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In a perhaps unprecedented dark time for America and the world, let us take solace in our indomitable Dear Stable Genius, who remains unwaveringly focused on taking care of shiny business: Gold social security cards like Elvis, a $400 million, lopsided shed/ballroom with gaudy columns but no main entrance, and of course gold toilets - which all keeps him so busy he hardly has time to threaten Iran with war crimes. What a time to be alive, barely.
In actual good news, No Kings Day 3.0 drew between 8 and 12 million people, thus hovering tantalizingly close to the 3.5% of a nation's populace historically required to overthrow an authoritarian regime. So good work, patriots. The over 3,000 protests, aka per Mike Johnson "Hate America rallies," ranged from Alaska's Utqiaġvik, the country's northernmost city (7 people) to Ele'ele, Kaua'i, the westernmost, from over 100,000 in New York City to nine stalwarts on Maine's Monhegan Island. Thousands of Trump's neighbors in Palm Beach turned out, ending with a twilight march to Mar-A-Lago, or as close as they could get.
Their signs were brutal: "Elect A Rapist, Expect To Get Fucked. How Many Deaths For the Epstein War? Worst President Since Trump. Criminals Belong Behind Bars, Free Balls for Members of Congress Who Lost Them, Trump Rapes Kids, Impeach Pedolf Shitler, Putin's Bitch, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. According to The Borowitz Report, Trump, furious about the large protests, argued they'd be much smaller if you subtract all Elon Musk's kids there because they hate him: "People are saying their number (was) much higher than 400, thousands, maybe millions. You take away Elon’s kids and almost no one was there."
There were also "half-dozens to dozens of Americans" at One King co unter-protests, reports The Fucking News, who put the number at "many-ish...Organizers say there were barely any organizers," with attendees ranging from "a tiny number of young people to a die-hard faction of dying people." In Palm Beach, one man carried a heavy sign that read, "Deport the white liberals"; masked to protect himself "against the vindictive left," he said he left soon after he was "attacked" by a woman who denied touching him; her comrades said the guy just dropped his sign "because he was too weak to carry it."
Their small numbers did face competition from "the incredible shrinking CPAC," also meeting that day in Grapevine, Texas with a turnout of "barely thousands." Once a MAGA "center of political gravity," this year's event drew neither Trumps nor presidential candidates. One possible ick factor: MC was (still) CPAC chair Matt Schlapp, who in 2024 settled a pricey sexual misconduct lawsuit from a guy working on Hershel Walker’s (LOL) Senate campaign, who charged Schlapp groped him. The event did boast Todd Chrisley, a reality TV star doing 12 years in prison for massive fraud till Trump pardoned him. Here’s his welcome.
There was also a big contingent of South Korean “stop the steal” activists and supporters of former president Yoon Suk Yeol, impeached last year and now serving life in prison for insurrection. Still, the whole thing was a bit of a slog. Organizers tried to jazz up session subjects - a panel titled "Fraud" became “Ilhan Omar ‘Family’ Values"; Mercedes Schlapp beseeched factions not to "divide from within," which is how you divide; and when Schlapp asked them, the clueless CPAC "crowdette" mistakenly, hilariously cheered the prospect of impeachment proceedings by what could be a newly-Democratic-controlled House. SAD!
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Poor deplorable MAGA. Maybe they're disheartened by Trump's well-deserved plunging approval rating, now at barely 33%. Maybe it's because their regime is such a half-assed shitshow and their people are such self-serving, hypocritical dickwads. As in: Amidst a government shutdown that's seen TSA agents (starting salary $34,454) compelled to work without pay as Congress takes a two-week recess (pay over $170,000) on the taxpayers' dime, TMZ urged readers to send in photos of vacationing pols, and here comes Lindsey Graham at Disney World, “The Most Magical Place On Earth," gaily twirling a Little Mermaid bubble wand yet. America and Megyn Kelly: WTF.
Or maybe it's because Commander-In-Chief Private Bonespurs started another forever quagmire without legal or political justification, and it turns out wars in the Middle East are hard and complex and above his pay grade - like health care! - to solve, and now with no good options he's spewing up only staggering incoherence for strategy, like hailing "great progress" in imaginary "serious discussions" while pivoting to rabidly threatening to "conclude our lovely 'stay’ in Iran" by "obliterating" their civilian infrastructure, electricity, energy and drinking water, which is a war crime. But talks are going “unbelievably well."

