U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions from the media during a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 6, 2026.
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday declaration that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” referring to his 8 p.m. deadline to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” if a deal to open the Hormuz Strait isn’t made, condemnation has come fast from across the political spectrum. Even those once on Trump's staff have begun calling for his removal from office.
“We’re just three people away from stopping Trump’s madman meltdown,” posted Miles Taylor, who served in the Department of Homeland Security under Trump from 2017-2019. “That’s the number of House Republicans who — if they chose to act — could change history. Right now. By demanding he step down, voting to impeach, or flipping control of the House.”
Taylor — who also served in the Bush Administration — has long been an open critic of his former boss, famously warning about the dangers of Trump’s leadership when he anonymously published a New York Times op-ed entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” Now, he says that it’s up to Republicans to remove the rogue president.
Similar calls have been pouring out all day from figures ranging from Democratic Senators to far-right commentators like Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson. Most have argued for the invocation of the 25th Amendment, a mechanism for removing a mentally or physically unfit president.
This is not the first time such discussions have been raised about Trump. In the wake of the insurrection of January 6th, 2021, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke with several of her White House colleagues about the possibility of using the 25th.
But as concerns about Trump’s mental fitness have been raised due to his increasingly erratic second-term behavior, many have pointed out that the 25th Amendment can only be applied with the approval of the Vice President and the majority of the Cabinet, which so far none have suggested.
That leaves such action up to Congress, but impeachment via that avenue is dubious as well, requiring first a majority vote in the House followed by a 2/3rds vote in the Senate. So far, no GOP congressional leaders have expressed a willingness to pursue this option, at least not publicly.
But beyond Congress, criticisms are boiling to the surface from within the GOP and even MAGA hardliners. In addition to Jones and Carlson, popular MAGA influencers like ex-Trump ally and former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Turning Point USA former communications director Candace Owens inveighing against the president, among many others.
“I didn't vote for wiping out a whole civilization in one night. Did you?” posted New Hampshire State Representative Keith Ammon, a Republican, over a screenshot of Trump’s threat to destroy Iran. “I voted for no new wars.”
