I’ll say this much: I now know who or what a Shri Thanedar is. That’s not a good thing.
Even before his quixotic impeachment attempt against President Donald Trump, I bet most of you — even liberals — didn’t know that he was a Democratic representative from Florida.
That’s because he’s not. He’s a Democratic representative from Michigan. And even political nerds might not have known that was true, were it not for the fact that he sought a seven-count impeachment against Trump for — among other things — “Obstruction of Justice and Abuse of Executive Power,” “Creation of an Unlawful Office” in the Department of Government Efficiency, and the vague charge of “Tyrannical Overreach.”
Thanedar, who’s facing a heated primary challenge right now, insisted he wasn’t going to back down, even though this had no shot of passing. Then, according to inside sources, the Democratic Party gave him two options: Take those articles of impeachment to the floor and get pummeled by his own caucus, or punch himself in the face and look like an idiot, but get sorta forgiven — or at least not publicly decked — by his own party for doing so.
Thanedar, being a spineless man, chose the latter, and rendered himself toothless as he punched himself in the face. Nice work.
According to Politico, “Thanedar did not call up his resolution as expected at a Wednesday evening vote series, and the window for action has now passed.”
This was originally taken as a sign of gross incompetence on social media — the same guy who had railed against Trump so vociferously couldn’t make the deadline to get this thing to a vote, even though he was willing to speak on the floor at length about it:
Rep. Shri Thanedar’s missed the vote deadline and failed in his efforts to impeach President Trump.
pic.twitter.com/l4CVUCqzAu— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 14, 2025
Do you think Democrats will try another impeachment ploy during this Trump term?
Instead, it quickly became clear that Thanedar’s “incompetence” was feigned. As per NBC News:
Hours earlier, Thanedar, who is facing a tough primary challenge from the left, had vowed to press forward and force the impeachment vote, even in the face of vocal opposition from fellow Democrats.
Privately, Democratic leaders were offering him a way out. House GOP leaders gave Thanedar a window where he needed to appear on the House floor and call up his resolution. Democratic leaders urged Thanedar to simply not show up at that time, a Democratic leadership source said.
That’s precisely what Thanedar did. He missed the window, ensuring that no vote on impeachment would happen this week.
And he also made it clear that no vote on impeachment would happen, period, at least if it came from his desk:
In the fifteen days since I filed seven articles of impeachment against President Trump, he has committed more impeachable offenses, most dangerously, accepting a $400 million private jet from Qatar, which even Republican Members of Congress have called wrong.
So, after talking…
— Congressman Shri Thanedar (@RepShriThanedar) May 14, 2025
To paraphrase a great journalist: Boy, that de-escalated quickly.
Not that we couldn’t see this coming. Axios had already reported that, privately, Democrats were fuming at Thanedar.
“This is the dumbest f***ing thing. Utterly selfish behavior,” one House Democrat said.
“It’s going to cause Democrats in [competitive] seats to make tough decisions,” another remarked.
And a final House Dem, summing it up neatly: “People are p***ed.”
Peeved enough that details of the pressure campaign quickly came out, with Axios quoting a House Democrat saying they “saw about 50 members pow-wowing with him on the floor” before the effort was pulled.
“I think they made him realize, like, ‘If you do this, there’s not going to be anyone here in the caucus that wants to have anything to do with you,’” the source said.
It’s not as if they want anything to do with him now, either: It’ll be a bit difficult, for instance, for Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, a critical voice in the Democratic caucus, to walk back a private statement that the move was “idiotic” during a closed-door caucus meeting, or Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Rep. Greg Casar of Texas from issuing this memo:
More on impeachment: Rep Greg Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, will vote NO on a motion to table Rep Shri Thanedar’s articles of impeachment
But he said “doomed impeachment maneuver is unserious” and he “recognizes the merits for either vote” pic.twitter.com/h39J7pwvyH
— Ally Mutnick (@allymutnick) May 14, 2025
So the choice was: Have no friends publicly, or have no friends privately. Have us punch your face in, or punch your own face in. Thanedar weighed the choices and came up with this one. There are very few times as a writer where I’ve been moved to write the sentence, “You know, you at least have to hand it to Rep. Al Green,” but darned if this isn’t one of them.
Just to recap, this is how Thanedar started Wednesday, by delivering these words outside the Capitol to reporters: “So those who are asking me, is this the right time to do it? I say it’s never the wrong time to do the right thing.”
This is how he ended Wednesday: “I have decided not to force a vote on impeachment today. Instead, I will add to my articles of impeachment and continue to rally the support of both Democrats and Republicans to defend the Constitution with me.”
So logically, one can infer that it was the right time to not do the wrong thing. I’m glad he admitted it, circuitously.
The only thing that can be said for Thanedar — now that we know who he is and that he did this entirely because he faces a primary challenge — is that he’s in a deep-blue district, so there’s no alternative to whoever the Democrats nominate, and that his primary challenger is endorsed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D, Hamas).
That’s the answer to your question, “How can it get any worse than this guy?” The answer: that way, but not by a lot. Shame he didn’t have the spine to follow through on his impeachment-related hijinks, though.
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