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The New York Democrat's comments came in response to the Republican Speaker of the House telling a group of right-wing supporters he "runs the protection program" for the president.
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York ripped into Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday night for saying that Republican control of Congress is the only thing keeping President Donald Trump from being held to account for his numerous scandals and abuses of power during his second term in the White House.
Asked about comments made by the Speaker earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez told MS-NOW's Jen Psaki that Johnson characterized future efforts to investigate or accountability for possible misdeeds or corruption by Trump, his family members, or members of his administration "as though it’s some partisan witch hunt," she said. "But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes."
Ocasio-Cortez, often referred to by her initials AOC, had been asked about remarks Speaker Johnson made at the annual summit of the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group with close ties to Trump and the Christian nationalist movement that supports him.
“If we lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats—y’all, impeachment isn’t even the real concern,” Johnson told the crowd. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted.”
The House speaker added, “I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you, OK?”
Johnson: If we lose the midterms, these Democrats will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they'll go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. We’ll take…
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 26, 2026
Johnson's remarks unsurprisingly sparked a series of critical reactions, including AOC's.
"Mike Johnson saying the quiet part out loud: protect the powerful. Screw everyone else," said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Pa.).
"The Speaker of the House just talked like a guy guarding a operation that can’t survive daylight," said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). "Because that’s exactly what he’s doing."
"You don’t need a 'protection program' for people who did nothing wrong," Levin continued. "You need one when you’re afraid of what the books would show. Congress is supposed to be a check on power, not the muscle protecting it. Johnson is a total disgrace to the office. November can’t come fast enough."
What Johnson is "talking about," explained AOC in her interview with Psaki, is a Republican Party in Congress "running a protection racket" for Trump and his cronies, both in and out of government.
"And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history," she continued, referencing the scandal surrounding the disgraced convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
AOC: Mike Johnson paints this as though it’s some partisan witch hunt. But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes.
And he’s talking about running a protection racket. And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called… pic.twitter.com/ZscwBUJNgA
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 27, 2026
"And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I'm the only thing standing between you, and a consequence that should rattle at the conscience of every American," she said. "What he wants to do is create—or rather, not even create, because it’s already been created—but protect a class of impunity in America that says, 'You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.' And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That’s their pitch."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, responded to Johnson's comments by detailing just a few examples of possible corruption by Trump that deserve much more scrutiny and congressional oversight.
"Trump has almost tripled his net worth during this term. His sons bought drone companies and immediately received military contracts right before Trump started another war. Trump threw a crypto contest to see who could buy the most of his meme coin, with the prize being exclusive access to him in his presidential capacity," D-Arrigo noted.
"His son-in-law is getting billions in business deals from the countries and oligarchs wanting political favors. Large donors are spending millions to get pardons and investigations dropped. Trump is still actively covering up the Epstein files," she added. "And these are just a handful of the things that were publicly reported on—imagine what we don't know about yet."
D'Arrigo called on voters to help "flip the House" away from the Republicans and investigate these examples of grift and corruption as well as others.
As wild and crazy Trump becomes more of a political disaster for the GOP in November, Republicans will want to save their own political skins over Trump’s.
Public support for the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump is growing by the day. A March 9, 2026 Task Force report by the New York City Bar – dominated by powerful corporate lawyers – was titled “The Crisis Deepens: Congress Must Act Now to Address Escalating Abuses of Executive Power.” The recommendation – Immediate Impeachment of Donald Trump. I don’t recall a division on such a serious domestic policy stand between citizen groups, allied with the Democratic Party on one side and the public and a major corporate bar association on the other side.
Several leaders of national progressive citizen groups are counseling delaying such a drive until after the election in anticipation of a Democratic Party victory in both the House and the Senate. This mirrors what the feeble Democratic Party leadership (Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer) are telling their increasingly restless rank and file in the House and Senate (see the April 11, 2026 article in the New York Times by Annie Karni, “Democrats Warm to Idea of Removing the President”).
Meanwhile, as Trump’s illegal and erratic daily behavior and executive dictates worsen the wrecking of our country, the present majority of Americans favor impeaching Trump and removing him from office is nearing 60 percent.
Consider the pluses for launching an Impeachment drive supported by the people focused on Capitol Hill and a Congress controlled by the Republicans, who are likely to block any vote or formal Committee hearings.
1. It is a great campaign issue – tying together in an authentic way – see Res.1155 – all of Trump’s vicious shredding of the people’s health, safety and economic benefits and constitutional freedoms. Majorities despise openly corrupt Trump, whose support in polls is slumping, but many voters also don’t trust or believe in the wavering Democratic Party, which can’t come up with a credible compact that addresses the needs of the people and a set of political commitments embodied in specific pending bills. A compact with voters should be convincingly advanced and emblazoned across the land.
H.Res.1155’s thirteen Impeachment Articles, introduced by Cong. John Larson (D-CT) and their connection to “kitchen-table necessities” must be highlighted in this year’s political campaigns.
The people want fighters for them who care for them in Washington, D.C., using the citizens’ delegated powers and tax revenues in the interest of the people, the families, and the children. “Impeachment” is our founding fathers’ word for “YOU’RE FIRED,” a phrase used by Tyrant Trump against millions of civil servants, contractors, and other people working to help make a better country.
Regardless of their political labels, just about all families want fair play, justice, protections, and opportunities where they live, work, and raise their children. Articles of Impeachment are constitutional-level MANDATES for a political party and candidates to run on, replacing insincere throw-away lines and bloviating rhetoric so despised by a disgusted populace.
2. Making Impeachment front and center educates and inspires people about how central this Constitution of ours is to their daily lives. The mission of our government is to “promote the general welfare.” Only Congress can spend your money, not the president. Only Congress can take us from peace to war, not the president. Only Congress can define the authority entrenched in the executive branch, not the president or six “Injustices” on the Supreme Court for life. Only Congress can tax or not tax, not the president wielding arbitrary tariffs, charging fees, or riddling the tax code with loopholes and escapes for the super-rich and powerful.