Anyway, his true passion is turning every crass, stupid thing he or Elvis can think of fake gold like the Oval bordello and even Social Security cards, and slathering his repulsive name on structures, coins, currency, and building trashy, illegal monuments to himself like an obscene, unapproved, un-permitted, $400 million ballroom twice the size of the White House, because, "They’ve always wanted a ballroom," except now it's suddenly, "essentially a shed for what goes under it," a massive military complex, presumably a bunker where, as merciful history would have it, he'll finally free us of him, "and we're doing it very well."
He's so ballroom-enraptured that on Air Force One he just pulled out a swath of drawings to show reporters, explaining, "I thought I’d do this now because it’s easier. I’m so busy...fighting wars and other things." Quick mindless pivot to "hand-carved, beautiful, Corinthian columns" - "Corinthian wut" - he's also reportedly re-imagining for the White House facade, a change deemed "at odds with universally held historic preservation standards." Same, experts say of "barely scrutinized" ballroom plans, "riddled with design flaws" - disproportionate, pillars block windows, grand staircase to nowhere. WH lackey on "the best builder in the world": "The American people can rest well knowing this project is in his hands.” We feel better already.

And then there's his new gold toilet, mounted on a 10-foot throne near the Lincoln Memorial. The new masterwork of Secret Handshake (Best Friends Forever), it celebrates the renovation of the White House Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, all in gold, and "what this President has actually accomplished." The toilet's plaque reads, “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom....This, his crowning achievement, is a bold reminder that (he) isn’t just a businessman, he’s taking care of business. It stands as a tribute to an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem, and painted it gold.”

A month after President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced what they celebrated as the "single largest deregulatory action in US history," a coalition of over 160 civil rights, environmental, faith, health, and labor groups came together Tuesday to call for the EPA chief's ouster.
Zeldin was confirmed by Senate Republicans and a trio of Democrats just over a week after Trump returned to power in January 2025. The "Game Over Zeldin" coalition, led by the Climate Action Campaign (CAC) and Moms Clean Air Force, argued in an open letter that no other EPA administrator "in history—Democratic or Republican—has so brazenly betrayed the agency's core mission" to "protect human health and the environment."
"Zeldin has dismantled protections that keep our kids, families, and climate safe, and our air and water clean," the letter notes. "He slashed vital funding, gutted agency staff, and has rigged the system to put corporate polluters first, at the expense of our health. Zeldin's EPA has rejected science and health data—and is refusing to count the value of human lives and health—in order to erode commonsense public health safeguards. He has decimated environmental justice programs and hard-fought progress—entirely eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights."
Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, pointed out in a Tuesday statement that "in just the past few months, he has supported the Trump administration in using taxpayer money to prop up the coal industry; he has made it easier for polluters to spew mercury—a potent neurotoxin that damages the developing brains of babies—into our air and waterways; and he has rolled back the endangerment finding in an attempt to sabotage EPA's ability to cut climate pollution."
The 2009 endangerment finding underpins all federal climate policy. David Arkush of the watchdog Public Citizen—which is also part of the diverse coalition behind the new letter—warned at the time that if allowed to stand, the repeal "will hamstring the government's ability to combat the most terrible environmental threat in human history, harming Americans and the world for decades to come."
Young Americans and a coalition of environmental and public health organizations swiftly filed a pair of lawsuits over the rollback. Another group of 24 states, joined by various US cities and counties, sued last week. The most recent filing is expected to be consolidated with the first coalition's case, according to The New York Times, "making for one of the largest legal challenges to date against the Trump administration's unraveling of federal climate policy."
The new letter stresses the consequences of that unraveling, stating that "because of Zeldin's directives, we will suffer more health-damaging air pollution and be exposed to more toxic chemicals in our homes, in our food, in our products, and in our water. Zeldin's rollbacks will lead to more carbon dioxide and methane pollution that will contribute to worsening climate disasters."
"Families across the country, whether rural or urban, are already struggling with the consequences of Zeldin's actions," the letter adds. "The damage he is doing will span generations. Zeldin is deepening environmental injustices and will leave a terrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."
