Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., together with 50 Democratic co-sponsors, has reintroduced his bill to create a “Commission on Presidential Capacity” under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. It is being framed as a response to the crisis of a president who threatened to annihilate an entire civilization, who shares renderings of himself as Jesus Christ while feuding with the pope and who posts snuff videos on social media — to name the highlights from just the past couple of weeks.
In other words, the most powerful man in the world appears to be manifestly insane. It’s not great. But this proposal is misguided on the details, and more importantly, a distraction from what Congress can and should do: impeach Donald Trump and remove him from office.
This is not a new idea from Raskin. He first proposed essentially the same bill in 2017, and again in 2020 during Trump’s bout with Covid. I wrote about it at the time for the Cato Institute, and my objections have not changed. If anything, the current situation makes the flaws in this approach more glaring.
The most powerful man in the world appears to be manifestly insane. It’s not great.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment allows for the involuntary transfer of presidential power to the vice president. It was designed for genuine incapacity: a president who is comatose, or has been shot, or has gone missing in a plane crash. It was drafted in the shadow of the Kennedy assassination and ratified at the height of the Cold War, when the overriding concern was nuclear command and control. The nightmare scenario was having nobody authorized to act if the president was suddenly unable. The text grants this power to the vice president together with “a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments [i.e., the Cabinet] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide.”
Raskin’s bill would create that “other body” to displace the Cabinet. This new entity would be a 17-member commission of physicians, psychiatrists and retired government officials chosen by congressional leaders of both parties. The commissioners would, if directed by Congress, conduct a medical examination (or try to; the president can’t be forced to cooperate) and then report back. The agreement of the vice president would still be needed to initiate a transfer of power.
Set aside the immediate unlikeliness of this passing a Republican-controlled Congress, overriding a presidential veto and then getting JD Vance to use it. Messaging bills can still serve a purpose. The deeper problem is conceptual. What is happening with Trump is not a medical question. Or rather, it is not merely a medical question, and framing it as one lets both him and Congress off the hook.
Trump may be deranged, but he is not incapacitated in the way the framers of the 25th Amendment envisioned. He is likely committing high crimes and misdemeanors, but he is not literally “unable” to issue orders and wield his powers, however ludicrously and improperly. The fact that he is also experiencing evident mental and physical decline while he goes on a constitutional crime spree does not change the required remedy. If he were sharp as a tack, perfectly healthy and several decades younger, he would still need to be removed.
The bill’s inclusion of psychiatrists is particularly troubling. Diagnosing a political leader with a mental health condition, and then using that diagnosis as the basis for removing him from office, is extremely problematic.
The medical ethics are dubious, to put it mildly. This is a political decision of the highest order, a matter for our nation’s constitutional officers. It is not a diagnostic exercise for deciding how best to treat a patient. Consultation with medical experts might inform the decision-making, but doctors do not belong in the driver’s seat.
There are practical problems as well. The 25th Amendment was designed for speed, when a new commander-in-chief is needed within minutes, not days.
Trump may be deranged, but he is not incapacitated in the way the framers of the 25th Amendment envisioned.
Cabinet members are already serving, in the loop, reachable at a moment’s notice. A commission including retired officials scattered across the country, most of whom are elderly themselves, is not an improvement. And for the purpose envisioned here — removing a president whose behavior is dangerous but who remains ambulatory and vocally resistant — it is worse than useless. Even if the commission declared Trump incapable, he could simply send a letter to Congress saying he disagrees. You would then need two-thirds of both chambers to side against him under the 25th Amendment, a higher hurdle than impeachment.
The authors of the 25th Amendment deliberately wanted to avoid creating a tempting workaround to impeachment. So they made it more difficult, requiring an even greater degree of consensus. It’s also less permanent: The vice president merely becomes acting president. Officially, the president is still the president and the vice president is still the vice president. The powers are transferred but not the title. He would still be hanging around as a sort of president in limbo, able to repeatedly challenge the alleged incapacity for the remainder of his term.
Congress has the power to remove the president from office. The House can impeach with a simple majority, and any individual representative can force a vote on it as a privileged resolution. The case is overwhelming and has been for some time. Take your pick of the many possible charges; we’re in no danger of running out.
Yes, conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds vote, perhaps unobtainable. But that is not a reason to demur.
The political strategy argument against impeachment doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Both previous Trump impeachments were supported by majority public opinion. After Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, he lost the election in 2020. With Jan. 6 and the second impeachment fresh in mind, Democrats beat expectations in 2022, and those Republicans most closely associated with Trump’s election denialism fared even worse. His narrow victory in 2024 happened when Democrats were not exactly at peak performance, speaking of medically questionable presidents. And now, in all the chaos and absurdity, his approval ratings are lower than ever.
More to the point, impeachment is not only about removal. It is a statement of principle. It forces a public debate, puts the spotlight where it belongs and creates a historical record. Even if the Senate fails to convict, or even if it fails in the House, the act of pursuing impeachment has value. It says this did not all go unrebuked with passive acquiescence.
The 25th Amendment talk, by contrast, does none of that. It medicalizes what is fundamentally a political, legal and moral crisis. It frames the problem as “he might be unwell” rather than “he is breaking the law and abusing his powers.” One is an excuse; the other is culpability.
This is all, at best, a well-meaning detour. Less charitably, it is a way for congressional leadership to say they are doing something while dodging the real fight.
rumImpeachment is not only about removal. It is a statement of principle. It forces a public debate, puts the spotlight where it belongs and creates a historical record.
Raskin himself seems to understand this, to be fair. He has averred that he is not advocating for one solution over another, merely explaining the options. As a law professor, his interest in lesser-known parts of the Constitution is genuine. And, of course, he’s no stranger to impeachment; he was the House’s lead manager making the case to the Senate after the attack on the Capitol. He is not taking the problem lightly or trying to minimize the danger.
Nevertheless, every day spent talking about a Rube Goldberg machine for medically diagnosing Trump is a day not spent building the case for the only real solution.
We don’t need medical doctors and retired officeholders to tell us what we can see with our own eyes. We don’t need to nail down exactly which checklists he satisfies in the DSM-5. We need our elected representatives to do their duty. Trump’s disturbed personal psychology is real but immaterial. The problem is he is a walking, talking, nonstop offense against our constitutional system of government. Impeachment is the tool Congress has to address that, and its oath-sworn obligation demands it use it.
Andy Craig
Andy Craig is a senior editor at The UnPopulist.