Only “We the People,” not “We the Corporations,” nor “We the Congress,” is in the Preamble to our Constitution, making us the fundamental sovereign power in our country.
3. A grassroots Impeachment movement – already petitions are circulating (see impeachtrumpagain.org) – signals deterrence if Trump, with his rabid, dangerous personality, is thinking of more major disruptions of the November elections. Foreshadowing his invoking the Insurrection Act to take over the gears of the states’ election machinery, the fevered Trump said in January, “…we shouldn’t even have an election” in November. This is subversion of our Republic, and the Constitution for which it stands, beyond the wildest imaginations of our historic overseas enemies.
The most promising reform movements are often sparked and strengthened by the perpetrating outlaws providing continual, incriminating evidence of their own lawlessness. That is the essence of the foul-mouthed, lying, violent, corrupt, delusional, egomaniacal Trump. (See the April 30, 2026 statement from medical professionals in the Congressional Record – “Medical Concerns About President Donald J. Trump and His Fitness For Office.” Remember, with Trump the worst is yet to come as he continues to double down. Even a conservative columnist for the Washington Post, military historian Max Boot, is fearful of what might come abroad from the zigzag actions of an impulsive, fact-deprived Trump with his finger on the nuclear trigger.
All this is to say that what the Democratic Party leadership thinks is prudent to delay until after the election is in reality a very risky position. They are barely in contention to recover the Senate, even with the advantage of having far fewer seats (12) up for election than do the Republicans (20).
The Democrats, who are comfortable taking big bucks from giant corporate PACs, should run WITH and FOR the people. The time for political posturing is over. If their “loser leaders” don’t step aside, they should at least free the rank and file, including the progressive primary winners, to show the way to landslide, by far, the worst GOP in history. That means, for starters, let a willing Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, have “shadow hearings” on Trump’s many ongoing impeachable offenses. Such a hearing would draw prominent witnesses and great media attention to further galvanize the people.
Since all Democrats on Capitol Hill, if asked, would say “Yes,” Trump should be impeached, but the Party’s upper echelons say taking it to a vote can’t go anywhere so long as the GOP runs Congress. The push for Impeachment doesn’t have to reach a vote. As wild and crazy Trump becomes more of a political disaster for the GOP in November, Republicans will want to save their own political skins over Trump’s.
That’s what happened with defiant Nixon in 1974, after the one-time Watergate scandal, when the GOP jumped ship and forced his resignation. Trump’s crimes are far worse than Nixon’s and intensifying every day. As in 1974, it is before the elections when the GOP feels more insecure. Today Republican members of Congress know their majority is at risk.
In raw politics, sometimes it doesn’t take a vote. It just takes pressure from a President’s Congressional base and, for Tiring Trump, the public humiliation that comes with abandonment.
In addition to all its collateral benefits, an impeachment drive is a road to Trump’s resignation.
Trump is an unstable lame duck outlaw, including violating congressional authorities. He must be stopped.
Give Dangerous Donald credit. Coming off the floor of his 2020 defeat, under several federal and state indictments, a convicted felon, accused by over sixty women of sexual abuse or worse, his endorsed candidates having lost in the 2022 elections, the Trump business brand wilting along with his polls, Trump displayed more vengeful energy and cunning than the entire feeble, defeatist Democratic Party apparatus. He roared back against all odds in 2024 as an elected dictator to implement his declaration that he “can do whatever I want as president.”
Trump’s wrecking, endangering, and weakening of America worsens by the day, as he doubles down and calls his critics “deranged,” “demented,” “wackos,” “weak,” “low-IQ,” “crazy,” and “treasonous.” Moreover, his vicious expletives expand by the day.
However, the tide is finally turning against the failed gambling Czar and Netanyahu dittohead. Trump’s relentless greed is starting to undermine his dwindling support, despite his control of the Republican primaries. The headlines tell the story of his decline, and not just in the polls, with approval ratings down to 35%. The majority of Americans polled—nearing 60%—want him impeached and removed from office. This demand comes without the backing of the Democratic Party leadership, still skittish about mounting an Impeachment Drive. The case for Impeachment is aided and abetted daily by Trump’s outrages.
Let’s go to the revealing Headlines:
“Millions are Expected to Lose ACA Coverage” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026).
Due to Trump’s GOP ending subsidies.
“Fast-Moving Ebola Outbreak May Prove Difficult to Contain” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026). “People Will Die of Ebola Because of U.S. Cuts to Global Health” (New York Times, May 22, 2026).
Significantly due to Trump cutting USAID’s funding, monitoring, and disbanding critical expert teams.
“Mosque killings follow rise in anti-Islam voices” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026).
Led by chief Islamophobe, Donald Trump, from Day One in 2017.
“Trump’s Deal with Trump,” and “Prison to Pardons to Payouts: Rioters Rejoice” (New York Times, May 21, 2026). “I.R.S. Ordered to Drop Audits Against Trump as Part of Payout Deal” (New York Times, May 20, 2026).
Trump uses the government to reward his lawless supporters and wants to put himself above the law.
“Trump’s War is Punishing the Working Class” (New York Times, May 18, 2026).
Trump cares far more about the super-rich than the working class.
“EPA Wants to Repeal Limits on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in drinking water” (Washington Post, May 19, 2026), “Coal’s Comeback Fouls the Air With Resurgent Levels of Toxic Mercury” New York Times, May 13, 2026), “Chemical Board That Trump Wants to Remove Warns on Disaster Rules’ Rollback” (New York Times, May 18, 2026).
While a deadly chemical spill in California forces evacuation of 50,000 residents in Orange County.
“Trump Ramps UP Lawlessness on the Seas” (Washington Post, May 5, 2026).
Speaks for itself.
