Democrats grow bolder on talk about removing Trump from office after his
Iran threats
[April 10, 2026]
By STEPHEN GROVES, LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING
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.
“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.
Callers jam congressional phone lines
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.
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“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.
Will Democrats make an impeachment push?
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.
Republicans also have the majority in the House and have easily
fended off two previous efforts to impeach Trump in his second term.
A significant number of Democrats have either joined with
Republicans or voted “present” as the House blocked impeachment
resolutions sponsored by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas.
Then came Trump's threat on Tuesday morning to wipe out “an entire
civilization.”
“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.
It’s unclear how House Democratic leader Hakeem 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.”
Standing on the Capitol steps Thursday, Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa.,
said she supports impeachment, but nevertheless 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. “The president brought the entire globe to
watch his madness,” she said.
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