Rep. Ro Khanna told MSNBC that President Donald Trump “should be impeached now,” tying impeachment directly to Iran and promising action if Democrats retake the House, a stance that highlights a shift toward treating impeachment as a political tool rather than a narrow legal remedy.
On MSNBC’s “The Briefing,” guest-hosted by Ali Velshi, Rep. Ro Khanna stated plainly that impeachment is the plan if Democrats win back the House. He did not frame this as a possibility to be investigated or proven; he presented it as a commitment tied to current foreign policy actions and electoral outcomes.
Velshi referenced recordings in which Trump warned Republicans they needed to pass the SAVE Act to avoid impeachment risks after the midterms, and suggested that a Democratic House and maybe Senate could mean another impeachment. Khanna did not push back on that setup and embraced the framing, making clear the path Democrats intend to follow should they gain power.
“Absolutely. He should be impeached now. He’s taken us into a disastrous war, threatening war crimes in Iran, in terms of knocking out plants, and knocking out electricity. And the Democrats will impeach him once we take back the House, and should impeach him for all the things he’s done. And, depending on the Senate, he may face conviction if we get to 60, especially if the, his numbers keep going down, and the Epstein issue continues to be a vulnerability.”
Khanna’s language matters less for its legal precision than for its political clarity. He accused the president of “threatening war crimes” without naming a specific order, strike, or legal basis, then immediately folded the accusation into a promise to impeach. That leap from allegation to pledge showed the strategy: raise a charge on television, then mobilize it as a campaign plank.
That strategy is especially striking given Khanna’s past comments when Republicans pushed impeachment lines against President Biden. He dismissed the GOP effort as “a single shred of evidence” and said it was meant to “bloody up the president for 2024.” Back then he called the talk “all politics,” attributing the idea to grievance rather than to a constitutional duty.
Now Khanna is promising impeachment not after a lengthy investigation or new, publicly aired evidence, but as something to be executed once Democrats control the House. The contrast is sharp: what he once labeled purely partisan when done by Republicans he now embraces as a duty when led by his party. That flip underlines the political, not purely judicial, character of the maneuver.
Khanna also signaled his awareness that conviction in the Senate is a different matter, naming “60” votes as the relevant benchmark in his remarks. The Constitution, of course, requires a two-thirds supermajority, 67 votes, to remove a president. Whether his “60” was a slip or a tacit admission that Democrats expect only a political spectacle, the comment revealed how the plan leans on headlines rather than on winning the Senate threshold.
The substance of the Iran accusation deserves scrutiny on its own. Khanna used the loaded phrase “war crimes” and referred to “knocking out plants, and knocking out electricity,” but offered no statute, no legal analysis, and no specific military action to substantiate that claim. Viewers heard an incendiary legal term and an immediate promise of removal with no evidentiary bridge connecting them.
For voters weighing priorities, this exchange sends a clear political signal: impeachment would be front and center for Democrats if they reclaim the House, even as kitchen-table issues like inflation and border security remain pressing for many Americans. At the same time, Trump’s approval has climbed to 46 percent amid Iran talk and rising gas concerns, complicating the political calculation Khanna described.
The move is also part of a broader pattern among some House Democrats who have floated impeachment ideas or unveiled resolutions that use the mechanism frequently. That normalization of impeachment changes it from an extraordinary constitutional remedy into a routine element of partisan warfare, where headline value can trump careful legal process.
Khanna’s candidness may be useful for voters because it removes ambiguity about Democratic priorities after an election. It also exposes a blunt political logic: impeach in the House to force a Senate trial that may never reach removal thresholds, and hope the spectacle damages the president at the ballot box. When a congressman tells you his party intends to make removing a duly elected president a first-order priority based on shifting charges that track poll numbers, take him at his word.
