House Democrats breathed a collective sigh of relief on Wednesday when Representative Shri Thanedar (D., Mich.) announced he would not immediately force a vote on his seven-article impeachment resolution against Donald Trump this afternoon. Instead, Thanedar said he would continue to add to his resolution in the coming weeks — a boon to the members of his caucus who were dreading voting on the motion to table the measure that was originally scheduled for this afternoon.
“In the fifteen days since I filed seven articles of impeachment against President Trump, he has committed more impeachable offenses, most dangerously, accepting a $400 million private jet from Qatar, which even Republican Members of Congress have called wrong,” he wrote in a social media post this afternoon. “So, after talking with many colleagues, I have decided not to force a vote on impeachment today.”
While Democratic lawmakers largely agree with the sentiment of Thanedar’s impeachment articles, most House Democrats view this particular resolution as poorly timed and lacking any strategic purpose at the moment, especially given that Republicans have majorities in both chambers.
“It’s a distraction,” Representative Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) said in a brief interview with NR earlier Wednesday, adding that Democrats would be well advised to spend their political capital focusing on the economy and the administration’s “violation of the Constitution.”
“I don’t think he should bring it forward,” Khanna said.
Thanedar recently got a new primary challenger, raising suspicions among Democrats that the Michigan Democrat introduced the legislation to bolster his anti-Trump bona fides as the 2026 midterm cycle heats up.
The resolution alleges that Trump has engaged in a range of high crimes and misdemeanors, including unlawful schemes to dismantle federal agencies, withhold congressionally appropriated funds, violate treaties with foreign nations, abuse the executive branch’s trade powers, and “destroy and corrupt the legal system and the powers of the courts.”
Hours before Thanedar decided against forcing a floor vote, Democrats spent the day dodging questions about the impeachment articles by strongly suggesting that their party should remain focused on House Republicans’ newly released legislative text for this year’s “big, beautiful” tax-and-spend bill. They believe that the legislation’s tax-cut and entitlement reform provisions will hurt the GOP in 2026 and that Democrats should spend as much time as possible talking about Republicans’ legislative plans rather than forcing impeachment articles that would be dead on arrival in both GOP-controlled chambers.
“I’m in a markup on Republicans trying to cut $320 billion out of SNAP. That’s where my focus is. So, I haven’t even thought about it,” Representative Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, told NR Wednesday afternoon.
“I haven’t even talked to anybody about it, to be honest,” Representative Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) said in a brief interview with NR Wednesday afternoon. “It’s not something that’s on the front burner that my circle has been discussing.”
Added Representative Sarah McBride (D., Del.): “Republicans have just marked up a bill that would strip health care away from nearly 14 million people, and that is the topic that should be on everyone’s mind right now.”
One of the only Democrats to address the resolution at length with reporters on Wednesday was Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who served as the lead impeachment manager during Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021.
Impeachment, he said, requires “consensus and deliberate strategy” — a characterization that suggests Thanedar’s particular resolution doesn’t meet the mark for Democrats.