Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), one of the most powerful Democrats in the House, rejected his colleagues’ efforts to impeach President Donald Trump for the third time, opting for other means of resisting his second administration.
Aguilar, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, downplayed impeachment talk as impractical to reporters Tuesday. His positioning comes as other Democrats have similarly called impeachment talk “stupid politics,” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has refused to commit to such an option.
“Impeachment is, at times, a tool that can be used. This president is no stranger to that; he’s been impeached twice,” Aguilar said. “But we don’t have any confidence that House and Senate Republicans would do their jobs. And so this is not an exercise that we’re willing to undertake.”
Although his colleagues, such as Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) and Al Green (D-TX) have pushed efforts to impeach the president. Aguilar said Democrats would be better off focusing on policy — “items that the American public is paying attention to.”
“Right now, we will deal with the tools in front of us,” the congressman said. “The policies that he and House Republicans have placed forward — which are reckless cuts to the healthcare system, to our supplemental nutrition that is relied on by women and children and families across this country — those are the policies that we’re going to push back against.”
Aguilar’s attempt to shut down impeachment as a form of Trump resistance comes after Thanedar filed the first articles of impeachment of the president’s second term on Monday. The Michigan Democrat filed seven articles for alleged abuse of power, constitutional violations, and tyranny.
In a Republican-controlled Congress, Thanedar and Green’s attempts aren’t likely to go anywhere. Still, they could pose a distraction from Democrats’ attempts to steer their party back in the right direction after suffering political blows last fall.
Previous attempts to impeach Trump have ultimately fallen short twice. The House voted to impeach Trump in 2019 before the Senate acquitted him the following year. In January 2021, the House again voted to impeach Trump, blaming him for the chaos of Jan. 6. The Senate again acquitted him in that case.
The White House slammed Thanedar’s move on Monday as a “stunt.”
“Democrats are once again showing where their true priorities lie — siding with illegal immigrants over the safety, security, and well-being of hardworking American citizens. Their desperate impeachment stunt is nothing more than a reckless political act that the American people see right through,” a spokesperson said.
The president’s team is already seriously considering a reality where he could face another impeachment inquiry should Democrats take back the House majority during the 2026 midterms, per Axios.
Top Trump allies are using the possibility as a way to fuel the GOP’s efforts to pass Trump’s agenda, including tax cuts.
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“We need to pass the tax cuts and avoid a recession,” Trump’s longtime pollster, John McLaughlin, told the outlet. “That’s the high stakes here. We cannot lose the midterms.”
His statement follows Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s recent warning on the Tucker Carlson Show that if Republicans lose the midterms, there’s a “real danger” that a “Democratic House is going to go immediately to impeachment for something.”
