President Donald Trump's threats to commit war crimes and genocide against the people of Iran, only to back down at the last second and agree to a deal that gives Iran more leverage than they had when the war started in the first place, has been a disaster, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told CNN's Erin Burnett on Tuesday evening.
In fact, he said, it merits serious consideration of the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
"The president has promised to commit war crimes, he's promised to eradicate an entire civilization," said Murphy. "We've never, ever seen that in the history of this country. That's why I, and many other people, have been talking for the last 24 hours about the 25th Amendment. It does seem that Trump has lost touch with reality, and we just can't accept a president who is literally promising to destroy an entire civilization, to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings."
This fact alone, said Murphy, "should be grounds for the removal of this president."
"But he thinks, I guess, that the threat of mass-scale war crimes has achieved some success, but as we're learning in the last few minutes, the 'success' seems to be that Iran has more power over global commerce than ever before in our lifetime," Murphy continued. "And so the combination of the threat of war crimes along with the outcome of this so-called ceasefire, it's just really hard to get your head around."
Trump's threats against Iran triggered widespread alarm from political observers across the spectrum, even from some figures on the far right, and caused some who have stood by Trump's war powers to rethink that position.