We refuse to stay silent while Lee Zeldin treats our lives like a line item to be deleted. The EPA is for the people, not polluters. His time is up; Lee Zeldin must go. #GameOverZeldin www.gameoverzeldin.com
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— Physicians for Social Responsibility - National (@psr.org) March 24, 2026 at 12:12 PM
CAC director Margie Alt declared Tuesday that "the wreckage of Lee Zeldin's EPA will be measured in lives lost, jobs destroyed, the costs of illnesses that could have been prevented, and communities devastated. We will be paying the price for decades to come."
"Zeldin ignored science as well as the legal and moral precedent," she said. "Instead, he looked at the numbers and made a choice: He decided that corporate bottom lines matter more than our lives. He decided you and your family are expendable. After a year on the job, it is clear that Zeldin is either unable or unwilling to uphold his oath of office or the EPA's fundamental mission. So let us be clear: Our lives are not expendable. Our health is not expendable. Our climate is not expendable. Lee Zeldin must go."
Other organizations that signed on to the letter include Beyond Plastics, Cherokee Concerned Citizens, Clean Air Council, Clean Water Action, Climate Hawks Vote, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Environmental Protection Network, GreenLatinos, Indivisible Action Coalition, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Service Employees International Union, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and more.
"Administrator Zeldin's established pattern of placing polluter profits above the health and safety of people across the country cannot stand," said UCS president and CEO Gretchen Goldman. "The science establishing harm to human health and the environment from global warming emissions is undeniable. The unprecedented, climate-fueled heatwave a large swath of the United States has been experiencing is only the latest example."
"The public deserves an EPA administrator who will face the challenge of the climate crisis and fossil fuel and toxics pollution head on with proven policy solutions," she argued, "not actively serve as an agent of destruction beholden to the whims of oil, gas, and chemical industry executives and an authoritarian, anti-science US president."
On Thursday, the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's so-called Liberation Day, US advocacy groups sounded the alarm about his new tariffs targeting "patented pharmaceuticals and their ingredients under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to bolster American national security and public health."
The administration announced a year ago that the US Department of Commerce would conduct a related investigation under that law. The resulting report was recently sent to the president, and although the findings have not been made public, Trump's executive order summarizes key takeaways and Secretary Howard Lutnick's recommended actions.
According to the order, the secretary's recommendations included "continuing to negotiate onshoring agreements related to most favored nation (MFN) pharmaceutical pricing agreements; imposing significant tariffs on pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security of the United States; and granting preferential treatment to those companies that commit to onshore production of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients."
Citing an unnamed Trump administration official, The Washington Post reported Thursday that "the White House has reached agreements with 13 drugmakers and expects to soon conclude an additional four." As part of these deals, companies are planning to invest at least $400 billion in new US plants.
The Post also pointed out that "some imported drugs will face much lower tariffs under trade deals Trump negotiated with five US trading partners. Goods from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland will face 15% levies, while drugs from the United Kingdom, which was the first to sign a deal with Trump, will be hit with a 10% tariff."
Thanks to Trump's new order, brand-name pharmaceuticals made in other countries could be hit with tariffs as high as 100%.
Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs, warned in a statement that "while these tariffs aim to pressure pharmaceutical corporations into US manufacturing and most favored nation agreements, the current MFN deals remain opaque and voluntary, and have not delivered meaningful savings for the vast majority of American patients. There's a real risk these tariffs will drive up costs and create more uncertainty for millions of patients already struggling to afford their medications."
Experts at Public Citizen, another advocacy group that has sued to expose the secretive MFN agreements, were similarly critical.
"By announcing these tariffs without even producing the evidence from the investigation that supposedly justifies them, Trump is continuing his pattern of grabbing headlines by using the word 'tariff' while engaging in secretive ongoing negotiations and opaque exemptions processes that are ripe for corporate corruption," said Public Citizen Global Trade Watch director Melinda St. Louis—who also wrote a broader takedown of Trump's trade policy published Thursday by Common Dreams.
"While strategic tariffs can be used to support domestic manufacturing and good jobs, they must be paired with real public investments and support for workers' rights, which Trump has systematically undermined," she said. "Instead, he's bullying other countries like the UK into paying more for medicines, which will lead to windfall profits for Big Pharma and do nothing to reduce US prices."
Peter Maybarduk, director of Access to Medicines at Public Citizen, stressed that "Trump's tariffs will be either ineffective or harmful for what people need, which is a reliable, plentiful, affordable supply of medicine."