Now comes the headline, “A tough week for Trump on Capitol Hill, as Republicans deal him setbacks” (Washington Post, May 23, 2026) that must worry Trump. The $1.8 billion slush fund for violent, convicted felons and immunity for Trump and his extended family from IRS audits and enforcement proved too much for Trump lackey Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). At the same time, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a crook impeached by his own Party in the Texas House, an adulterer under suit by his wife for divorce (see the Post article of May 19, 2026) over former judge, Sen. John Cornyn, popular with the Senate GOP. Earlier, Trump came out against Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), helping Cassidy lose the primary. To Thune and allies, a president coming out against his own incumbents is treachery.
So, the water in the Senate GOP’s cauldron may be starting to boil. They know about Nixon’s experience in 1974 coming off winning 49 out of 50 states in the 1972 election. With Nixon’s polls sinking after the Watergate scandal (a quaintly modest one-time crime, compared to Trump’s hundreds of continuing scandals), the Congressional GOP saw itself sinking in the 1974 elections. A delegation of GOP Senators went to the White House and told Nixon, “Mr. President, your time is up.” Nixon resigned days later.
One can envision something similar today. Trump is an unstable lame duck outlaw, including violating congressional authorities. Republicans have to face the voters in November. They are likely to lose the House. The Senate has 20 Republican Senators up for election compared to only 12 Democrats. They have a three-vote margin now. Trump, given his economy, his chosen wars, his unrestrained greed and self-enrichment, is making prospects of a Democratic win in the Senate more possible.
Had the Democrats not ceded half the states (the red states) to the Republicans decades ago, leaving behind remnants of their organized presence, almost all the Republican Senators running this year could be at risk. Instead, only about six have competitive races—thank you, obtuse Democratic Party.
In any event, most politicians, however servile they may have been to a President, prefer saving their own political skins to falling on their swords for an unpopular president losing his cognitive grip and voter sensitivity by the day. (See the April 30, 2026 statement from medical professionals in the Congressional Record – “Medical Concerns About President Donald J. Trump and His Fitness For Office.” Do you know any other president who would say “I don’t care about the financial condition of Americans” in the midst of surging inflation, rising food, health care, rental, and gasoline prices? A president who is using the White House to massively enrich himself and his family. (See Cashing in on the presidency: here).
Unless Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer open the Party to input from labor and advocacy groups to help sharpen a stronger, authentically advanced agenda (Compact for America, anyone?), the Democrats may eke out a 51 to 49 win, with erratic John Fetterman (D-PA) playing the role of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) as the swing vote. This will give the tie-breaking power to Vice President J.D. Vance.
One slim ray of hope: The Washington Post reported on May 17, 2026, that “House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) has directed the chamber’s Democratic policy committee to host listening sessions with members, with voters and with advocacy groups to inform a party-wide agenda…”
Even if you don’t believe Jeffries, rush through that open door with your proposals, as we will with the recommendations of 24 civic leaders (see winningamerica.net). My winning get-out-the-vote agenda is there as well. (See my column: “Somersaulting Voters: Stopping Rabid Gerrymandering,” May 15, 2026).
Contact Rep. Hakeem Jeffries – https://jeffries.house.gov/ / 202-225-5936.
He’s been losing it for a while now, but in the last few months it’s become far worse.
It’s a catastrophe on the way to becoming a cataclysm.
Trump is rapidly going stark-raving mad. He’s a clear and present danger to the United States and the world.
Earlier this week he lashed out at The New York Times after its chief White House correspondent questioned his mental health and stability and pointed to his “erratic behavior and extreme comments.”
“HAVE THEY NO SHAME? HAVE THEY NO SENSE OF DECENCY?” Trump posted in CAPITAL LETTERS about the Times, inadvertently echoing the famous words of Joseph Welch when standing up to Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. Trump went on to take issue with the Times’s coverage of his war in Iran rather than his mental state, as if to prove the Times’s point.
He keeps saying he’s “won” the war with Iran, although he’s never said what “winning” means. At one moment his goal is to free Iran’s people. At another, it’s to end Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. At another, to destroy Iran’s missiles. At another, to achieve “regime change.” At another, to open the Strait of Hormuz (which was open before Trump started his war). At another, he says he’ll know the U.S. military operation in Iran is over when he feels it "[in] my bones.”
We are all endangered. What happens if, in a demented rage, he hurls a nuclear bomb? Who is watching the “football” with the nuclear codes? Who’s ready to stop him to save the world?
He can’t even stay on the same subject for more than a few minutes. In the middle of a high-level Cabinet meeting about the war, he spends five minutes talking about his preference for Sharpie pens. He interrupts another Iran war update to praise the White House drapes.
He threatens that if Iran doesn’t reopen the strait, “a whole civilization will die tonight.” Then he says America doesn’t need the strait reopened. Then he says: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
He calls the Pope “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” because the Pope wants peace. He posts an AI-generated picture of himself as Jesus, then says he was only depicting himself as a physician.
He won’t give up on his illegal and dangerous (for the economy) criminal investigation of Fed Chief Jerome Powell, claiming it’s not just about Powell’s renovations at the Fed but also a “probe on incompetence,” adding he’ll fire Powell if he doesn’t resign after his term as chair ends.
He claims that the United States “needs” Greenland. He confuses Greenland with Iceland. He says whales are being killed by windmills. He claims that he won all 50 states in 2020. That he defeated Barack Obama in 2016. He says the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be executed. He goes on an eight-minute ramble about poisonous snakes in Peru. He boasts of ending a fictional war between Cambodia and Armenia.
After Robert Mueller’s death, he says, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” He blames the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle on “the anger [Rob Reiner] caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” After Joe Biden is diagnosed with an aggressive form of Stage 4 prostate cancer, Trump says, “I’m surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to Stage 9, that’s a long time” (there is no Stage 9 cancer).
He’s been losing it for a while now, but in the last few months it’s become far worse.
In 2017, 27 psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals concluded in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump that Trump’s mental condition posed a “clear and present danger” to the nation.
In 2021, members of Trump’s own Cabinet — horrified by the January 6, 2021, violence at the Capitol and Trump’s lack of urgency in stopping it — discussed whether to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office due to mental incompetence.
