Congressional Democrats raise alarm over Trump’s comments on Iran : NPR
Lawmakers are currently on recess but are weighing in on President Trump’s rhetoric on Iran.
Zayrha Roodriguez/NPR
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Zayrha Roodriguez/NPR
Democratic lawmakers in Congress are calling President Trump’s threats against Iran extreme. Lawmakers remain absent from Washington during a previously scheduled recess. Yet more than three dozen Democrats have called for Trump to be removed from office, while most congressional Republicans have made no public comments.
The few Republicans who weighed in on the war Tuesday almost unanimously supported the president’s approach, but did not directly respond to his call for the total elimination of Iranian civilization.
Trump issued an ultimatum to Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz – a key energy transport route – and agree to other conditions to end the US-Israeli bombing campaign by 8pm on Tuesday in Washington. Trump followed up this threat with several online posts, including a further escalation on Truth Social on Tuesday morning:
“An entire civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have a complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, less radicalized minds predominate, perhaps something revolutionaryly wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will experience tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption and of death will finally end. God bless the Great Iranian People!
Here’s how Congressional leaders are responding.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on behalf of House Democratic leaders:
“Donald Trump is completely unhinged. His statement threatening to wipe out an entire civilization shocks the conscience and requires a decisive response from Congress. The House must immediately resume its business and vote to end this reckless war in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. :
“This is an extremely sick person,” Schumer wrote on
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D.did not react publicly to the president’s message and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NPR. This story will be updated with a response if it becomes available.
How the Republicans react
Most Republicans remained silent.
Rep. Dan Meuser, Republican of Pennsylvania, did not directly address the president’s office during an appearance on Fox Business, but defended his approach to the war. “It’s a historic moment, very historic,” he said of Tuesday’s deadline, “because they’ve been a terrorist state for forty-seven years…so that’s what’s needed.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote that the president is “seriously seeking a diplomatic solution” and that Trump “understands how to deal with the toughest people.”
“After repeatedly rejecting diplomacy, threatening America and our allies, and destabilizing the region, the path forward is clear,” Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, wrote on X, “to deter aggression, defend our interests, and lead with strength and determination.”
His colleague in the Texas delegation, Nathaniel Moran, was one of the only voices in the Republican Party to condemn the message. Moran said the United States must always be prepared to use overwhelming military force to defend its interests, but he opposed the president’s threat to end all of Iranian civilization.
“How we protect the lives of innocents is just as important as how we fight the enemy,” Moran wrote. “America is great because it is good.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the few Republican senators to vote to convict Trump of impeachment in 2021, called the president’s threat “an affront to the ideals that our nation has sought to defend 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,” she wrote.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally and former member of the Georgia House of Representatives who recently criticized his involvement in Iran, called for the president’s impeachment, saying the president’s threat was “evil and madness.”
Some Democrats are calling for the president’s impeachment – or another vote on war powers
Since Trump’s Truth Social message Tuesday morning at 8 a.m., Democrats have released more than a hundred statements, many of which characterize the president’s threat as a potential war crime and characterize his proposal as genocide.
Many called on Congress to end the recess and reconvene immediately to vote on ending the war or begin dismissal proceedings. With Republicans controlling the schedule in both chambers, it is almost certain that neither will happen.
“Trump is threatening to commit massive war crimes against the Iranian people starting at 8 p.m. tonight,” wrote Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. “Congress should reconvene immediately and vote to end this war, NOW.”
“The occupant of the White House is openly threatening genocide,” wrote Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Mass. “Congress must stop this war and Trump must be removed from office.”
The former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, called for the president’s impeachment — as did more than three dozen of her Democratic colleagues.