Also taking aim at the "secretive arrangements that allow Trump to claim specious victories on manufacturing and high drug prices," Maybarduk explained that "in reality, many manufacturing commitments claimed under the deals were part of previously planned projects and the drug pricing commitments appear designed to largely spare drug company profits rather than earnestly address affordability concerns."
"Meanwhile the administration has given drugmakers perks like lucrative vouchers to accelerate FDA review of their medicines and a promise from the Trump administration that it will bully other countries into adopting higher prescription drug prices, using tariffs as leverage," he continued, referring to the Food and Drug administration.
"If the administration wants to fix problems like medicines shortages and fragile supply chains," he argued, "it should focus on real solutions to support more transparent and diverse supply sources and make targeted investments for the supply of key medicines."
House and Senate Republicans on Wednesday announced a deal to advance a plan to fund the US Department of Homeland Security, which would end a partial DHS shutdown but deliberately punt the most contentious issue—funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement—for a future reconciliation fight.
Under the plan—which was rejected last week by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as a "crap sandwich"—most DHS operations will be funded via regular spending bill while Republicans will attempt to fund President Donald Trump’s deadly ICE crackdown via a two-step legislative process meant to thwart any potential Democrat filibuster.
“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the president's directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a joint statement.
REMINDER: The Senate unanimously passed BIPARTISAN legislation to fund all of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol. Speaker Johnson called that deal “a joke,” killed it, and sent Congress home for two weeks. And now he’s apparently saying he wants that deal after all?
— Rep. Mike Levin (@levin.house.gov) April 1, 2026 at 1:59 PM
The deal would immediately restore pay for workers including Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. However, it excludes ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which have been the subject of a tense partisan standoff over Trump's anti-immigrant blitz.
The plan contains no restrictions on ICE, which Democrats sought in the wake of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as well as a record surge in immigrant deaths in the agency's custody.
“For the last 47 days, Donald Trump and Republicans have subjected the nation to chaos at airports, jeopardized our national security, and kept the government closed to allow ICE to continue to brutalize the American people without consequence,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in response to the agreement.
“Through it all, House Democrats continue to stand up for the American people and aggressively push back against far-right extremism,” he added. “Mike Johnson and House Republicans have come to realize that we will never bend the knee.”
The DHS shutdown was the longest in history, according to The New York Times.
Opponents of more funding for ICE—which is flush with $75 billion in fresh allocations under last year's budget reconciliation package—weighed in on the deal.
"Today’s announcement signals a clear recognition of what the public knows and believes: No additional funds are needed, given the shocking and stark realities and horrors already coming from an out-of-control immigration enforcement apparatus with $150 billion left to spend," FWD.us president Todd Schulte said in a statement, referring to the total amount of ICE and CBP funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“All members of Congress should vote to pass the bill immediately to fund DHS without sending any more money to ICE and CBP and bring this self-created crisis and chaos to an end," Schulte continued.
"Moving forward with a party-line, reconciliation process that would send hundreds of billions of dollars more to ICE and CBP—on top of the $150 billion they already have—and seemingly pay for it with cuts to healthcare would be a terrible policy outcome," he added, "and one that would be met with massive, overwhelmingly public opposition.”
The University of Washington has removed a professor from his role as director of its Middle East Center after he criticized the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and condemned Zionism, the settler-colonial movement for Jewish hegemony in Palestine.
Aria Fani, who will remain an associate professor at UW’s Jackson School of International Studies, told The Seattle Times on Friday that new interim widirector Daniel Hoffman told him last week he was fired from his leadership role at the Middle East Center.
Fani, who was born and raised in Iran and came to the US when he was 18 years old, said he was hired for his research on Iran. However, he told the Times that he now feels "profoundly hurt and betrayed" by his removal.
"There’s a chilling effect on not just my academic freedom, but that of my colleagues; anyone who dares to speak out against the war and against aggression," he said.
In a separate interview Friday with My Northwest, Fani said he was removed "for improper use" of the center's listserv, an email application.
"I sent out two memos about this atrocious war on Iran in which I offered historical analysis that’s lacking in the media,” Fani said. “I was told that my email made ‘certain constituents feel attacked.’ By certain constituents, I assume the university means Zionists who would like to keep bombing every Middle Eastern country and continue dehumanizing their people.”
