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Calls for Impeachment Grow as Trump Floats 'Regime Change' in Iran
The striking of Iranian nuclear sites without congressional approval, said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment."
Jun 23, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump took to social media on Sunday night to express that regime change is on the table for Iran's government, the call from Democratic lawmakers and outside progressive voices for his impeachment continued to grow following the weekend bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.
"It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,'" Trump posted on Sunday night on Truth Social, one day after the U.S. struck three sites in Iran overnight on Saturday. "But if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!"
"So we DIDN'T destroy Fordo and we ARE doing regime change? How are there proponents of this anymore?" wrote Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Monday.
On Saturday, the United States dropped several 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs on Fordo, Iran's heavily fortified nuclear facility. Facilities at Natanz and Isfahan were also targeted.
Independent experts who viewed satellite imagery of the areas told NPR that the strike left Iran's nuclear program damaged but not destroyed.
In remarks on Monday, Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said, "Given the explosive payload utilized, and the extreme vibration-sensitive nature of centrifuges, very significant damage is expected to have occurred." Speaking to the IAEA's board of governors, Grossi called for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Iran so that inspectors could view and assess the damage to the targeted sites.
Prior to the attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Iran was not attempting to build a nuclear weapon.
Even before Trump made his comments about regime change on Sunday, multiple Democratic members of Congress took to social media to say that Trump's strikes on Iran constitute an impeachable offense.
"[Trump] has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on X. "It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment."
Meanwhile, Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) wrote on Sunday: "This is not about the merits of Iran's nuclear program. No president has the authority to bomb another country that does not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. without the approval of Congress. This is an unambiguous impeachable offense."
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), "the leading constitutional expert in Congress," should launch an impeachment push. Nader urged Raskin to file an article of impeachment against Trump for "engaging in a major war without a Congressional declaration."
"MAGA claimed to be anti-war when they voted for Trump. Well, he has betrayed you. Time to stand for your principles. Sign the War Powers Resolution and impeach Trump," wrote Saikat Chakrabarti, who is running for Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) seat in Congress.
The journalist Scott Dworkin wrote "Congress must impeach and remove Trump. Period."
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced a war powers resolution in the U.S. House last week, asserting the constitutional requirement of congressional approval for any declaration of war. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced one in the Senate.
Trump's comments about regime change came hours after Trump administration officials told the media earlier on Sunday that getting rid of Iran's leadership is not the administration's goal.
"This mission was not, and has not been, about regime change," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a press conference on Sunday morning. "The president authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program."
Vice President J.D. Vance said on NBC News on Sunday morning: "Our view has been very clear that we don't want a regime change."
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It's the Bad Ideas—Not the Old Age, Stupid!
Don't count birthdays. Follow the money.
Jun 06, 2025
Sometimes a little procrastination can be a good thing. A recent case in point was this year’s California Democratic Party’s convention decision to postpone consideration of a resolution calling for a mandatory retirement age for state and local officials. By not acting on the measure the party has, at least for the moment, spared itself a diversion from the real question of just what message it wants to convey – regardless of the age of the messenger.
The resolution was offered by Eric Kingsbury, a member of a heavily tech-funded slate that succeeded in moving the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee dramatically to the right in the last election. Kingsbury was quick to state that this was “decidedly not about Nancy Pelosi. If every elected leader in this country were like Nancy Pelosi [the 85-year old San Francisco Representative who is a fellow Committee member] we wouldn’t have to have this conversation.” And yet SF Democratic Committee Chair Nancy Tung suggested a specific age cap of 70: “That’s the general thought. Though we are thinking that an exploration by the state party is the way to go. But 70 is an age that other jurisdictions have adopted for judges and the like.”
This all, of course, is a predictable reaction to Joe Biden’s inept debate performance widely believed to have cost the Democrats the White House. It is also something of what we might call a “best seller-list solution,” in this case a follow-up to the success of “Original Sin,” the account of the Biden decline in his White House years that immediately hit the top of the New York Times non-fiction list. This book comes close on the heels of “Abundance,” the best-seller pro-growth manifesto also touted by centrist members as the cure for what ails the Democrats. .
Perhaps the quickest refutation of the age-limit solution is Senator Bernie Sanders, currently traveling about the country conducting (often in the company of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) the largest anti-Trump Administration rallies to be found anywhere, while also sponsoring the (unfortunately unsuccessful) U.S. Senate resolutions to block weapons shipments for Israel’s use in further devastating Gaza. Sanders is 83, a year older than Joe Biden. Would we really want to silence the principal challenger to the Trump agenda in the currently trendy cause of fighting gerontocracy? Well, actually the people behind the convention resolution just might.
What is the new leadership of the San Francisco Democratic Party all about? As they say, just follow the money. In winning control of the Central Committee, the SF Democrats for Change slate raised over $2.2 million, more than tripling the amount raised in support of the Labor and Working Families slate of incumbent members and allies.
