U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks to the media outside the U.S. Capitol after the House of Representatives voted to pass President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax bill, in Washington, July 3, 2025.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
The reticence expressed by Democrats about removing President Donald Trump from office — even after he ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and attacked Iran without seeking congressional approval — quickly fell away after his latest threat to Iran.
The president’s Tuesday morning Truth Social post, which threatened “a whole civilization will die tonight” and raised the specter of nuclear war, began a chorus of calls either for Trump’s impeachment or for his removal via the invocation of the 25th Amendment. On Tuesday evening, Trump and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire.
“This is a threat of genocide and merits removal from office. The President’s mental faculties are collapsing and cannot be trusted,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., posted to X on Tuesday. “To every individual in the President’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat.”
Trump’s ultimatum came ahead of his Tuesday night deadline for Iran to make a deal with the U.S. and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the key shipping channel for the world’s oil out of the Persian Gulf.
The chance of Trump being removed from office is low, and his Cabinet members — who would have to play an active role in invoking the 25th Amendment — routinely publicly praise him.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., posted to X after the announcement that he was “glad Trump backed off and is desperately searching for any sort of exit ramp from his ridiculous bluster.”
But the pause may not be enough to forestall calls for removal in Congress, where dozens of Democrats — and a few Republicans — condemned Trump on Tuesday. Some, like Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said he should be impeached.
“When will it be enough for my Republican colleagues to grow spines and remove him from office?” Omar posted to X.
Articles of impeachment introduced
Talk of removal began even before the Tuesday Truth Social post, after Trump started the clock on Iran with an Easter Sunday post threatening to attack Iranian bridges and power plants if the country did not soon make a deal.
Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., on Monday introduced articles of impeachment, citing Trump’s “serial usurpation of the congressional war power and commission of murder, war crimes and piracy.”
Others, such as Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., argued that Section 4 of the 25th Amendment — which allows for the involuntary transfer of power if the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet declare the president incapacitated — should be invoked.
“If the United States Congress has any life left in it, every member of Congress and senator must be calling for Trump’s removal today based on the 25th Amendment,” Khanna said in a video posted to X. “He is threatening the entire destruction of a civilization. He is calling Iranians animals.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement late Tuesday that Trump should be removed from office one way or another.
“If the Cabinet is not willing to invoke the 25th Amendment and restore sanity, Republicans must reconvene Congress to end this war.”
The White House criticized the calls for Trump to be removed from office.
“This is pathetic,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in an email. “Democrats have been talking about impeaching President Trump since before he was even sworn into office. The Democrats in Congress are deranged, weak, and ineffective, which is why their approval ratings are at historic lows.”
Twice impeached, never convicted by the Senate
Trump was twice impeached by the House in his first term, but was not convicted in the Senate. While there have been occasional attempts this Congress to impeach Trump, none have garnered significant support from Democrats.
Just 140 Democrats in December voted to advance a measure from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, to impeach Trump.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who has at times called for Trump’s impeachment, told CNBC in March that any such effort was off the table for at least as long as Democrats are in the minority in both chambers. And in an election year in which Democrats are trying to hammer Trump and Republicans on affordability, many see impeachment as a losing issue.
“I think when we take control of the House we will consider that,” Waters said.
Removal from office is unlikely
But neither impeachment nor the use of the 25th Amendment is likely at the moment, with Republicans in control of both chambers and no open revolt within the Trump administration over the Iran war.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment has never been invoked and would require buy-in from Vice President JD Vance, the Cabinet and eventually two-thirds of Congress if Trump argued he is not incapacitated.
Vance, who would assume the role of president if the 25th Amendment were invoked, on Tuesday lauded Trump from a stage in Budapest where he spoke in support of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Republicans criticize threat to Iranian civilization
Still, concern grew Tuesday even among Republicans and former Trump allies.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia representative and Trump acolyte-turned-antagonist, called Trump’s post “evil and madness.”
“25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization,” Greene posted to X.
Elected Republicans began to publicly recoil in the hours after the president’s initial proclamation that he would destroy the Iranian civilization.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, broke sharply with Trump in a social media post on Tuesday, condemning his rhetoric.
“The President’s threat that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran,” Murkowski said. “This type of rhetoric is an affront to the ideals our nation has sought to uphold and promote around the world for nearly 250 years. It undermines our long-standing role as a global beacon of freedom and directly endangers Americans both abroad and at home.”
Murkowski, a moderate who has clashed with Trump in the past, said “[e]veryone involved — especially the President and Iran’s leaders — must de-escalate their unprecedented saber-rattling before it is too late.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a current Trump ally, broke with the president during a Monday appearance on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. Johnson said he hoped Trump’s words were “bluster.”
“I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure,” Johnson said. “We are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them.”
And Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, in a statement posted to X on Tuesday pushed back on Trump’s rhetoric while stopping short of calling for his removal.
“I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization.’ That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America,” Moran wrote. “I have and will continue to support a strong national defense — one that is focused, disciplined, and firmly rooted in protecting the safety and security of the American people. But, how we protect the lives of the innocent is just as important as how we engage the enemy.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley, a former California Republican recently turned independent, in a post on X said, “The United States does not destroy civilizations.”
“Nor do we threaten to do so as some sort of negotiating tactic. We should all desire a future of freedom, security, and prosperity for the people of Iran,” he said, asserting that Congress “has a responsibility to conduct oversight with respect to ongoing military operations and our obligations under both U.S. law and international agreements to which we are a signatory.”
