WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s threats to wipe out Iran, “a whole civilization,” ended the restraint that Democrats have mostly practiced when it comes to questions of removing him from office in his second term.
By the dozens, Democrats came out to say that Trump should no longer serve in the White House, either through the impeachment process or the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and the Cabinet to declare that a president is
no longer able to perform the job.
While Trump eventually pulled back on his threat and agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, the episode highlighted the growing demands for Democrats to oppose the Republican president in the strongest possible terms. Calls about Iran flooded into congressional offices, lawmakers said.
The breadth of the Democratic pushback underscored the gravity of Trump's apocalyptic threat to a country of more than 91 million people. It also served to raise the domestic political stakes for a conflict that is far from over. The Trump administration faces mounting calls to testify about the war and justify its demands for hundreds of billions of dollars in new military spending.
“A commander in chief who is truly in control would have never gotten into this colossal mess to begin with,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer at a news conference Wednesday in New York.
In the near term, both Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries are shying away from impeachment, instead pushing Republicans to join them and pass legislation that would force Trump to get congressional approval before carrying out any more attacks on Iran. Any attempt to remove Trump from office is doomed to fail so long as Republicans control Congress.
House Democrats plan to use a brief session of the House on Thursday to call for the quick passage of the war powers legislation, but Republican leadership is expected to quash that attempt.
“We will continue to unleash maximum pressure on Republicans to put patriotic duty over party loyalty and join Democrats in stopping the madness,” Jeffries said in a letter to Democratic members Wednesday.
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump's rhetoric as effective.
“I think it was a very, very strong threat from the president of the United States that led the Iranian regime to cave to their knees and ask for a ceasefire and agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” she said at a White House press briefing.
As they press their case against Trump, Democrats are responding to the worries of their own base and constituents. Congressional offices were bombarded with phone calls and emails this week, largely from people alarmed by the president’s rhetoric.
In the House, the office of Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., received a “ton” of calls and emails Monday and Tuesday, mostly about Iran but also about impeaching Trump or removing him by deploying the 25th Amendment, said one aide who was not authorized to discuss the internal office situation and insisted on anonymity.
When her district staffers in the state office took a break Tuesday, they returned to 75 voicemails on Iran an hour later, the aide said.
“My office phones have not stopped ringing,” said Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., at a press conference in Portland, urging House colleagues to immediately return to Washington.
Dexter’s office received more calls on Tuesday, 257, than it has ever received in a 24-hour period since the first-term lawmaker’s team began keeping track.
The groundswell appeared to be organic, rather than an orchestrated campaign to pressure lawmakers to act.
While outside groups have been circulating some discussion points, including the legal details around invoking the 25th Amendment, there has not been an organized effort to flood the congressional offices with a strategic message, said one Democratic strategist familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private conversations.
It was simply the “horror” of what Trump was saying, the strategist said, and the scale of the president’s threats, that appeared to have sparked the mobilization.
On the political right, several prominent figures including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, also suggested Trump should be removed from office through the 25th Amendment.
Democrats twice impeached Trump for actions taken during his first term, but he was acquitted each time. They have tried to avoid such debates for the last 16 months as they tried to center their midterm message on kitchen table issues rather than opposing a president who narrowly won the popular vote.
Then came Trump's threat on Tuesday morning to wipe out “an entire civilization.”
“Whether by his Cabinet or Congress, the President must be removed from office. We are playing with the brink,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on social media.
Such calls for Trump’s removal didn't stop after his announcement of a ceasefire.
“Temporary ceasefire or not, Trump already committed an impeachable offense. Congress needs to get back to work and remove him from office before he does more damage to our country and the world,” said Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a veteran of the war in Iraq.
Republicans have the majority in the House and have easily fended off two previous efforts to impeach Trump in his second term. They may have to do so again in the weeks to come as Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., has already filed a resolution with a wide-ranging 13 articles of impeachment against Trump.
In June, 128 Democrats joined with every Republican to table a resolution sponsored by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, to impeach Trump on a charge of abuse of power after he launched military strikes on Iran without first seeking authorization from Congress.
A second impeachment resolution from Green in December generated a 237-140 vote, but there were signs of a shift, with 47 Democrats voting “present” rather than opposing the resolution outright. Jeffries and others in leadership said that the proper groundwork for impeachment had not been prepared and that they would vote “present” while keeping their focus on making life more affordable for Americans.
It’s unclear how Jeffries will handle the demands for another impeachment push. But Democratic leaders are holding a call on Friday with members of the House Judiciary Committee that is focused on “Trump administration accountability and the 25th Amendment.”
Other Democrats have also focused attention on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and said he should also be removed from office. Hegseth has defended U.S. actions against Iran and has said that American and Israeli forces had achieved a “capital V military victory” and that the Iranian military no longer posed a significant threat to U.S. forces or the region.
Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari, whose family fled to the U.S. from Iran, was among those calling for Hegseth's ouster. She said that she was “momentarily relieved” that civilians in Iran would not face Trump's threat of widespread destruction.
“We need urgent action for the sake of our national security and the safety and security of the rest of the world,” Ansari said.
