Democratic representative Shri Thanedar is taking an unorthodox step challenging the leadership of his party, forcing a vote of political trial against President Donald Trump on Wednesday that both Republicans and their Democratic colleagues threaten to kill.
“We are going to listen to a lot of reasons why we will not hold this president. We are going to listen to a lot of reasons from both sides of the hall, but we will continue because we believe that this is the right thing,” Thanedar said at a press conference outside the early Capitol on Wednesday.
“We believe that this is absolutely the right time. This is absolutely the right thing.”
The leaders of the Republican Party of the House of Representatives will present a motion to cover the legislation, killing the measure of Thanededar, and the president of the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives, Pete Aguilar, said that the Democratic leaders would join them.
In this archive photo of April 10, 2025, representative Shri Thanedar arrives at the vote on the budget resolution in the United States Capitol in Washington, DC
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, INC through Getty Images, File
“Our approach is that medical care moves away from the American people. That is the most urgent and terrible of what we could talk about this week. Everything else is a distraction,” Aguilar said in his weekly press conference.
Taking a jab in Thanedar, Aguilar added that while his conference has its differences, “this is a fairly easy call.”
The president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, described the effort “Another shameful political trick.”
“While the Democrats are launching attacks, preventing the application of the law, playing political games and demonstrating how far they are out of contact: Republicans are working to deliver lower taxes for families, restore the domain of US energy, strengthen border security, restore peace through force and make the government work more efficiently and effectively. The contrast has never been clearer,” Johnson said in a statement.
In a demonstration last month celebrating his first 100 days, Trump, who was accused twice during his first term, said: “Here we go again.” He said that the fact that the Democrats “have no control” on “a silly guy like this” shows “that they no longer have confidence as a party.”
Thanedar presented seven political trial articles against Trump last month, arguing that the president is abusing the power of his office for his own interest and repeatedly challenged the Constitution, among other general positions.
Without the support of the main Democrats in the Chamber or most of their Caucus, Thanedar’s effort was not at any time earlier this week, when he introduced his dismissal resolution as “privileged”, forcing the Chamber to consider legislation within two legislative days.
Thanedar promised to fight.
“Will I succeed this week? Maybe not, but we will continue doing this until we have a victory,” he said in his press conference. “We will continue to fight until we have a victory, until we retire this president of his position for his unconstitutional, illegal and impulse misconduct. We will continue.”
“[House Democratic leaders] He wants to concentrate on other issues, which is fine. I only tell you that, he hears, we can do that, and we can also do this. “
However, their movement would force Democrats to register this issue. Thaneda dismissed the concerns that his efforts could damage vulnerable Democratic colleagues, arguing that Republicans would also have to vote on him.
“We take hard votes every day, every day there is a difficult vote to take. That is my job … They just need to investigate not what I play well in politics, not what the surveys say. We have to do the right thing,” said Thanedar.
Thanededar, who was chosen for the open seat in 2022, faces a hard re -election battle. His companion Democratic representative of Michigan, Rashida Tlaib, a prominent progressive, backed the main challenger of Thanedar, state representative Donavan McKinney, earlier this week.
“I ended with absent members who do not return to their residents,” Tlaib said in an X post, referring to Thanedar.
-Lauren Peller and John Parkinson of ABC News contributed to this report.
