WASHINGTON—Congress returns to Washington with a crowded and controversial agenda, including more anti-Iran war resolutions and more dollars for Donald Trump’s violent and vicious ICE agents.
But now there’s a new element in the mix: Rising demands, from the public, progressive lawmakers, and even a few right-wing voices, that President Trump be pushed from the Oval Office, now. The advocates agree on the goal, but they split on how to achieve it.
And whichever method they plump for, a Cabinet vote or invoking the 25th Amendment, is unlikely to succeed in the current GOP-run Congress.
Reasons given for ousting Trump, who will turn 80 on June 14, range from his uninhibited and often incoherent late-night rants on social media—leading critics to say he’s losing his marbles—to Trump’s bloody war of choice on Iran without congressional consultation.
That war includes his vow to destroy Iranian civilization and bomb the nation back to the Stone Age. Given Iran has 93 million people, doing that, foes say, amounts to genocide.
Other evidence includes Trump’s past constitutional crimes and the Internet poster/meme, thanks to artificial intelligence, comparing Trump to Jesus Christ, complete with a halo and white vestments trimmed with red. It was posted just before Easter, and hullabaloo forced it to be quickly taken down.
But there are problems the advocates of ousting Trump now face. One is which method they choose: Using the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or impeachment by a majority in the House and a Senate trial (again), or, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., advocates, either. A recent poll showed just over half of Americans say lawmakers should impeach Trump now.
And the big problem is that while 80 rank-and-file congressional Democrats are on board with the push to oust Trump, their establishment leaders, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both D-N.Y., aren’t.
So far, organized labor as a movement isn’t on board either. A check of websites of likely unions to join the oust-Trump drive, such as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, its Oakland-based Local 10, and the Teachers/AFT—whose president, Randi Weingarten, is a New York City civics teacher-shows no call for impeachment, yet. Neither does its most anti-Trump local, in Chicago.
The independent United Electrical Workers comes closest, with a ringing denunciation of Trump’s war on Iran, which followed UE’s prior demand for the abolition of ICE.
“The U.S. Constitution is clear: Only Congress has the authority to declare war. Iran poses no imminent threat to the U.S. that would justify military action without consulting Congress, and attacking Iran is not supported by the American public. Trump’s actions betray a contempt for democracy and the Constitution, as if he were a ‘supreme leader’ whose will trumps the will of the people,” leaders said.
As for the Democrats, Schumer is waffling, calling Trump “an extremely sick person,” but stopping there. Jeffries told MSNOW, formerly MSNBC, that “In terms of impeachment and things that matter, we’ve said we’ve ruled nothing out, and we’ve ruled nothing in.”
But he then added that a party-line vote in the narrowly GOP-controlled House would defeat an impeachment resolution. Left unsaid: Trump would again crow that it was a victory.
That doesn’t stop the advocates from trying.
“We cannot risk the world or the well-being of our nation any longer,” Ocasio-Cortez posted on Facebook on April 9. “None of these considerations should be partisan, but shared in good faith by Americans of all backgrounds who care for the safety and stability of the United States.”
“Whether by the Cabinet or Congress, the president must be removed from office. We are playing with the brink.”
The problem with the Cabinet ouster—one of two methods the 25th amendment lists—is the Cabinet. In Trump’s first term, 2017-21, his Cabinet pushed his policies and kowtowed to him in its first meeting.
But it also had some independent minds, most of whom he later ousted. Several more resigned on principle and in disgust before and after Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, invasion, insurrection, and attempted coup d’etat in the U.S. Capitol. Then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to rubber-stamp the attempted overthrow.
This Trump Cabinet seems completely sycophantic, with current Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War—Trump’s term—Pete Hegseth in the lead. Hegseth’s taking a religious tack, too.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a constitutional law professor on leave and lead House prosecutor for the Senate trial in Trump’s second impeachment, for the president’s ordering, aiding, and abetting the insurrection, briefed his colleagues on alternatives in a closed-door meeting on April 9. He, too, favors impeachment, but played it straight, at Jeffries’ request, briefing colleagues on all the methods to oust Trump and their drawbacks. Others were more voluble.
“When somebody threatens a genocide and has the nuclear codes, there is a problem,” Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Calif., a former Executive Secretary-Treasurer for the Orange County AFL-CIO and a member of Electrical Workers Local 441, told NewsNation.
“We go to war with governments or terrorists; we do not go to war with civilians,” she stated. “And knocking out infrastructure like power plants and water facilities is a war crime.”
If Trump’s Cabinet doesn’t act by invoking the 25th Amendment, Sánchez added, “We need public sentiment to create the pressure to have them remove him from office.”
The 314 Action Fund, a campaign finance committee dedicated to electing more Democratic scientists and MDs to Congress, supports both paths to ousting Trump. Multiple petitions on Change.org to get the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment have garnered more than 200,000 names—half of them since Trump began the Iran War.
“Donald Trump is unfit, unstable, and undeserving of the privilege of the presidency,” the 314 fund declared in an e-mail seeking signers to its Trump-must-go letter. “Just yesterday, he compared himself to Jesus and depicted himself as such. Add your name if you believe the 25th Amendment should be invoked against him.”
“The world should not be waiting with bated breath to see whether or not a deranged, 80-year-old unstable madman who can barely walk in a straight line or sputter a complete sentence will plunge the world into a global war…This petition calls on all Americans to come together, to make our voices heard, and to demand the impeachment of Donald Trump.”
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