Secretary of War Pete Hegseth fired Navy Secretary John Phelan on April 23, the latest in a series of personnel moves at the Pentagon that have reshaped the senior military and civilian leadership structure during the ongoing US-Iran conflict, following his earlier dismissal of Army Chief of Staff General Randy George in early April amid what was described as a broader shake-up of Army leadership during active operations.
Hegseth announced on the same day that he was immediately scrapping the mandatory flu vaccine requirement for all US military personnel, posting on X: “The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force. We are discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately.”
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Hegseth said: “Your body, your faith, your convictions, and your health are not negotiable,” framing the policy shift as a restoration of medical autonomy and religious freedom, and criticising the previous requirement as an example of the Biden administration forcing service members to choose between “their conscience and their country.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker signalled that not all Republican senators are comfortable with the reversal, with aides describing his reaction as viewing the end of mandatory flu vaccination as a mistake, given the longstanding public health rationale for requiring immunisation in close-quarter military environments where flu transmission risk is structurally elevated.
House Democrats introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth last week, designated H.Res. 935, accusing him of high crimes including authorising airstrikes on Iran without proper congressional notification and alleged involvement in military strikes on drug smuggling vessels that raised rules of engagement questions, though prediction markets currently place the probability of the House actually passing the articles below 5 percent given the Republican majority’s composition.
A group of eleven Senate Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen sent a formal letter to Hegseth pressing him to account for civilian casualties during the US military campaign inside Iran, referencing a Tomahawk missile strike on a girls elementary school in Minab where 175 children and teachers were killed, and a ballistic missile strike on a school and sports hall in Lamerd where at least 21 people died.
The senators asked Hegseth more than a dozen specific questions about civilian harm protocols, whether cluster bombs were used to disperse mines, and the status of internal Pentagon investigations into the specific strikes named in the letter, framing their inquiry as a response to Hegseth’s cuts to the offices responsible for civilian harm tracking and assessment that had been built up over more than a decade of bipartisan Pentagon reform.
Hegseth’s tenure has been marked by a series of controversies including the Signal group chat leak, war profiteering allegations tied to a report that his broker looked to buy a defence fund before the Iran strikes became public, and his promotion of Christian nationalist themes within Pentagon communications, including a prayer recited before combat search and rescue missions that drew attention for being based on a misquoted biblical passage associated with a Quentin Tarantino film.
Polymarket traders currently assign approximately a 44.5 percent probability that Hegseth will leave his position before December 31, 2026, reflecting genuine uncertainty about the durability of his tenure, though the White House has given no indication it is considering removing him and he continues to conduct Pentagon press briefings and policy announcements without interruption.
The structural challenge for those pushing for Hegseth’s removal is the same one that has dogged every other effort to hold administration figures accountable during Trump’s second term: without a Republican defection threshold that simply does not exist in the current Senate, neither impeachment nor forced resignation can be achieved through formal congressional mechanisms alone.