Last July Fani told the The Daily UW, a student newspaper, that President Donald Trump's militaristic foreign policy—he's bombed 10 countries, more than any other US leader—is not making the world safer.
“If you tell the dozens of children that were killed in Israeli bombardment... in Iran, or the families of the nuclear scientists who were just wiped out, I hardly imagine they would say that the world is a more peaceful place," he said amid the first round of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
Since then, many more Iranian children have been killed by US and Israeli bombing, including more than 100 students who were among around 175 people massacred in the February 28 US cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab.
“The [only] peace this secures is for weapons manufacturers, for oil companies, for drone companies," Fani said in an implicit rebuke of Trump's claim to be the "president of peace."
"It secures peace for them, fills their pockets with money, and makes them fully invincible," he added. "It’s creating a class of people that are living [on] an alternate planet."
Fani was a close friend and defender of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish-American UW grad and International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was fatally shot in 2024 while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Witnesses said Israeli occupation forces deliberately shot Eygi in the head.
The professor also called Zionism—some of whose founders acknowledged the colonial nature of their endeavor—a "cancerous" ideology.
Fani noted that his removal from his position at the Middle East Center coincided with a recent town hall-style meeting attended by UW President Robert Jones and right-wing media personality Ari Hoffman. According to Fani, Hoffman "specifically asked Jones" about the professor's leadership at the center.
“All we can do is try to remind people of their responsibilities as members of the university community,” Jones said at meeting. “Not trying to tell them that they can’t have a discussion about Palestine or about Israel, but let’s be clear that those discussions need to be had in a way that doesn’t perpetuate an environment where people feel unsafe.”
According to its website, UW's Middle East Center seeks "to strengthen an understanding of the Middle East in all sectors of American society through training and research at the University of Washington, as well as through delivery of outreach programming across the nation."
Fani is one of dozens of US academics who have been fired, had their contracts terminated, lost job offers, or faced other punitive repercussions for advocating Palestinian rights or opposing Israeli policies and practices.
Earlier this week, Shirin Saeidi, who headed the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, was terminated for social media posts deemed supportive of Iran's government, despite the fact that the school's Faculty Committee on Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure ruled unanimously in February that she should return to her position.
Late last month, Texas State University philosophy professor Idris Robinson sued school officials after he was fired for what he says was his 2024 off-campus lecture in North Carolina titled “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance."
Israel's conduct in Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
The ICJ found in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid.
Iranian composer and tar virtuoso Ali Ghamsari has stationed himself outside of the Damavand power plant in Tehran in defiance of US President Donald Trump's threats to commit war crimes by destroying Iran's entire energy infrastructure.
As Tehran Times reported on Tuesday, Ghamsari said in a message posted to social media that he wanted to sit at the plant and make music to "become a shield for the electricity of 40% of Tehran."
The musician referenced Trump's threats to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Age[s]," and said that his playing outside the plant was an act of symbolic resistance.
"In these days, we are facing irreparable attacks on our country's vital infrastructure, such as bridges and industrial factories," Ghamsari said. "An event that targets Iran and its people to push them back toward the Stone Age... I wish for the light of my own life to be extinguished before a more serious stage of infrastructural war turns off the lights of my country’s homes. I hope my eyes never see even an inch of our soil being separated."
Renowned Iranian composer, Ali Ghamsari and tar virtuoso, announced he will stay at the Damavand Combined Cycle Power Plant.
His plan: Create music there as a symbolic effort to shield Iran's infrastructure from attack. pic.twitter.com/rSHRK6Us4Y
— Iran Screenshot (@iranscreenshot) April 6, 2026
Trump on Tuesday morning issued his most bloodthirsty and genocidal threat to Iran yet, warning that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” unless Iran met his demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed for the last several weeks after Trump and Israel launched an unprovoked war.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the US-based Center for International Policy, argued that the president's threat "meets the threshold for intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national group as set forth in 18 US Code § 1091 prohibiting the crime of genocide," and said Trump could be prosecuted for war crimes should he follow through.
“Inaction from House Democratic leadership is complicity," said an organizer for the National Iranian American Council.
Democratic leadership in Congress has been quick to condemn President Donald Trump after his genocidal threat to wipe out Iranian civilization on Tuesday. But critics are wondering why they didn't take stronger action when they had the opportunity weeks ago.
