House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday he is "a hard yes" on the impeachment resolution against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, telling ABC's This Week that "Pete Hegseth has got to go."

According to NBC News, his endorsement is a major signal of how other House Democrats could vote when the measure, expected to be filed early this week, reaches the floor.

Jeffries accused Hegseth of having "abused his power, undermined our national security, and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran."

Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, a Trump foe, plans to introduce a resolution as early as Monday containing eight articles of impeachment, alleging Hegseth made war on Iran without the congressional authorization required by the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

The surprise is both the timing and the endorser. Jeffries, widely expected to become Speaker when Democrats take House control in January after last week's midterm landslide, has said his party is not currently focused on impeaching President Trump, who was impeached twice in his first term.

Instead, he has vowed the newly empowered Democrats will serve as a check and balance on the administration — and backing Hegseth's impeachment before formally holding the gavel breaks from that measured framing.

NBC News notes the push also tests how far lawmakers will go after voters gave low marks to the administration's handling of the Iran war, which factored into the midterm results.

Hegseth forcefully pushed back, releasing a nearly six-minute video last week urging Congress to approve the Pentagon's budget request and dismissing Massie's effort as "sham articles."

"It's all about the politics of personal destruction. Didn't work against President Trump and it won't work with me," Hegseth said in the clip, in which he also called Massie a "disgruntled, defeated congressman."

President Trump defended his defense secretary on 60 Minutes, saying, "They want to impeach him. Very unfair... We had two wars, we won both. We won Venezuela, we won Iran." The Pentagon told the BBC it had followed the law and that Hegseth would not be deterred by "phony investigations."

But removal is another matter: impeachment in the Senate requires a two-thirds majority, and Democrats will fall well short, needing Republicans to cross over, which BBC calls a politically high bar.

NBC News separately reports Trump has told allies he was considering replacing Hegseth, though he publicly denies it. Massie says his resolution is "a much gentler version of what's coming" under full Democratic control, when hearings and trials would follow.