During his 2024 campaign, he attacked Kamala Harris and then went into the stratosphere of his bonkers mind:
“She destroyed the city of San Francisco, it’s – and I own a big building there – it’s no – I shouldn’t talk about this, but that’s OK, I don’t give a damn because this is what I’m doing. I should say it’s the finest city in the world – sell and get the hell out of there, right? But I can’t do that. I don’t care, you know? I lost billions of dollars, billions of dollars. You know, somebody said, ‘What do you think you lost?’ I said, ‘Probably two, three billion. That’s OK, I don’t care.’ They say, ‘You think you’d do it again?’ And that’s the least of it. Nobody. They always say, I don’t know if you know. Lincoln was horribly treated. Uh, Jefferson was pretty horribly. Andrew Jackson, they say, was the worst of all, that he was treated worse than any other president. I said, ‘Do that study again, because I think there’s nobody close to Trump.’ I even got shot! And who the hell knows where that came from, right?”
It’s no longer possible to overlook his conspiracy-obsessed paranoia, his uncontrolled rage, his emotional volatility, his delusional claims, his vengeful rantings, his foul-mouthed posturing, his increasing detachment from reality.
Yet his Cabinet members and aides keep their heads down. Republican members of Congress pretend not to notice. His billionaire supporters dare not speak of his rapid decline. The media tries to “sanewash” his growing incoherence.
But some voices on the right — people who have long been supporters of Trump — have had enough.
Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s civilization is “not tough rhetoric, it’s insanity.” Far-right podcaster Candace Owens calls him “a genocidal lunatic.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says Trump “does babble and sounds like the brain’s not doing too hot.” A White House lawyer in Trump’s first term, Ty Cobb, says Trump is “clearly insane.” Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham says “he’s clearly not well.”
The public is catching on. Fully 61 percent of Americans think he’s become more erratic with age, while just 45 percent say he is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges” (down from 54 percent in 2023).
For the good of the nation and the world, it’s time we face the reality: The most powerful man in the world does not have the mental capacity to do the job. Donald Trump — who has a family history of dementia — is increasingly unhinged.
We are all endangered. What happens if, in a demented rage, he hurls a nuclear bomb? Who is watching the “football” with the nuclear codes? Who’s ready to stop him to save the world?
Don’t wait. Impeach him now.
President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. What this represents is a constitutional emergency.
Editor's note: The following letter was sent to the bipartisan leadership of Congress on Monday, April 13, 2026 in regard to recent rhetoric and actions taken by US President Donald J. Trump.
Senator John Thune
Senate Majority Leader, US Senate
Senator Charles E. Schumer
Senate Minority Leader, US Senate
Representative Mike Johnson
Speaker of the House, USHouse of Representatives
Representative Hakeem Jeffries
House Minority Leader, US House of Representatives
Dear Senate Majority Leader Thune, Senate Minority Leader Schumer, Speaker Johnson, and House Minority Leader Jeffries:
We write to you today with a sense of urgency that we do not use lightly. The behavior and rhetoric of President Donald Trump have crossed a threshold that demands the immediate and bipartisan attention of Congress. This is not a partisan assessment. It is a judgment grounded in observable fact, consistent professional assessment, and the constitutional responsibilities that your offices carry.
President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Rather than constituting a clinical diagnosis, this trait-based assessment is grounded in behavioral observation and is particularly useful for assessing the level of danger an individual poses in a political leadership position. We do not offer this as a clinical verdict. We offer it as the considered judgment of a substantial body of professional opinion, based on well-researched evidence that is consistent, accumulating, and impossible to dismiss.
What makes this more than an academic matter is what predictably happens when this personality structure collides with immovable obstacles. The clinical literature is clear: individuals with Dark Triad profiles, when confronted with situations they cannot control or escape, do not recalibrate. They escalate. The psychological imperative to relieve narcissistic collapse overrides strategic calculation, concern for consequences, and ordinary self-restraint. Rage surges to domination. Impulsivity overrides caution. The urgent need to extinguish psychological pain eclipses every other consideration.
We are watching this dynamic unfold in real time.
The President’s recent public communications have been, by any normal standard of political discourse, alarming. His posts demanding that Iran “open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards” and his threat to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages,” adding that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” are not the rhetoric of calculated geopolitical pressure. They are the expressions of a man in profound psychological distress who is reaching for the most extreme retaliatory threats available to him. That these statements were addressed to an adversary in the context of an active military confrontation makes them not merely shocking but profoundly dangerous.
President Trump has now ordered a US naval blockade of Iran — an action that has sent world oil prices soaring and placed the United States in direct opposition to the international community. His ongoing actions carry the potential to trigger a global economic catastrophe, draw in regional and great powers, and ignite a wider conflict with consequences that no one can bound. These orders are being issued without adequate deliberation, without congressional authorization, and in a context in which the President’s judgment is, by every visible measure, severely compromised.
We urge three specific actions.
First, Congress must immediately retake its constitutional authority over war. The bombing of Iran and the initiation of a naval blockade — acts of war under both US and international law — cannot be authorized by presidential fiat. Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress the sole power to declare war and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The Framers intended Congress to deliberate upon and be accountable for precisely such consequential actions. Congress must assume its constitutional authority now, before further escalation renders the question moot.
Second, congressional leadership — on a bipartisan basis — must convene urgent consultations with senior administration officials, including the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of State, and the Director of National Intelligence. The purpose is not routine oversight. It is to create a circuit breaker capable of preventing escalation toward catastrophe, including the potential use of nuclear weapons. Those officials have their own constitutional and statutory obligations. Congress should insist on those obligations and provide a forum in which they can be exercised.
Third, Congress should formally initiate consultation with the Vice President and Cabinet regarding the President’s fitness for office under Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. We do not prejudge the outcome. We are not calling for the President’s immediate removal. We are calling for the process that the Constitution itself provides for this contingency: when a President’s capacity to discharge the duties of office is in question and poses a potential imminent danger to the nation. The Amendment exists because those who drafted it recognized that the question of presidential incapacity would occasionally arise, and that it required a constitutional answer rather than a political improvisation.