The source of that overwhelming financial edge was predominantly high tech capital. Backers included billionaire Chris Larsen of Ripple cryptocurrency, once estimated to be the fifth richest person in the world, now down to #407; Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman; and Zack Rosen, CEO of the venture-backed software company Pantheon. But the group’s most prominent and infamous supporter is self described “centimillionaire” Garry Tan, CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator (I’ll leave you to do your own research on the exact meaning of that), and also an early employee of Palantir Technologies, the data analysis and technology firm that has received over $113 million in federal funding from the Trump administration for the implementation of the executive order for federal government cross-agency data sharing.
Tan, who is estimated to have spent something like $400,000 on SF politics in the past few years, achieved his moment of maximum fame with a wee hours X post directed at a majority of the then members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors: “Fuck Chan Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a label and motherfucking crew … And if you are down with Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a crew fuck you too … Die slow motherfuckers.” When someone responded suggesting that he was drunk when he posted what was apparently a reference to a Tupac Shakur song, Tan responded, “You are right and motherfuck our enemies.” (The posts were subsequently deleted.) Tan describes himself as a “moderate.”
While all of the big bucks backers of SF Democrats for Change may not be as crude as Tan, one trait we can be certain that they do share is disinterest in any campaign to radically shift the status quo in America. Do they share their proteges’ interest in a political age cap? Who knows, but it’s nothing that’s going to make them start asking for their money back. Whereas, if they were to hear that the recipients of their campaign funding were calling for an end to the corporate domination of politics, we can be pretty sure they’d let us know what they thought about that.
That the party needs to find a way to recapture the hearts and minds of the working class has become a truism in Democratic circles. And that doing so will require advocating clawing back some of the wealth and power that the nation’s corporate elite have amassed in recent years is obvious to anyone who takes the time to think it through. But you ain’t going to keep the support of the people whose cash put SF Democrats for Change in power by talking that kind of talk.
This is a scenario we can expect to see repeated in every state over the next couple of years. Age limits! Deregulation! Strong defense! Cut bureaucracy! Patriotism! Less political correctness! It’ll all be rolled out as party “moderates” try to achieve the impossible status of being both the party of the working class and the party of billionaire and centimillionaire financiers. Beware!Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressive Saikat Chakrabarti to Challenge Nancy Pelosi in 2026
The Democratic Party, said AOC's former chief of staff, "needs a bold vision for how to raise living standards, quality of life, and security for all Americans."
Feb 05, 2025
"Twenty terms in Congress is enough."
That's according to the campaign website of Saikat Chakrabarti, the progressive political adviser who announced Wednesday that he plans to challenge 84-year-old former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the 2026 cycle.
Chakrabarti's website traces his journey from being born in Fort Worth, Texas, to immigrants from India, to moving to San Francisco after college to work as a software engineer, to his experiences in politics—supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign, co-founding Justice Democrats, and serving as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-N.Y.) campaign manager and chief of staff.
Watching U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk "freely unleash chaos in their illegal seizure of government, it's become clear to me that the Democratic Party needs new leadership," Chakrabarti said in a long post on Musk's social media platform, X. "I don't understand how D.C.'s Democratic leaders are so paralyzed and unprepared for this moment after living through President Trump's first term—and after Trump and Elon warned us exactly what they planned to do."
"I respect what Nancy Pelosi has accomplished in her career, but we are living in a totally different America than the one she knew when she entered politics 45 years ago," he asserted, noting Pelosi's
reported role in recently thwarting Ocasio-Cortez's rise to ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
"Now, the things that defined the American Dream—being able to afford healthcare, education, a home, and raise a family—are impossible for most people," said Chakrabarti. "And the Republican Party is overtly conspiratorial and anti-democracy. The Democratic Party needs to stop acting like it's competing against a normal political party that plays by the rules, and it needs a bold vision for how to raise living standards, quality of life, and security for all Americans."
After working for Ocasio-Cortez, "I returned to San Francisco where for five years I've led a policy think tank that develops comprehensive solutions to the problems that both America and San Francisco face," he said. "Now, I want to bring those solutions to Congress. I'm going to run a very different kind of campaign than most. Instead of spending hours each day doing 'call time' with big money donors—I'm going to spend every day talking with voters. I know! What a radical idea!"
"I'll be talking about the problems we need to solve for San Francisco, for America, and also about the future of the Democratic Party—and how it can provide an alternative vision of change from Trump and MAGA," Chakrabarti continued. "In addition to daily conversations with district residents, I'll also be holding weekly Zoom calls open to anyone to talk about national issues and the future of the Democratic Party."
Chakrabarti directed supporters to his campaign website, Saikat.us, where they can sign up to join a Zoom call, volunteer, or organize a house meeting in San Francisco—and he pledged to "never to share your data with anyone, or spam you with breathless pleas for money." The site highlights that he will not be accepting any corporate political action committee (PAC) money.
"I know it might seem it's a little early to start running. But the fact is, it's almost impossible to defeat incumbents in our system—even at a time when both Congress and the Democratic Party stand at record-low approval ratings," he said. "Winning this campaign will require months of organizing—online and on the street—to connect with every single voter in San Francisco."
Pelosi
filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission for the 2026 midterms in November, just over a week after Democrats' devastating losses in the latest general elections. Although Pelosi was easily elected to her 20th term last year, Republicans retained the House and took control of the Senate and the White House.
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