Trump pledged Tuesday morning that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran refuses to open the Strait of Hormuz—a threat to carry out widespread destruction and mass slaughter across a nation of more than 90 million people.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) referred to the president as "an extremely sick person" and said "each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) joined in, agreeing that "Congress must immediately end this reckless war of choice in Iran before Donald Trump plunges us into World War III" and that "it's time for every single Republican to put patriotic duty over party and stop the madness."
Journalist Adam Johnson, however, noted that Democrats had a chance to “stop the madness” weeks ago, when it seemed they may have had the votes to pass a war powers resolution in the House at the end of March that would have limited Trump’s ability to further strike Iran. But instead, said Johnson, “ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) delayed the House War Powers vote until mid-April.”
At the time, Meeks contended that Democrats did not have enough votes to ensure the measure would pass and that he'd bring it to the floor only if it could be guaranteed that Democrats would win.
However, news reports indicated that at least three Republicans—Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), and Nancy Mace (SC) were all likely on board to pass the resolution, as were most or all of the four Democrats who voted against the one that fell just short in February.
Meanwhile, some Democrats whose absences were cited to justify delaying the vote reportedly returned to town in time for one to be held.
Even if there were indeed not enough votes, it was unclear why Meeks believed additional votes would be there over two weeks later.
In the days since Democrats balked at bringing the resolution to the floor, Trump has moved thousands more US troops to the Middle East, and his threats against Iran have grown markedly more extreme.
Over Easter weekend, he threatened on Truth Social to launch attacks against civilian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, actions that Amnesty International said could amount to war crimes and "would unleash catastrophic harm on millions.” Asked about his comments during the White House Easter celebration, Trump said that if Iran does not open the strait by Tuesday, he is "considering blowing everything up."
He has also reportedly mulled committing ground troops to several operations to occupy parts of Iranian territory in hopes of securing the strait or to carry out a mission to seize Iran's enriched uranium, both of which experts have warned would likely prove catastrophic and put American troops in danger.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Meeks joined the chorus of Democrats condemning Trump's comments, saying that "threatening to destroy Iranian power plants and bridges is not a strategy, it is a war crime."
However, his statement did not mention any plans to re-launch a war powers resolution once Congress returns to session.
Meeks' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether he plans to bring the resolution back to the floor next week or whether he regretted not pushing harder to bring the vote before the recess.
Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, described Trump's actions as a predictable result of Meeks and other House Democratic leaders "refusing to hold a vote to have Congress go on record about Trump's impending escalation."
"They knew escalation would entail genocidal war crimes and/or ground troops," he said, "and still let the House stay silent."
Iran has remained steadfast that it will not negotiate a ceasefire unless the US agrees to completely end hostilities, lift sanctions, and compensate Iran for the war's damage.
A former Iranian diplomat briefed on negotiations between Iran and Omani mediators told The New York Times that the plan called on the US Congress to formally end the war and that any compensation would have to be guaranteed by the legislative branch.
According to a CNN poll released last week, disapproval of Trump's war in Iran has risen over the past month, with 66% of Americans saying they somewhat or strongly oppose it and just 34% in approval.
Independent journalist Aída Chávez, who has covered previous attempts by Democrats to drag out war powers votes, said that the party "could position themselves as the ones ending this historically unpopular war."
"They could force war powers vote after war powers vote," she said. "They’re choosing not to."
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) is planning a press conference with around two dozen other groups outside Jeffries' office in New York on Thursday to protest what it called "a dangerous act of political negligence" by House Democrats, "that continues to leave the illegal US-Israel war on Iran unchecked."
“Inaction from House Democratic leadership is complicity," said Etan Mabourakh, NIAC Action's organizing manager. "Our Iranian American community will not let Democrats repeat previous mistakes out of political fear... we demand leaders with the courage to act boldly and take votes in the House to stop this war now."
But as Trump's threats grow more "unhinged," some in Congress are saying merely reining in his war powers is no longer enough and many Democrats have called for him to be impeached or removed by his Cabinet via the 25th Amendment.
"Yes. We need to assert congressional authority and stop this illegal war in Iran, said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "But, Trump is clearly an unstable warmonger at odds with the will of the people. Removal is the top priority."
"We can still stop this," said the think tank Just Foreign Policy.