He is a constitutional emergency. The mechanisms for addressing such an emergency exist. They were placed in the Constitution and its amendments for moments precisely like this one.
We recognize the gravity of what we are asking. We ask it because the gravity of the situation demands it.
A President who publicly threatens to destroy a foreign civilization, who launches a bombing campaign and then imposes a naval blockade without congressional authorization, and who shows every behavioral sign of a personality in acute crisis is not merely a political problem. He is a constitutional emergency. The mechanisms for addressing such an emergency exist. They were placed in the Constitution and its amendments for moments precisely like this one.
The war with Iran will not wait. The escalation dynamics of this active military confrontation will not wait. The psychological conditions driving the President’s decisions will not improve under pressure — they will worsen.
We urge you to act without delay. The Constitution gives you the tools. Your oath of office assigns you the responsibility.
Respectfully,
James Gilligan, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine
Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Former Faculty of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Former President, International Association of Forensic Psychotherapy
Prudence L. Gourguechon, M.D.
Former President, American Psychoanalytic Association
Former Vice President, World Mental Health Coalition
Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.
President, World Mental Health Coalition
Co-Founder, Preventing Violence Now
Former Faculty of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Former Faculty of Law and Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine
James R. Merikangas, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, George Washington University
Research Consultant, National Institute of Mental Health
Co-Founder, American Neuropsychiatric Association
Former President, American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Ph.D.
University Professor, Columbia University
"He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world," wrote one critic. "We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office."
US President Donald Trump's flurry of increasingly deranged late-night social media posts over the weekend—combined with his continued violent belligerence overseas—prompted fresh calls on Monday for congressional Democrats to immediately force an impeachment vote.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) introduced 13 articles of impeachment against Trump last week, accusing the president of usurping congressional war powers by waging unauthorized assaults on Iran and other nations, illegally deploying National Guard troops in US cities, unlawfully detaining and deporting citizens and immigrants on the basis of their political views, lawlessly dismantling worker- and consumer-protection agencies, and other offenses.
In a statement on Monday, constitutional attorney John Bonifaz applauded Larson for introducing the impeachment articles but said that "we need the congressman to now take the next step and force an immediate floor vote on these articles at this critical hour for our nation."
"And, Democratic leaders in the Congress should stop standing in the way of such a vote," said Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for People (FSFP). The group's petition urging the US House to impeach Trump a third time has received more than a million signatures, but the Democratic leadership has so far shown no willingness to push ahead with another impeachment process—which would require some Republican support to be successful.
"Momentum is on the side of action," FSFP said Monday, warning that "further delay only emboldens the president."
Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar who served in the Reagan Justice Department, said Monday that the "impeachment of President Donald Trump is urgent."
"How can any decent person indulge Mr. Trump’s Hitler-like declaration that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ with our tax dollars-paid weapons?" asked Fein, referring to the US president's genocidal threat against Iran last week.
By one count, more than 85 Democrats in the Republican-controlled US House have called for Trump's removal via the impeachment process or the 25th Amendment in recent days. Last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said he would introduce legislation to establish a commission tasked with removing the president if he is deemed unfit to serve.
“This is plainly out of the realm of normal politics," said Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, urging the White House physician to immediately evaluate Trump's cognitive fitness. "When the president of the United States threatens to extinguish a civilization on social media, rants about combat missions with children at the Easter Egg Roll, and drops profane tirades on Easter morning, we have indisputably entered the realm of profound medical difficulty and concern."
Growing calls for Trump's impeachment and removal came after the president launched into an unhinged social media tirade late Sunday, hours after high-level talks with Iran ended without an agreement to halt the war that the US president and his Israeli counterpart started in late February.
Trump is having a mental health episode right now. He’s been posting on social media all night. He posted at:
9:49pm (Ai Jesus photo)
9:50pm (Trump tower on moon)
10:10pm (dumb meme)
10:32pm (news clip)
10:53pm (news clip)
12:43am (announcing Hormuz blockade)
2:35am (article…
— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) April 13, 2026
Trump said Sunday that he would impose a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz—an illegal act of war—and is reportedly considering a resumption of aerial strikes on Iran.
After the talks concluded, Trump posted a lengthy attack on Pope Leo XIV, a vocal critic of the war on Iran. The president then posted an artificial intelligence-generated image depicting himself as a Jesus-like figure.
"Beyond mentally unstable," Rep. Yassamin Ansar (D-Ariz.) wrote in response to Trump's post.
Robert Reich, the former US labor secretary, wrote in a blog post on Monday that "the president of the United States is stark-raving mad."
"He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world. The American public is beginning to see it," Reich continued. "We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office. The 25th Amendment would be useful if Trump’s Cabinet and key advisers had any integrity, but they don’t. They’re ambitious, unprincipled traitors. Which leaves impeachment."
The president of the United States is stark-raving mad. He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world. We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office. And that means organizing without a moment to lose.
Speaking at a January 6 retreat for House Republicans, Trump stated, “You gotta win the midterms ‘cause, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”
This was before Trump’s agents murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, before the Justice Department released more Epstein files, before Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, before Trump threatened death to the entire Iranian civilization, before a gallon of gas hit $4 or more, before other prices also began rising because of the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, and before additional price hikes associated with Trump’s tariffs had kicked in.
It was also before Trump’s polls slid to record lows, before the MAGA faithful began complaining that Trump had betrayed his promise to avoid foreign entanglements, and before a slew of special elections in which Democratic candidates have won Republican districts (and even when they didn’t win, lost by far smaller margins than Trump won by in 2024).
Until recently I thought impeaching Trump and convicting him in the Senate was a pipe dream. I was concerned that even talk of impeachment at this stage might distract attention from the affordability crisis brought on by Trump and could even fortify Republican charges of Democratic “extremism.”
No longer.
