Congressional Democrats want President Donald Trump out of the White House, but they are not on the same page about how or when to act.
More than five dozen Democrats have called for Trump’s impeachment, but that push is likely dead on arrival absent GOP support.
Others want Trump’s Cabinet and Vice President JD Vance to effectively usurp him by invoking the 25th Amendment, which has never been used to oust a sitting president in the nearly 60 years since the amendment was ratified.
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Most Democrats aren’t admitting the political realities of either option, and their typically unified front is showing cracks as they debate how best to push back against the administration.
“I don’t think it is the best use of our time,” Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., said last week at a news conference when asked about impeachment. “Let us get into the majority, let us get a Senate majority and then hold this president to account.”
“All options should be on the table,” Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., a member of House Democratic leadership, said following Dean’s comments.
Top Democrats in both chambers are not in direct alignment, either.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has stopped short of calling for either impeachment or the 25th Amendment, instead pushing for another war powers resolution vote this week to rein in Trump’s authorities in Iran.
“Congress must reassert its authority, especially at this dangerous moment,” Schumer said. “No president, Democrat or Republican, should take this country to war alone — not now, not ever. Republicans will once again have the opportunity to join Democrats and end this reckless war of choice.”
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has appeared to encourage removal conversations among House Democrats and touted a caucus-wide briefing on the 25th Amendment led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., last week.
“Shockingly, Donald Trump threatened to escalate his war of choice in a profane Easter Sunday rant and to eradicate an entire civilization,” Jeffries wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter. “We will continue to unleash maximum pressure on Republicans to put patriotic duty over party loyalty and join Democrats in stopping the madness.”
The 25th Amendment has a much higher threshold for success than impeachment, given that it would require Vance, most of Trump’s Cabinet, and two-thirds of both chambers of Congress to align to remove Trump.
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Impeachment would have to start in the House, and it’s unlikely that formal proceedings against Trump would even begin under House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
But that hasn’t stopped Democrats from trying. Late last year, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, forced votes on two articles of impeachment against Trump, and nearly two dozen Democrats joined Republicans to kill the effort.
Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., filed 13 articles of impeachment against Trump last week, citing the president’s military intervention in Venezuela, the deployment of National Guard troops to cities across the country, and his executive order to curtail birthright citizenship, among other charges.
It is unclear whether Larson, who is facing a heated primary challenge from a decades-younger opponent, will force a vote on his resolution.
In the Senate, even fewer lawmakers are calling for drastic measures against Trump. Only a handful — including Sens. Andy Kim, D-N.J., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore. — have called for impeachment or the 25th Amendment.
“I mean, he’s unfit for office,” Kim said. “I think the 25th Amendment, and if not, then impeachment.”
It’s also a desire that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., contended was “not realistic right now, given his oddball Cabinet of sycophants and eccentrics.”
“We’re going to have to buckle down and win this the old-fashioned way,” Whitehouse said.
