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Let's bring in CTV News US political analyst Eric Hamo. Eric, always great to see you. We just heard Hex say that Massiey's final days in Congress are numbered. Are Hegaths? I was actually thinking HEGFS could be as well. In fact, they could be leaving together. Uh what we know is that this articles of impeachment do have legs at least in the House. In fact, we've heard from the uh the House Minority Leader Hakee Jeff saying that he is a hard yes on these articles of impeachment. However, we do not know where this stands in the Senate. Uh because getting to that magic number of 67 will be a high bar. But I do suspect
much like Democrats in the House, Democrats in the Senate will likely also support the legis the legislation. It's unclear if they will just get enough Republicans that will do so as well. Now, this is not the first time that we have seen a highlevel cabinet member that has actually uh been faced with impeachment. In fact, Alejandro Mayorcus, President Barack Obama's director of Homeland Security was also impeached by the House. However, when it got to the Senate, uh the Senate actually threw out all the charges without even hearing the case. Perhaps that will happen here. But what we do know is there is growing concern and a growing chorus of lawmakers both on the right and left who do want to see
accountability even if that means HexF's departure. Okay. So Eric, for Canadian viewers watching right now across the country, can you help us just understand how this process is going to unfold? We're hearing word of a potential vote in the House around 5:30 this afternoon, Eastern time. If that goes ahead, then what? Well, the vote this afternoon is a vote to table the motion. And again, it's going to require that vote is simply going to require a majority typically around 218 votes. However, we know last night there were not 435 members in the House. So, it's unclear. It's basically uh the majority of the members that are actually present and voting and it's unclear which members will be present for this vote that will
take place. However, what we do know is based on the numbers last night, you had 202 Democrats that were in attendance versus 196 Republicans. So, you do have more Democrats in the House present for votes than you do Republicans, even though Republicans are in the majority. those Democrats, if they overwhelmingly vote uh and to reject this motion tonight and some Republicans actually side with Democrats, we could see the actual vote to impeach actually take place as early as tomorrow. Okay. What about January? Because this is I mean still got to get through the Senate. Twothirds majority. We already said it's a very high bar on that. New Congress gets sworn in January.
Will this process of impeachment carry through or get restarted in January? And what's the likelihood it could succeed at that point? I suspect that if this fails this time around, Democrats will not bring this up for a vote in January because they have made clear their first priority and their first order of business is to address affordability issues, not deal with impeachment. Now, of course, that will likely most certainly wrankle a lot of the left wing of the party, but considering that right now you have a diminished number of liberals and progressives in both chambers, I suspect there will not be
any political fallout if in fact they do not seek to try to impeach Hexath once again. However, I think where they will extract their pound of flesh is they do have oversight and we know that they will certainly bring Hexath to the Capitol Hill for a series of ongoing very uncomfortable meetings and I suspect we could see even appropriations for the dep for the defense department uh diminished and actually put on hold as a result of the ongoing fur surrounding the war in Iraq. Okay, Eric, bigger picture than one man in office is that this all boils down to the war in Iran, America's handling of the war, how they became engaged in this war, the funding of the war, and the desire among
many Americans for it to end. Any indication there is an exit strategy being drafted? Not at all. In fact, all we get from President Donald Trump is uh is a lot of hyperbole about the war. But here's something. One of those key articles of impeachment that did not get talked about enough yesterday was the congressman did bring an article of impeachment for the retribution against a former service member and now US senator, Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat from Arizona. Uh we do know that he sought to actually uh strip him of his pension, of his military rank and because uh he did produce a video suggesting that service members not follow illegal orders from generals and from the defense secretary and many saw that or at least the congressman saw
that as uh one reason for these articles of impeachment. So they there are there are total of eight articles of impeachment and one of them is for this level of retribution and that could actually go a long way particularly for members of both chambers both Democrats and Republicans. We will be watching potentially starting at 5:30 Eastern today and in the hours ahead. CTV News US political analyst Eric Ham. Always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you, Eric.
