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House Democrats are weighing a long-shot scenario to remove President Donald Trump using the 25th Amendment but are declining to say whether they’ll act before the November midterm elections.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., will brief congressional Democrats Friday afternoon on the constitutional mechanism that would rely heavily on Trump’s Cabinet agreeing to push him out of office.
The 25th Amendment has never been used before to involuntarily remove a president and is effectively moot without widespread Republican buy-in. But a bevy of House Democrats have embraced that scenario following the president’s escalating conflict with Iran.
“Donald Trump’s deranged threat to destroy ‘a whole civilization’ in Iran is a threat to commit war crimes and genocide,” Raskin wrote on social media Tuesday. “Republicans in Congress must prevail upon Vice President Vance, now campaigning for Putin’s puppet Viktor Orban in Hungary, to return to the U.S. and invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.”
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“The 25th Amendment should be invoked to spare our country and the world from his increasingly unhinged behavior,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary Committee, also said Tuesday.
Dozens of House Democrats have continued to press for the president’s ouster despite the announcement of a two-week ceasefire.
“All options should be on the table,” Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., said Thursday.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has offered support for the briefing and ongoing discussions about the president’s removal, saying Democrats are considering a “range of accountability mechanisms.”
The lead Democrat, however, has remained ambiguous about his personal views despite signaling that all options remain on the table. That is largely in keeping with Jeffries’ efforts over the past year to keep the focus away from impeachment talk while leaning into policy fights over health care costs, tariffs and immigration enforcement.
Fox News Digital reached out to members of House Democratic leadership but did not receive a response before publication.
A spokesperson for the House Judiciary Committee declined to comment on the 25th Amendment briefing.
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Jeffries largely sidestepped a question Thursday regarding why Democrats are having conversations about removing Trump during a news conference in New York City.
“We have a responsibility as a separate and co-equal branch of government to defend the American people, and we want to be able to do it in an informed way,” Jeffries said before pivoting to criticizing Republicans over the cost of living.
“We’ve ruled nothing out, and we’ve ruled nothing in,” Jeffries told MS NOW when asked about whether he thought the 25th Amendment should be invoked.
In both appearances, Jeffries did not acknowledge that Democrats, who are effectively powerless in Washington, lack the numbers to successfully push impeachment or constitutional mechanisms to oust Trump.
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In the 25th Amendment scenario, the power rests with Vice President JD Vance and Trump’s Cabinet, who would have to agree the president is unfit to serve. Assuming Trump were to challenge that decision, two-thirds of the House and Senate — meaning a significant number of Republicans in Congress — would have to vote in support of that judgment.
At present, Democrats also have a math problem when it comes to impeachment and conviction, which requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Congressional Democrats failed twice to convict Trump in his first term.
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