House squashes second attempt to impeach Trump from Rep. Al Green

The House on Thursday rejected a second attempt this year to impeach President Donald Trump, voting 237-140 to shelve a resolution brought by Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas. The measure faced expected defeat but revealed a notable shift in Democratic support compared to a similar effort in June.

While 140 Democrats backed the impeachment move, 47 voted “present,” including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other party leaders. In a statement, Democratic leadership emphasized that impeachment requires “a comprehensive investigative process” that the Republican majority has not undertaken.

“Impeachment is a sacred constitutional vehicle designed to hold a corrupt executive accountable for abuse of power, breaking the law and violating the public trust,” the Democratic leaders said. They added that Republicans have focused solely on “rubber stamping Donald Trump’s extreme agenda” rather than conducting serious oversight.

Green has consistently maintained that Trump has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” during his second term, meeting the constitutional threshold for impeachment. His latest resolution accused Trump of “threatening Democratic lawmakers in Congress with execution” in a social media video urging military members to refuse illegal orders.

“He has conducted himself in office such that persons are now threatening members of the judiciary, threatening members of the House of Representatives, threatening members of the Senate,” Green argued in a floor speech before the vote.

The Texas congressman’s previous impeachment push in June alleged that Trump bypassed Congress and potentially declared war on Iran after the administration conducted airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

This marks the third and fourth impeachment attempts against Trump across his two terms. During his first administration, Trump was impeached twice by a Democratic-controlled House – first in 2019 over his request that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy investigate the Biden family ahead of the 2020 election, and again in 2021 following the January 6 Capitol riot and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The Senate acquitted him both times.

Republicans have seized on these repeated impeachment efforts, warning voters that Democrats are determined to remove Trump from office if they win a House majority in the 2026 midterm elections. Many GOP lawmakers dismissed Thursday’s vote as a political distraction.

“It shows you they have no agenda. And so this is the kind of stuff that they’ve been doing, as opposed to actually trying to solve the American people’s issues,” said Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, a Florida Republican. “This is not a surprise, but it just shows you that the Democrats continue to do the same kind of thing they’ve been doing for years, which is playing games and not coming up with real solutions.”

Democratic leaders pushed back against these characterizations, insisting they are not automatically planning to impeach Trump should they regain control of the House. They emphasized that any potential impeachment would require substantial investigation and evidence.

Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat and vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, acknowledged the “diversity of views” about impeachment within the party. He stressed that while Democrats intend to conduct thorough oversight if they win a majority, that doesn’t guarantee impeachment proceedings.

“I think you would have to have an investigation where you actually talk to witnesses and review documents and look at, you know, video and listen to audio. You need to do all of that before any decisions are made,” Lieu said.

The vote highlights the ongoing partisan divisions in Congress and signals that impeachment will likely remain a contentious issue throughout Trump’s second term, particularly as Democrats weigh their strategy for the upcoming midterm elections and the balance of power in Washington.