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.
“We cannot excuse what the president said as a negotiating tactic,” Rep. Sara Jacobs, a California Democrat, told reporters at the Capitol Thursday.
“It is important that even though we were able to get this ceasefire, which I pray holds, that we hold this president accountable for what he threatened because threatening genocide is not just against international law, it’s against our federal law, too,” she added.
Still, Democratic leaders and many moderates in the party have steered clear of endorsing impeachment, and any attempt to remove Trump from office is doomed to fail so long as Republicans control Congress.
In the near term, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are 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.
A few Democrats attempted during a brief session of the House on Thursday to pass what’s known as a war powers resolution on Iran, but Republicans, who control the chamber, did not acknowledge their request.
“We need Speaker Johnson to call us into session,” said Democratic Rep Emily Randall of Washington. “The American people deserve that.”
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt has 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 Wednesday 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.
“All of our offices have received hundreds of calls from concerned constituents demanding that Congress reconvene and address this threat through a war powers resolution and further action to rein in an out-of-control president,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Penn.
The groundswell appeared to be organic, rather than an orchestrated campaign to pressure lawmakers to act.
Standing on the Capitol steps Thursday, Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., said she supports impeachment, but hit the brakes on it for now, as the Democrats are in the minority. Instead, she called on Republicans to stand up to Trump’s threats, including by invoking the 25th Amendment.
She predicted the imperative to remove Trump from office could only grow as negotiators navigate a fragile framework for a peace deal. Dean and other Democrats criticized the plan as “chaotic” and unworkable.
Yet Dean said Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization should have already been enough. “How much farther into the dark corners of this president’s mind must we go before leaders stand up, before leaders stand for the children who are terrified here and around the globe by the president’s words and actions?” Dean said.