As US lawmakers and the international community registered President Donald Trump's threat to commit genocide in Iran on Tuesday, rights advocates demanded action from Trump's Cabinet, congressional leaders, and the country's European allies to take action—while US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a reminder that the president can be stopped by a lack of action as well, if those in the US military chain of command refuse to carry out his orders.
Trump's threat to wipe out Iran's civilization of 93 million people "merits removal from office," said Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). "To every individual in the president’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) also addressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman, Dan Caine, has been joining Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in briefings recently as Hegseth has made bellicose threats against Iran and portrayed the unprovoked US-Israeli assault as a holy war.
Lieu reminded the top military leaders that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and federal law prohibit war crimes.
"Obviously eradicating a whole civilization constitutes a war crime. You must disobey that order," said the congressman. "If you commit war crimes, the next administration will prosecute you."
Erik Sperling, executive director of think tank Just Foreign Policy, called on Senate and House Democrats, including those on committees that oversee the armed services and foreign relations, to make Lieu's threat "absolutely clear."
"We can still stop this," said Just Foreign Policy on social media.
Journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News added that federal laws prohibiting war crimes "will apply in January 2029," after Trump is out of office.
Since Trump took office for his second term in January 2025, Democratic lawmakers have previously issued reminders to the US military that the UCMJ prohibits service members from carrying out illegal orders, with six House members and senators releasing a video in November—as the Pentagon was continuing its bombings of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean and threatening to attack Venezuela—to remind them, "You must refuse illegal orders."
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) was among the lawmakers who participated in the video. On Tuesday the former CIA analyst addressed service members across the military once again, warning that "targeting civilians en masse would be a clear violation of the law of armed conflict as laid out in the Geneva Conventions, as well as the Pentagon's Law of War Manual."
"If [service members] are today or have been asked to do things that violate the law and their training, it puts them in very real legal jeopardy. I know that our service members up and down the chain of command know their duty and the law to refuse illegal orders," said Slotkin. "It’s moments like these that are why we made the video to service members last year. And I hope and believe our troops—especially those in command—will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders.
"Would you be able to live with yourself," asked Sen. Chris Murphy, "if you threatened your neighbor's child with murder in order to get your neighbor to behave the way you wanted?"
US Sen. Chris Murphy said Tuesday that President Donald Trump's genocidal threat to wipe Iran off the map doesn't just run afoul of domestic and international legal statutes—it is, the Democratic lawmaker argued, "fundamentally evil."
"This is a war crime, what the president is proposing," Murphy (Conn.) said in a two-minute video posted to social media after Trump threatened to destroy the "whole civilization" of Iran if it doesn't reach a deal with the US to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
"That is pure evil," the senator said of Trump's threat, which the president issued on his Truth Social platform. "But even if he doesn't go through with it, even if Iran agrees to a deal, this is just not how the human race should operate—compelling others' behavior under the threat of murder of innocent people."
"Would you be able to live with yourself," asked Murphy, "if you threatened your neighbor's child with murder in order to get your neighbor to behave the way you wanted?"
Watch:
In an age of creeping relativism, a universal moral law still exists.
Threatening to end an entire civilization of 90 million people in order to bend a nation’s conduct to your will is grossly morally wrong. It is evil. And we should say this loudly. pic.twitter.com/oRU1rVgLrv
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 7, 2026
Trump's threat to escalate his illegal assault by waging total war on Iranian society sparked a wave of condemnations from lawmakers, legal scholars, and human rights advocates who demanded immediate deescalation and a lasting end to the conflict. The threat against the nation of more than 90 million people also prompted growing calls for the US president's removal from office.
But Trump's genocidal remarks were also seen as the most glaring evidence yet of the dire threat the US president and his enablers pose to all of humanity.
"This is a nightmare scenario," said US Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), one of two Iranian Americans in Congress. "It's apocalyptic."
Rep. Ansari: "Donald Trump is trying to normalize language that essentially threatening genocide, threatening the potential use of nuclear weapons ... how is nobody trying to restrain this madman who is trying to get all of us killed. We have mechanisms to restrain him that are… pic.twitter.com/IVvIYlYvbr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 7, 2026
US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement that "with each passing day, it becomes increasingly apparent that Donald Trump is unstable and a clear and present danger, not just to the American people but to the world."
"He must be removed from office before he causes incalculable and unfathomable harm," Markey added. "His threats cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric. This is as grave a moment as the world has faced in the nuclear era.”