Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Saturday floated the prospect of impeaching President Trump for striking Iran without explicit authorization from Congress.
Why it matters: It’s a shocking declaration by one of House Democrats’ most high-profile progressives at a time when most in the party are instinctively rejecting the mere mention of impeachment.
Considerable intra-party scorn has been heaped on Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas) for floating votes on impeaching Trump.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Driving the news: “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers,” Ocasio-Cortez posted on X.
“He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations,” she wrote. “It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
“More soon,” Ocasio-Cortez’s reelection campaign wrote in a fundraising email obtained by Axios.
Zoom out: The call for impeachment puts Ocasio-Cortez on the far end of Democrats’ spectrum of responses, but it reflects the broad anger with which the party has reacted to Trump’s unilateral actions.
Trump “failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
He added: “Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action.”
