Democrats forcefully condemned President Trump’s threat to destroy “a whole civilization” in Iran on Tuesday, with a growing number calling for Mr. Trump to be removed from office and questioning his mental fitness for the presidency.
The lawmakers broadly warned that sweeping military attacks by the United States on civilian targets would be war crimes and argued that Mr. Trump’s threat, made in a social media post, would only undermine attempts to end the conflict through diplomacy.
“Intentionally destroying the power, water or basic infrastructure upon which tens of millions of civilians depend to punish the very civilians who suffer at the hands of the Iranian regime would constitute a war crime, a betrayal of the values this nation was founded on and a moral failure,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said in a joint statement with several senior Democratic senators.
“It’s unconscionable to threaten the lives of so many people — grandparents, children, families — simply because they were born in Iran,” added Mr. Schumer and Senators Chris Coons of Delaware, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii.
Mr. Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services committee, said in his own scathing statement that the president’s threat was “comparable to genocide” and a “criminal act.”
And Mr. Reed, usually a measured voice, added that Mr. Trump “seems to have lost control” and “become as fanatical as the regime leaders in Tehran.”
Many other lawmakers, many of them left-leaning, carried Mr. Reed’s alarm a step further, suggesting that Mr. Trump’s threats were grounds for Congress to impeach him or for the president’s cabinet to strip him of his powers through the 25th Amendment.
“The president just threatened genocide,” Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, said in a post on social media. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff must disregard any such military orders that violate federal and international law. Republicans in Congress can’t hide anymore: we must consider all options — including impeachment — to stop Trump.”
Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, called on Mr. Trump’s cabinet to invoke the constitutional amendment, which allows the vice president and members of the cabinet to declare that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
“It’s clear the president has continued to decline and is not fit to lead,” Mr. Castro said on social media.
Those calls for removal came from a fraction of congressional Democrats. But the growing outcry is a shift compared to much of Mr. Trump’s second term, when the party’s lawmakers have largely avoided such calls after two unsuccessful efforts to remove him during and immediately after his first term.
Across both chambers, Democratic lawmakers cautioned that Mr. Trump’s ultimatum would only set back any talks to end the war, which has spiraled across the regional.
“Threatening to destroy Iranian power plants and bridges is not a strategy, it is a war crime,” Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “At this critical moment, the United States must pursue immediate de-escalation and a coordinated diplomatic strategy with our allies.”
Other House Democrats, including Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, pointed a finger at congressional Republicans, calling for lawmakers to “come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III.”
Republicans in Congress were largely silent after he said he would strike civilian targets if the Iranian government did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening.
Megan Mineiro is a Times congressional reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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