Trump’s Iran Post Triggers Renewed Calls for His Removal

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

Oscar Wilde’s line is a reminder that setbacks can sharpen judgment as much as successes do.

People test an idea, assess the outcome and, ideally, use what they learned to navigate the next challenge with greater care.

For the most part, that has defined how Democrats have responded during the second Trump administration.

Until this week, that approach included a notable hesitation to embrace demands to force Mr Trump from office.

That caution may have reflected worries about the partisan signal such a push could send to voters in swing districts before the November midterm elections.

Most House Democrats had even joined Republicans in voting down impeachment resolutions introduced by Texas Rep Al Green.

Then President Trump posted on Truth Social that a “whole civilisation” will die tonight, and Democrats’ rhetoric shifted sharply in the aftermath.

The GOP still holds the majority in both chambers of Congress

“You can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre and a president cannot be allowed to threaten genocide with the United States military,” Delaware Rep Sarah McBride wrote on X.

“Trump must go – and Republicans, whether in the Cabinet or Congress, must join Democrats in using any and all constitutional powers at our collective disposal to end this illegal war and take the gun out of this madman’s hands,” she said.

Rep John Larson said he had filed articles of impeachment.

Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar went further, sending a letter to Vice President JD Vance and cabinet members urging them to invoke the 25th Amendment.

That amendment gives the vice president and a majority of the cabinet the power to declare a president unfit to serve.

There is no indication, however, that anyone in Mr Trump’s cabinet is prepared to break with the president.

Any such effort would also need backing from two-thirds of both chambers of Congress, where the GOP currently controls the majority.

Rep Jamie Raskin told Axios that the Amendment permits Congress to create its own “body” to judge a president’s fitness for office, “in addition to calling on the Vice President and Cabinet to act responsibly, which is admittedly not an ideal solution.”

He said: “The Constitution is not perfectly designed for an emergency like this, but the 25th Amendment is definitely the closest avenue we have for a federal response.”

PBS reported that some congressional offices were “bombarded” this week with phone calls and emails, much of it from people alarmed by the US president’s rhetoric.

Rep Suzan DelBene’s office received a “ton” of messages early in the week focused on removing Donald Trump from office.

25TH AMENDMENT!!!Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization.This is evil and madness. pic.twitter.com/2mdogDRZN4

— Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (@FmrRepMTG) April 7, 2026

Democrats were not alone in calling for president Mr Trump to be removed from office. Some figures on the right voiced similar demands.

“How do we 25th Amendment his ass?” conspiracy theorist Alex Jones asked a guest on his Monday show.

“25TH AMENDMENT!!!” former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, wrote on X about an hour after Mr Trump’s post about Iran’s civilisation dying.

Ms Taylor Greene described it as “evil and madness”.

Another close Trump ally on Capitol Hill, GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, told the Wall Street Journal that Mr Trump “loses me if he attacks civilian targets” such as infrastructure.

Democrats lack the numbers to move forward on either the 25th Amendment or impeachment, but members of the party are plainly growing more assertive.

They have drawn confidence from a run of encouraging election results and polling, as well as signs of movement among some of Donald Trump’s most steadfast supporters.

Still, even as a few voices on the right echo their demands, Democratic leaders are not yet ready to climb aboard and remain wary of committing to that course.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday:

“Well, in terms of, you know, impeachment and things of that matter, we’ve said we’ve ruled nothing out and we’ve ruled nothing in, but we’re going to deal with what’s in front of us.”

So while calls from the Democratic base to oust Mr Trump are increasingly being read as evidence of a more combative mood, party leaders at the top are still moving carefully and resisting abrupt action.

They appear to be guided by the lessons of Mr Trump’s first term, while also recognizing they do not currently have the numbers to follow through.

That calculation, however, could look very different in November, if current predictions prove accurate.