Raskin offers bill setting up 25th Amendment process to remove Trump from office

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., wants to set up a new commission to determine whether Trump is mentally fit for office.

Raskin offers bill setting up 25th Amendment process to remove Trump from office
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., wants to set up a new commission to determine whether Trump is mentally fit for office.

www.ms.now/news/raskin-...

— Rude 8647 Fulk (@rudefulk.bsky.social) 2026-04-14T16:51:42.272Z

https://www.ms.now/news/raskin-bill-25th-amendment-remove-trump

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill on Tuesday that seeks to kickstart the removal of President Donald Trump through the 25th Amendment — a longshot effort that, while unlikely to succeed, aims to put renewed focus on the president’s mental fitness and recent rhetoric.

The legislation, which was offered with 50 Democratic co-sponsors, would establish a “Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office.” That Commission would be composed of 17 members tasked with determining whether the president is incapacitated — “either mentally or physically” — and able to discharge the powers and duties of office, as called for in Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. .....

Despite the mounting calls to invoke the 25th Amendment, it is highly unlikely Trump would be removed through that mechanism, which has never been used to end a presidency in U.S. history.

To be successful, the vice president and a majority of the president’s cabinet would have to agree that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” If the president were to dispute that assessment — as Trump almost certainly would — at least two-thirds of the House and Senate would have to agree that the president is unfit to serve to remove him from office.

In effect, using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office is a higher burden than impeachment and conviction in the Senate......

This is not Raskin’s first move zeroing in on Trump’s mental fitness. Last week, the Maryland Democrat called on the White House physician to conduct a “comprehensive cognitive evaluation” of Trump.

“At a time when our country is at war — especially when the war was initiated by the President without congressional declaration or consent — the American people must be able to trust that the Commander-in-Chief has the mental capacity to discharge the essential duties of his office,” Raskin wrote in a letter. “I therefore request that you conduct a comprehensive cognitive assessment of President Donald Trump, provide those results to Congress, and make yourself available to brief Congress on your findings.”

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. MaddowBlog-Trump confronts a public conversation he hoped to avoid over his mental stability

One observer argued, “The American people must not look away … They must pay attention to the president’s deterioration.”

Is Trump’s mental stability getting worse or has he always been this way? It’s tough to say with confidence.

What’s easier to say is that the intensifying public conversation about his mental fitness is getting louder, which is a disaster for the White House.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-04-14T20:56:03.629Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-confronts-a-public-conversation-he-hoped-to-avoid-over-his-mental-stability

Last week, after Donald Trump issued genocidal threats toward Iran and made strange comments at the White House Easter Egg Roll, Rep. Jamie Raskin decided to contact the president’s physician, seeking a “comprehensive cognitive and neurological evaluation.”

This week, the Maryland Democrat, who serves as the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, took another step down the same path, unveiling a proposal to establish a Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office. The measure, which was unveiled with 50 Democratic co-sponsors, would be responsible for determining whether the president is incapacitated “either mentally or physically” and unable to discharge the powers and duties of office, as called for in the 25th Amendment.....

Indeed, the day before Raskin unveiled his proposal, The New York Times published a striking report with an unsubtle headline: “Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate.” From the article:

President Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments in recent days and weeks have turbocharged the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate that has followed him on the national political stage for a decade.

A series of disjointed, hard-to-follow and sometimes-profane statements capped by his ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ threat to wipe Iran off the map last week and his head-spinning attack on the ‘WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy’ pope on Sunday night have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power.

The Times highlighted a lawyer who used to work with Trump, who described the president as “a man who is clearly insane.” It also noted a recent comment from Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary who worked for Trump in his first term, who wrote online last week that her former boss is “clearly not well.”.....

Indeed, I remember the Times publishing a front-page report in October 2024, about a month before Election Day, that highlighted a variety of situations in which the Republican “seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality.” The same article added, “He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own ‘beautiful’ body.”

A year and a half later, is Trump worse? It’s hard to say with confidence.

What’s easier to say with certainty, however, is that this entire line of inquiry is a disaster for the White House. Trump is woefully unpopular; he has no idea what to do with a struggling economy; and the destabilizing war he started in Iran for reasons he’s unable to explain clearly isn’t going according to plan — to the extent that the president even had a rudimentary plan at all.

It’s against this backdrop that the conversation about his mental fitness is getting louder.