Last week, Ralph, along with our constitutional law expert, Bruce Fein, organized another symposium in Washington DC on impeaching Donald Trump. On today’s program, we play you highlights from that symposium with eight of the participants, each of whom are going to give listeners their perspective on why Donald Trump should be impeached even before the midterm elections

The rhetoric from many Democratic leaders has not kept up with the horror and the urgency of what [Donald Trump] is inflicting on America and the American people. He has moved very, very quickly to develop a fascist dictatorship embodying a kleptocratic corporate state that is marked by non-regulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and tax escapes for the wealthy and major corporations, as well as expanded corporate welfare in the midst of personal and institutional two-way bribery and extortion. It’s very important to punctuate the seriousness of what he’s already done.

Ralph Nader

Celinda Lake is a political strategist and president of Lake Research Partners.

What I love about polling is: conventional wisdom is wrong about 90% of the time, plus or minus 5%. Beltway conventional wisdom is wrong about 100% of the time, plus or minus 5%. So, “Everybody knows impeachment is unpopular.” No, it’s not. It’s very popular. A majority of people support it. “Everyone knows that it’ll energize the other side.” No. The other side, to the extent they’re going to be energized, they’re already energized. We need to energize our side. We need to get our people out to vote… “Everyone knows it’s very volatile.” No, it’s not. Attitudes about impeachment track with job performance… And finally, “Everybody knows that nobody understands impeachment.” Well, frankly, voters understand it better than a lot of elected officials.

Celinda Lake

Suparna Reddy is the Senior Counsel for Free Speech For People.

Let us be clear: Congress should impeach and remove Trump for each and every one of these hundreds of offenses. And we have a duty to record his every abuse of power. But in the process, we should not miss the forest for the trees— Trump is intentionally and systematically dismantling our democratic institutions to consolidate his own power and line his own pockets.

Suparna Reddy

Richard Painter is the S. Walter Richey professor of corporate law at the University of Minnesota Law School and was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007.

We have seen serious, indeed, tragic financial conflicts of interest in the executive branch never before seen in the history of our country—unless we look at our very early Presidents who held vast plantations with slave labor, a clear economic conflict of interest with their official duties. A conflict of interest shared by many Senators and Representatives and Justices of the Supreme Court, and indeed a tragic conflict of interest for the first eighty years of our history that ended only with a bloody civil war. But since then, we have not had at least a President who is embroiled in financial conflicts of interest with his official duties.

Richard Painter

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties.

We need to make a persuasive argument for people, whether they like Donald Trump or not, to understand the Constitution transcends this President. The Constitution transcends future Presidents and future crises. We need to convince Americans across the political spectrum to stand with the rule of law, to stand with accountable government, to stand with an accountable executive, responsible legislatures. History tells us that one person making these decisions is not good. Plenty of authoritarians in the past have made these decisions and brought their countries to disaster.

Douglas Bandow

Erwin Chemerinsky is the Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

We’re now at a moment when the federal government is a threat to our rights. The actions of the Trump administration are unprecedented in the violations of the Constitution. And so I think it’s crucial that state and local governments step in so as to protect rights. It’s interesting that through American history, Federalism has always been equated, states’ rights have always been equated with regressive policies… But now it’s time for progressives to use states’ rights and look for the opportunities for states to safeguard our constitution

Erwin Chemerinsky

Keira Havens is a United States Air Force veteran, a former scientist, and a longtime political activist. She is the executive director of Citizens’ Impeachment.

Everybody has agency. Everybody has a role that they can play. Everybody can take action. As a private citizen, I can say, “Man, there are a lot of things wrong with what’s happening.” In fact, I wrote several articles of impeachment: tyranny, treason, obstruction of justice, and of course, corruption, right? Members of Congress have more power than that. They need to do more than say things. They have to take action. Courage is an action. It’s what you do after you say the words that really matters. And every single member of Congress is able to take action. They are able to introduce articles of impeachment, and they are refusing.

Keira Havens

Jessica Denson is a former Trump staffer and founder of the Removal Coalition.

The American people (and particularly Democratic primary voters) are looking for fighters. For God’s sake, what could you do better than to exert the power that you have—this one privilege in the House, Rule 9, that gives any member of the Congress, including the minority, the ability to force a vote any time. Why would you sit on that? Why would you wait? Instead, in my activism, I’ve had to resort to relying on literally one Congressman. This is so pathetic. He is a dear friend, and I am so grateful for him. But to this day, I think it is pathetic that I have to rely on one Congressman to bring forth articles of impeachment and force votes, and that’s Representative Green.

Jessica Denson

News 7/31/26

* Our top stories this week have to do with the Democratic National Committee. Several stories have recently come out about DNC Chair Ken Martin, ranging from interpersonal issues to his utter failure to raise money for the Democratic Party. The most stunning example of this comes from NOTUS, which reports that Martin “put [the DNC’s] physical headquarters up for collateral last year in order to obtain a $15 million line of credit to help invest in off-year elections.” While the party has used this mechanism before, it underlines the gaping disparity between the DNC, which is currently over $2 million in debt compared to the Republican National Committee (RNC), which can boast $128.5 million cash on-hand.

* Compounding the issues of the already cash-strapped DNC, the New Republic reports the Democratic National Committee was scammed out of nearly $29,000 by an email from someone pretending to be Chair Ken Martin last year. DNC spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg is quoted saying “The DNC takes seriously our duty to protect the funds provided to us by millions of patriotic Americans chipping in to fund our mission…this was a one-off mistake that was promptly caught and addressed, and no similar issues have occurred since.” That said, only $7,000 worth of this money has been recovered. As TNR puts it, “This has all been very embarrassing. Martin can’t raise money, can’t keep money, and can’t unite the base under the big tent’ he likes to talk about.” Martin may also be facing an outright rebellion led by party insiders.

* One surprising proposal to this effect is coming from a very unlikely source. The Hill reports veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, while tearing into Martin, opened the door to former DNC Vice-Chair David Hogg taking the reins. Carville said the DNC appears “dysfunctional” and that the committee needs to “figure out a way maybe they could be somewhat relevant,” adding that “If David Hogg wants to take it over, I ain’t stopping you…Go ahead, man, I don’t really care.” This is a stark turnabout from Carville’s position on Hogg when the latter was in DNC leadership; back then, Carville dismissed him as “a contemptible little twerp.” In an i...