In June, four House Republicans — along with every House Democrat — supported a war powers resolution to end the war in Iran. When the new Congress is seated in January 2027 — one that will boast 51 new House Democrats, due in no small part to voter revulsion toward the war — only one of those four Republicans will remain: Ohio Representative Warren Davidson.
In a brief Monday afternoon phone interview with National Review, Representative Davidson described how, in large part, the Iran war caused Republicans to lose so badly on Tuesday and why he does not intend to vote to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — a resolution introduced by outgoing Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie — despite his own intense opposition to the Iran war.
Davidson entered the House of Representatives after winning a special election just a few months before Trump shocked the political world by defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016. Davidson’s predecessor, former Speaker of the House John Boehner, gave up the gavel and resigned his seat after facing intense pressure from the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Immediately after getting sworn in, Davidson joined the Freedom Caucus.
Davidson, who represents Ohio’s eighth district, which stretches between Cincinnati and Dayton, has, for a decade, been a staunch fiscal hawk and noninterventionist abroad. In 2019, he penned an op-ed supporting Trump’s withdrawal of troops from Syria in the paleoconservative outlet, the American Conservative, blaming the “neoconservative consensus” for America’s foreign policy blunders.
For a long time, his “restrained foreign policy” found common cause with President Trump’s posture on the world stage.
“[Trump] gave a voice to people like me who have a more realpolitik foreign policy,” he said — that is, build and maintain a strong military, but don’t automatically assume deploying that force around the globe is good for America.
It was, as Davidson calls it, the “realpolitik,” or restrained faction of the party, that “felt unheard about the Iran war,” contributing to the Republican losses last week. Polls show that a large majority disapprove of Trump’s execution of the war in Iran and, in particular, its domestic impact on gasoline prices.
Just as I asked Representative Davidson how the Republican Party regroups after a devastating loss, another “America Firster” in the House, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who was primaried earlier this year by a Trump-backed challenger, gave his own answer on the House floor: impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Davidson, a vocal opponent of the war in Iran, stops short of providing the type of accountability that Massie is pushing for. “If you remove Pete Hegseth [by] impeachment,” he told me, “it avoids accountability for Congress [not] doing their job, and frankly, the president.”
“It’s not unprecedented for the president to make a decision to go to war without congressional authorization,” he said. What would be unprecedented is what Representative Massie is hoping to do, according to Davidson: impeach a secretary for a decision made by the commander in chief and encouraged by — at least by turning a blind eye — Congress.
Impeaching Hegseth, Davidson told me, would also undo the progress the secretary made in reforming the Pentagon and instilling what Hegseth and Davidson call the “warrior ethos.”
“We exist to fight and win wars, not to talk about climate change and DEI and white rage and all this other nonsense that had been going on,” Davidson said.
He also credits the secretary with improving military readiness and streamlining the procurement process. “There are things that I think they could have done differently, but I think on balance we would lose momentum if they pursued a leadership change right now.”
Davidson also believes that disgruntled “neocon globalists” who object to Hegseth’s sweeping reforms are delighted to see Hegseth potentially on the way out.
To the claims that he is an “isolationist,” Davidson said: “I’m not an isolationist. I’m a former Army Ranger. But we’re not made stronger by getting into all the wars we’re invited to, and we certainly don’t need to seek out extra ones.”
While the war loomed large in the minds of voters, it wasn’t the only thing that doomed Republicans. When asked how broad-based tariffs contributed to GOP losses across the country, Davidson conceded, “There’s no question tariffs hurt affordability in some cases,” especially in markets where no American alternative exists. “I think [the tariffs] should be more focused and targeted.”
In industries where the United States has a viable domestic market, like steel, Davidson described the tariffs as “vital” to preserve those industries, many of which, like critical minerals, are important for national security.
When asked about potential common ground between his “America First” platform and incoming progressive lawmakers, Davidson cited past bipartisan efforts on privacy protections and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform alongside Representative Pramila Jayapal, a multi-term progressive from Washington State.
“Socialism isn’t going to lower costs,” he said. “So we’ll continue to have plenty of things that we disagree about.”
With Massie’s departure from Congress less than two months away, Davidson is poised to “lead the way” for the America First wing of the House Republican conference — and he won’t start by voting to take out Hegseth.