‘Ethnic cleansing’: Trump’s proposal to takeover Gaza sparks bipartisan outrage, call for impeachment

President Donald Trump‘s shocking proposal for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip, displace nearly two million Palestinians, and turn the territory into an “economic development” has been met with bipartisan outrage and pushback.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, quickly slammed Trump’s plan and called on her colleagues to publicly call out the president.

“Palestinians aren’t going anywhere. This president can only spew this fanatical bullshit because of bipartisan support in Congress for funding genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Tlaib wrote on X. “It’s time for my two-state solution colleagues to speak up.”

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, went a step further by promising to introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump.

“I rise to announce that the movement to impeach the president has begun. I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done,” Green said during Wednesday morning session on the House of Representatives floor. ” I also rise to say that the impeachment movement is going to be a grass-up movement, not a top-down. The people have got to move forward. The people have to demand it, and when the people demand it will be done.”

Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Congressman Green said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Injustice in Gaza is a threat to justice in the United States of America.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, told MSNBC that Trump’s plan to send troops to clear out Gaza and occupy the territory for redevelopment is “absolutely ridiculous.”

“It’s something that I think on its face is contradictory … it does not make sense,” said Meeks, who noted that Trump was “reading from some papers” when he announced the proposal, adding, “Someone is advising him in a very bad way.” The congressman continued, “I don’t know whether that’s Elon Musk or someone else in that regard.”

But it wasn’t just Democrats who have pushed back against Trump’s plan for Palestinians in Gaza. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, a strong Trump ally, said in response to the proposal, “We’ll see what the Arab world says but you know that’d be problematic at many, many levels.”

Senator Tom Tillis, R-N.C., said there were “a few kinks in that slinky,” adding, “Obviously it’s not going to happen.”

Tillis continued, “I don’t know under what circumstance it would make sense even, even for Israel. Now, if Israel is asking for the United States to come in and provide some assistance to ensure that Hamas can never do again what they did, I’m in. But us taking over seems like a bit of a stretch.”

During a Tuesday press conference alongside Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Trump made his remarks on Gaza, the president called the Gaza Strip a “hellhole.”

“The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is because they have no alternative,” he said, proposing that they resettle elsewhere as the U.S. and other countries fund a new development. “They instead can occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony,” he added.

Despite his proposal for other countries to help fund his idea, world leaders in allied nations, including the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Germany and France, quickly rejected it.

Congressman Meeks said the U.S. should instead be focused on the “serious business” left to do in Gaza amid a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after more than a year of war.

“We should be talking about how we maintain the ceasefire … returning of the hostages, trying to make sure that Hamas is not in control of any government,” he told MSNBC. “We are now distracted from that.”