The president of the United States is stark-raving mad. He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world. The American public is beginning to see it.
We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office. The 25th Amendment would be useful if Trump’s Cabinet and key advisers had any integrity, but they don’t. They’re ambitious, unprincipled traitors.
Which leaves impeachment.
You may be skeptical. After all, he’s already been impeached twice, to no avail. How can the third time be the charm?
Until recently I thought impeaching Trump and convicting him in the Senate was a pipe dream.... No longer.
Because it seems likely that Democrats will retake control of the House and the Senate in this fall’s midterm elections (unless Trump prevents free and fair elections).
And because it’s also possible that there will be enough votes in the Senate starting next January to convict Trump of impeachable offenses and send him packing.
I understand how difficult this may seem. Both times Trump was impeached in the House, he was saved by the Constitution’s requirement that two-thirds of the Senate (67 senators, assuming all 100 are present) convict in order to remove a president.
The highest Senate vote count against Trump came in 2021, and it was 10 votes short of the constitutional requirement. Fifty-seven senators, including seven Republicans, voted to convict him of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in U.S. Senate history, but it still fell well short of the 67 votes needed to convict Trump.
So why do I think it’s possible now? Because public sentiment has swung further against Trump now than it was in 2021. And it’s likely to swing even further against him, because he’s going out of his mind at a rapid rate.
The way to accomplish this is to defeat enough incumbent Republican senators who are up for reelection in 2026 to create a Democratic majority in that chamber, totaling some 54 votes, and pressure at least 13 Republicans up for reelection in 2028 to vote to convict him.
That’s not impossible. In the upcoming midterms it’s likely that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins will be replaced by a Democrat (either Janet Mills or Graham Platner). I also assume that former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper will replace Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who’s retiring.
And I’d like to believe that the good people of Ohio will see the light and reelect Sherrod Brown over Jon Husted, the dullard who was appointed to fill the remainder of JD Vance’s term.
James Talarico could take the Texas Republican Senate seat now occupied by John Cornyn. In Alaska, I’d put odds on Mary Peltola defeating incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan. In Nebraska, assume that Dan Osborn prevails over incumbent Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. And so on.
Republican senators last elected in 2022 who will be on the ballot in November 2028 include some who are vulnerable because they’re in swing states, such as North Carolina’s Ted Budd and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson; or are in states that could be competitive, such as Indiana’s Todd Young; or are vulnerable to internal party shifts, such as Louisiana’s John Kennedy and South Carolina’s Tim Scott.
Those vulnerabilities mean that their constituents could push them to vote to convict Trump in an impeachment, or else threaten to vote against them in 2028.
So it’s possible to get the 67 Senate votes, my friends. And it’s absolutely necessary that we try.
The vast No Kings demonstrations should be considered a prelude to targeting enough Republican Senate incumbents and open races to flip the Senate this fall, and pressuring Republicans up for reelection in 2028 to do their constitutional duty.
Now is the time to show the size and intensity of America’s commitment to removing Trump from office, for the good of us all.
It will take at least a generation for this nation to heal from the damage Trump, his billionaire buddies, and his GOP toadies have done.
Well, 8 PM ET came and went, to paraphrase TS Eliot, “Not with a bang but a whimper.” In the latest episode of Trump’s reality show presidency, he decided he’ll give Iran “another two weeks” (we’ll get to that in a minute) to open the Strait of Hormuz because something something Pakistan something.
Some are suggesting it was a predictable TACO — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — while others, including at least one retired general who was on MSNOW yesterday, say sources tell them that the commanders at CENTCOM simply and bluntly refused to carry out his and Whiskey Pete’s orders to commit massive war crimes.
In either case, it shouldn’t surprise us that Trump has backed down. Throughout his entire life, this nepo-baby has only been good at two things beyond inheriting and squandering his father’s money.
The first has been manipulating the press to get publicity for himself, a skill he fine-tuned in the 1980s (as I detail in The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink) and has been on display throughout this Iran debacle (and the entire past decade).
He started with the New York tabloids and talk shows, then graduated to a national stage when he began accusing Barack Obama of having been born in Kenya. Now he does it daily from the White House and his tacky golf motel in Florida.
You could argue that he came by this skill honestly, driven by his being raised by a psychopathic father and a distant, sickly mother. He never felt loved, and never learned how to love, turning all his efforts into getting attention — which he translated into approval and love — from others. His deep sense of being unloved and unworthiness underlies and drives much of his own psychopathy.
And his literal hate for anybody — particularly women — who doesn’t completely defer to him shows up almost daily in press conferences and on his helicopter and plane trips when he slaps down mostly-women reporters with epithets like “piggy” and “you’re stupid” for having had the temerity to ask him a non-flattering question or one that may reveal his criminality or ignorance.
His other, second skill was learned: NBC spent literally millions of dollars teaching Trump how to be a reality show host, which is the other role he’s playing now.
There can be little doubt that this cruel narcissist got pleasure and a deep satisfaction from telling people less powerful than him, “You’re fired,” but it was NBC’s producers and media consultants who taught him how to raise expectations, heighten tension, drag out a tease, and the importance of always rebooting the show at least every two weeks, lest the public forget the storyline and move on.
His perverse delight in turning others’ lives upside-down by firing them, first experienced in real time on The Apprentice set, now translates into the callous way he jettisons anybody in his orbit he doesn’t consider appropriately obsequious; Pam Bondi is just the most recent in a long list of people he went out of his way to humiliate.
His cabinet meetings similarly reflect his lessons learned doing TV for NBC when he’d gather people around a table in the boardroom TV set the network had to create because his actual offices in New York were so shabby. He’d go around the table giving each contestant an opportunity to not only make a case for their business idea but also to slather him with praise and adoration.
Above all, both of these trainings taught him the importance of dominating the news cycle with the tease, which is what we’ve been seeing this past week in particular.
