Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar is taking an unorthodox step in defiance of his party’s leadership, forcing an impeachment vote against President Donald Trump on Wednesday that both Republicans and his Democratic colleagues threaten to kill.
“We’re going to hear a ton of reasons why not to hold this president accountable. We’re going to hear a ton of reasons from both sides of the aisle, but we are going to press ahead because we believe this is the right thing to do,” Thanedar said at a news conference outside the Capitol early Wednesday.
“We believe this is absolutely the right time. This is absolutely the right thing to do.”
House GOP leaders will introduce a motion to table the legislation, killing Thanedar’s measure, and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said Democrat leaders would join them.
“Our focus is on health care being stripped away from the American people. That is the most urgent and dire thing that we could be talking about this week. Everything else is a distraction,” Aguilar said at his weekly news conference.
Taking a jab at Thanedar, Aguilar added that while his conference has its differences, “this is one that is a pretty easy call.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson called the effort “another embarrassing political stunt.”
“While Democrats are throwing fits, impeding law enforcement, playing political games, and demonstrating how far out of touch they are — Republicans are working to deliver lower taxes for families, restore American energy dominance, strengthen border security, restore peace through strength, and make government work more efficiently and effectively. The contrast has never been more clear,” Johnson said in a statement.
At a rally last month celebrating his first 100 days, Trump, who was impeached twice during his first term, said, “Here we go again.” He said the fact that Democrats have “no control” over “a dumb guy like this” shows “they have no confidence anymore as a party.”
Thanedar introduced seven articles of impeachment against Trump last month, arguing the president is abusing the power of his office for his own self-interest and repeatedly defied the Constitution, among other broad charges.
Without the backing of the top Democrats in the House nor a majority of his caucus, Thanedar’s effort went nowhere until earlier this week when he introduced his impeachment resolution as “privileged,” forcing the chamber to consider the legislation within two legislative days.
Thanedar promised to fight on.
“Will I succeed this week? Maybe not, but we’ll continue to do this until we have a victory,” he said at his news conference. “We’ll continue to fight until we have a victory, until we remove this president from office for his unconstitutional, illegal, impeachable misconduct. We are going to continue.”
“[House Democratic leaders] want to focus on other issues, which is fine. I just tell them that, hey, we can do that, and we can do this as well.”
However, his move would force Democrats to go on the record on this issue. Thanedar dismissed concerns that his efforts could hurt vulnerable Democratic colleagues, arguing that Republicans would have to vote on it as well.
“We take hard votes every day, every day there is a hard vote to take. That’s my job … They just need to look into not what plays well in politically, not what the polls are saying. We got to do the right thing,” Thanedar argued.
Thanedar, who was elected to the then-open seat in 2022, faces a tough reelection battle. His fellow Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent progressive, endorsed Thanedar’s primary challenger, state Rep. Donavan McKinney, earlier this week.
“I’m done with absent members who don’t call their residents back,” Tlaib said in a post on X, referring to Thanedar.
-ABC News’ Lauren Peller and John Parkinson contributed to this report.
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