 119th Congress strong. We’re going to do that. I’m still in charge here until early January and we’re going to do our duty. And after that, my commitment and my goal is to help my team ensure that the Republican Party has a very successful 120th Congress, and we’ll see how this all develops, and that’s my commitment,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters Monday evening.