When he was just a pathetic, always-failing hustler in the Big City he’d wake up every morning asking himself what he could do or say that’d get him on Page One or Page Six of The New York Post; now his question is how to dominate every night’s coverage of the evening news. Or every news show, all day, if possible.
Threatening genocide certainly pulled that one off:
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
That insane message should have immediately provoked articles of impeachment from any and every congressional Republican with even a fragment of loyalty to our Constitution, the rule of law, and humanity itself. Instead, we got a very revealing, deafening silence.
The problem with suggesting genocide — and the reason why no other American president has been stupid and reckless enough to try this in our entire history — is that America making such a threat establishes for every despot in the world that mass killing is now okay again. International law and the Geneva Conventions don’t mean a thing; when you’re a star, they let you do it.
Trump thinks he’s living inside a reality show, one of the few things he knows how to do well. Sociopaths and psychopaths, after all, don’t see other humans as real people like them with actual hopes, dreams, and feelings. They think they’re the only “real” person in the world, and only their emotions matter. Everybody else is simply a prop on the set, here to facilitate their whims.
His limited mental capacity and inability to feel empathy prevent him from understanding the consequences of the things he’s done, from his illegal tariffs to his war-crime bombing of little boats in the Caribbean, to his joining accused war criminal Netanyahu in attacking a country that represented no threat whatsoever to America (and was on the verge of giving him a better deal than they had Obama).
He’ll never understand; he’s simply not capable of it. Any more than he could understand the damage he did to the women he assaulted or the little girls who claim he raped them, the small-business contractors he stiffed, the customers he conned with his multiple grifts — from his fake university to the worthless merchandise he hawks to his crypto scams — or the victims of the MAGA cult he fashioned around himself to bleed dry financially and then discard when the votes and dollars were in.
But America and the world will pay the price, and it won’t be paid easily or quickly. It’ll take at least a generation for this nation to heal from the damage Trump, his billionaire buddies, and his GOP toadies have done.
We got a two-week reprieve. We must use it to impeach this man and remove him from office, as over 85 lawmakers have already publicly called for.
We cannot be silent or stop protests in the face of a global cataclysm. Will anyone in Washington act at all to restrain Trump?
There are almost no words to adequately convey the horror being unleashed by a mad king who wants to be the one king to rule them all. The menace in our midst is President Donald Trump, the Nobel Prize winner wannabe whose words of faith and rebirth to mark the holy day of Easter were, “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
And if that wasn’t clear enough, he told ABC News’ Rachel Scott that if no deal is made, “we’re blowing up the whole country.” Scott asked if there’s anything off limits. “Very little,” he said.
“Very little.” Let that sink in. The same mad king who on April 1, promised in a prime time address to the nation to bring Iran “back to the stone ages where they belong.”
Who, along with his partner in crime, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week bombed the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran for the fourth time. This attack led Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi to warn “radioactive fallout will end life in GCC capitals, not Tehran.”
The plant is located on the gulf coast of Iran directly facing the Gulf Cooperation Council GCC countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE. Bombing the plant could result in high level releases of radioactivity that could, by prevailing wind and ocean currents spread to “contaminate food, soil or drinking water for decades,” as Al Jazeera explained. Cancerous contamination of the water would be devastating for the Gulf nations that depend on desalination as the vast majority of their of drinking water.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization added his alarm, echoing the "deep concern" expressed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “The latest incident involving the Bushehr nuclear power plant is a stark reminder: a strike could trigger a nuclear accident, with health impacts that would devastate generations,” said Dr. Tedros. Does anyone else remember Chernobyl?
The same deadly duo of Trump and Netanyahu this week also bombarded Iranian petrochemical factories that led to explosions cascading through the city of Mahshahr “in such a way that breathing is impossible!” On Monday morning, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz bragged that had also struck Iran's largest petrochemical facility in Asaluyeh, which together with Mahshahr, "are responsible for approximately 85% of Iran's petrochemical exports" are now "inoperable and are not functioning." London-based journalist Mohammad Ali Shabani noted those attacks, on top of Israeli’s bombing of Iran's largest steel plants, are intended to “complicate reconstruction and foment unrest in the post-war setting… (and) “kill any de-escalation” ahead of Trump’s Tuesday deadline for a negotiated ceasefire.
There’s far more, of course. Trump bombed the largest bridge in Iran, a civilian target, and threatened to destroy all Iranian power plants which could leave much of the nation without power. Last week, more than 100 international law experts from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the University of California, and elsewhere accused the US and Israeli governments of “violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes."
The experts cited the strikes on “schools, health facilities and homes,” as likely violating the Geneva conventions. The first day of the war featured the hideous bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh predominantly girls elementary school in Minab, Iran that murdered some 175 people, mostly young students. Al Jazeera confirms the US and Israel have bombed over 760 schools and 350 health centers in Iran. They are intentionally obliterating mental health hospitals and residential markets. "The scale of these war crimes is absolutely sickening,” posted Furkan Gözükara. Universities, medical research institutions, have been a particular target, ostensibly intended to eliminate the very people who can facilitate the rebuilding of the nation and its healthcare sector.
Can it get worse? On a televised panel this past week, Israel’s far right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir rappeared tickled by the suggestion of dropping a neutron bomb on the people of Iran. Israel is believed to possess 90 or more nuclear warheads, and is notoriously not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza, brutal invasion of Lebanon, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and continual escalation in Iran are hardly models of restraint. Nor are the ravings of the mad king in the White House who can fantasize about bombing Iran “back to the stone ages.” Asked if there were any limits on the kinds of targets, Trump told a reporter: “Very little.”
How can we stop this nightmare? The response to date has been weak. The massive anti-war protests seen in response to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq have been mostly absent. The organizers of the latest huge “No Kings” protests barely made the war a focus, though a high percentage of the marchers did.
Congress has refused to put any limits on the war. The Democratic leadership failed to unify its base to even support passage of a War Powers Resolution. And it is not evident Democratic Party leaders will actively work to block Trump’s demands for another $200 billion for the war. Meanwhile, a 40 percent increase in military spending for the next fiscal year, partly paid for by sweeping social spending cuts, including “elimination of key federal health, housing and education programs, some of which serve minority groups and the poor,” as the New York Times reported.
