In the upper chamber, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Thursday that they would vote on a similar resolution next week – but there’s some resistance even in the Democratic Party. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Fox’s Hannity that he would vote against it.
“We have to stand [with] our military to allow them to accomplish the goals of Epic Fury,” Fetterman said. “I’m old enough to remember we used to root for our military, and we would all agree that Iran is the world’s leading terrorism underwriter.”
Of course, with a Republican majority in the Senate, that resolution was likely to meet the same fate as the House’s, even without Fetterman’s rejection.
Meanwhile, the DHS funding lapse looked on the verge of coming to an end last week as Republican leadership seemed ready to finally accept the GOP’s two-stage plan. But now that doesn’t appear so sure. Congress will return for actual work on Tuesday, April 14. At this point, the House was expected to vote on the Senate-passed resolution that funds all of DHS, except ICE and CBP, for the rest of the fiscal year. Then, eventually, they would pass a reconciliation bill to fund those other two agencies without any Democrat support. But now infighting among House Republicans threatens that process.
As for the voter ID and elections reform bill, the SAVE America Act, it seems even Republicans are giving up on that, for now. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said earlier in the week that they planned to make a “down payment” on the SAVE Act by including as much of it as possible in another reconciliation bill – but that would be in the fall.
So Democrats (and the disunion among Republicans) have stalled Trump’s legislative agenda; they just can’t seem to stop his military campaigns. Barring that, perhaps they could simply get rid of him?
Dumping Trump – By Any Means Necessary
House Democrats may not have been able to force a war powers vote, but that doesn’t mean they’ve given up on trying to thwart Trump. On Wednesday, they pulled a page from their old 2016 playbook and are now considering the 25th Amendment.
“Shockingly, Donald Trump threatened to escalate his war of choice in a profane Easter Sunday rant and to eradicate an entire civilization,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a letter to his colleagues. The Judiciary Committee, led by ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), will host a virtual briefing Friday afternoon on holding the Trump Administration accountable and the 25th Amendment.
More than 85 House Democrats, along with two in the Senate, called for Trump to either be impeached or removed via the 25th Amendment. Of course, impeachment requires Democrats to convince enough Republicans to form a majority – that or retake the majority and wait for the next Congress to begin. And let’s face it, should they win the House, that will almost certainly happen. To invoke the 25th, however, Vice President JD Vance and the Cabinet would have to convene and vote to invoke the amendment and remove Trump from duty. This would result in Vance becoming “acting president.” Should Trump refuse to step down – as one might reasonably assume he would in such an unlikely but technically possible hypothetical – a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of Congress would be required to sustain the removal.
Democrats had previously agreed to avoid such extreme measures as impeachment or 25th Amendment removal – but that was last year. Now, apparently, things are bad enough that they need to go after him like it’s 2016. Their chances of success, however, are slim to none. Impeachment simply won’t happen. Republicans carry the majority in both chambers, and if they won’t vote to neuter Trump’s powers in Iran, they sure wouldn’t vote to impeach him – never mind the supermajority in the Senate necessary for conviction. And the same goes for the 25th. Even if the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet members would vote to trade in Trump for Vance, getting a two-thirds majority in both houses seems like a pipe dream.