We cannot be silent or stop protests in the face of a global cataclysm. Will Washington act at all to restrain Trump?
Calls after Trump’s homicidal Easter threats escalated for his Cabinet and Vice President Vance to invoke the 25th Amendment to immediately remove him from office. Support for Congress to move for impeachment has majority support across the country. Yet courage from Congress or other positions of power has been rare. The people have bravely stopped or slowed the US war machine before—from Vietnam to Reagan’s mercenary interventions in Central America, to Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can count on no one else to stop this war, other than ourselves.
With Trump, it’s only going to get worse. Much, much, much worse—unless we finally act to put an end to his lawless and sinister ways.
Unstable Tyrant Trump is running out of lies, fantasies, and promises to break. An NBC interview of a Pennsylvania woman next to a gas station signals the trend. The reporter asked her what she would say to President Trump. She answered: “You are a worthless pile of shit.” He then asked her how many times she voted for him. She replied: “Three times. That was my bad. Apparently, I’m an idiot.”
Indeed, dozens of vendors are busily selling stickers showing Dangerous Donald pointing to the gas pump’s prices and saying, “I did this!” Further infuriating people is wealthy Trump’s irresponsible response to rapidly rising gasoline prices: “If they rise, they rise.”
The cause, of course, is Trump waging illegal, unconstitutional wars. His Israeli-driven attack on Iran is like quicksand. His Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, wrote in his recent public resignation letter that: “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Iran is the tenth country Trump has militarily raided since Jan. 20, 2025. More MAGA supporters are increasingly angry about his broken promise, declared every day on his campaign trail, to “stop the endless wars” of his predecessors. They are also indignant over the illegal withholding of millions of pages of the Epstein files by his toady Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Moreover, the corrupt TRUMP DUMP is shredding our federal government and its critical, statutory obligations to protect the health, safety, and economic well-being of the American people and rescue communities devastated by climate violence and the real threats of contagious diseases. With his war on science, on facts, and on truth, Trump is pushing America into a contemporary DARK AGES.
His pathological hatred of wind power and solar energy and his crazed boosting of the toxic oil, gas, and coal companies (“beautiful, clean coal”) are relentless. Even in the Medieval Dark Ages, buildings were built to take advantage of passive solar energy.
Looming is the TRUMP SLUMP, starting with an approaching recession. The GDP is already in decline.
Inflationary consumer prices are rising. Unemployment is rising. By far most of the new jobs are coming from the healthcare sector, reacting to greater levels of illnesses and injuries brought about by Trump’s cutting enforcement against polluting corporate wrongdoers and cutting public health budgets and grants.
TRUMP’S SLUMP is also reflecting the damage done by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. This is tightening oil and gas supplies, helium, and nitrogen products needed by already hard-pressed American farmers trying to afford fertilizers.
Dizzy Trump doesn’t know where he is going. His master, Netanyahu, is pleased to push zig-zag Donald into the Middle East quicksand. Like with his past backing of the Bush/Cheney criminal invasion of Iraq, Netanyahu wants an invasion of Iran by U.S. soldiers who should not be forced to obey illegal orders. Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) has long been interpreted to require military personnel to disobey clearly illegal orders that violate the Constitution or US federal statutes. Note, there is no quicksand for Israel, and no Israeli soldiers are slated to invade Iranian soil. (See, “Israel’s Manipulation of Trump on Iran” by Robert Kuttner.)
Desperate Trump and diabolical Netanyahu are now moving to charge the American taxpayers, via an AIPAC-indentured bunch of ditto-head Senators and Representatives, for the cost of the illegal war on Iran. Trump wants a staggering $200 BILLION more tax dollars for the Pentagon, and no doubt a chunk will go to the genocidal Israeli regime. Trump refuses to pay for it by asking Congress to raise taxes on the undertaxed corporations, especially the war corporations profiting immensely. Instead, as is his cruel bent, he is creating more skyrocketing deficits that will be paid for by our children and grandchildren.
There is, however, rising opposition in Congress against this gross, lawless treachery, including some Republicans. Public opinion is sharply against Trump’s war government, and rising among Republican, Democratic, and independent voters. The Congressional GOP is reading the polls, which augur disaster in November, despite the feeble opposition by the Democratic Party leadership.
According to a March 9th Quinnipiac University Poll, fifty-three percent of voters oppose the U.S. military action against Iran, while 40 percent support it. Democrats (89 – 7 percent) and independents (60 – 31 percent) oppose the U.S. military action against Iran, while Republicans (85 – 11 percent) support it. Seventy-four percent of voters oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, while 20 percent support it. Democrats (95 – 3 percent), independents (75 – 19 percent), and Republicans (52 – 37 percent) oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
All told, it will be the economy that will bring Trump down, setting the stage for his Impeachment and Removal from Office. This is how our Founders envisioned presidents who acted like monarchs being discharged. (See the Washington Post Letters to the Editor by Bruce Fein.)
However, the people should not rule out desperation by Trump and his violence-touting extremists. False flag episodes here and abroad are well within their horizons of political survival, especially in an Internet and AI era.
The sober sense of these realities by the American people is advanced by being prepared against being tricked and flummoxed by the Trumpsters and their accommodating mass media, such as Fox and Sinclair broadcasters.
In the immediate meantime, it is those elected “deciders,” the 535 Senators and Representatives, who you must push to exercise their Congressional duties. The good ones can be prone to panic, apart from those already immersed in political bigotry, mindless jingoism or being bribed. Contact your Senators and Representatives through their local offices. If you can, go visit them there.
Dangerous times invite courageous citizens. Remember, you greatly outnumber the destroyers of peace and democracy.
(See also “Understanding the U.S. and Israel’s Illegal War on Iran” by Craig Mokhiber.)
With Trump, it’s only going to get worse, much worse, here and abroad.