Impeach. Convict. Remove. Why the 25th Amendment Was Never the Answer
- Kal Inois
- 51 minutes ago
- 10 min read
Every time †rump does something that shocks the conscience — threatens to wipe out a civilization, starts an unauthorized war, uses a dead soldier's coffin as a fundraising prop — the same cry erupts across social media and cable news: Invoke the 25th Amendment.
We understand the impulse. But we need to talk about why that impulse, however well-intentioned, is exactly wrong and why the right answer has been staring us in the face since the day this man took office.
The answer is impeachment. It has always been impeachment. And it is past time for Congress to do its constitutional job.
What the 25th Amendment Actually Is — And Isn't
The 25th Amendment was designed for one specific scenario: a president who is physically or medically unable to perform the duties of office. It was written after the Kennedy assassination, born from the fear of a president incapacitated by a stroke, a bullet, or anesthesia during surgery. It has been used exactly that way — presidents temporarily transferring power to their vice presidents during medical procedures.
Section 4 — the portion everyone is demanding right now — has never once been invoked against a sitting president's will in the history of the United States. Not once. The National Constitution Center confirms it has been used only for voluntary, temporary transfers of power during medical procedures, never for involuntary removal. Here is why that matters: to invoke it, you need the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to sign a declaration stating the president is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." Then, even if they do that, the president can simply send a letter to Congress saying he's fine, and he immediately resumes power unless two-thirds of both chambers vote otherwise within 21 days.
Now look at who is in that Cabinet. Pete Hegseth. Marco Rubio. Kristi Noem. JD Vance. People who have, without exception, either enthusiastically enabled every action †rump has taken or stayed silent while he threatened genocide, started an unauthorized war, and accepted a $400 million jet from a foreign government. These are not people who are going to declare their boss unfit. They are his accomplices. They are the regime.
Calling for the 25th Amendment is, in effect, calling on †rump's own regime to remove itself. That is not a strategy. That is a wish.
The Wrong Tool for the Right Problem
The 25th Amendment addresses incapacity. It asks: can this person do the job?
Impeachment addresses betrayal. It asks: has this person abused the job?
†rump is not incapacitated. He is not confused. He is not suffering from a condition that prevents him from understanding his actions. He is making deliberate choices — to wage unauthorized wars, to accept gifts from foreign governments, to weaponize federal agencies against political enemies, to pardon insurrectionists, to threaten the annihilation of 90 million people in a Truth Social post. These are choices. They are willful. They are impeachable.
The 25th Amendment says: this person cannot do the job. Impeachment says: this person has betrayed the job. One is a medical finding. The other is a moral and constitutional verdict. What is happening in America right now demands a verdict, not a diagnosis.
The Constitutional Case Is Already Built
The Founders gave Congress the impeachment power precisely for this moment. As the framers designed it, impeachment is "the Constitution's final answer to a President who mistakes himself for a monarch." The standard, "high crimes and misdemeanors," has always been understood to mean abuses of power, betrayals of the public trust, and violations of the constitutional order. It does not require a criminal conviction. It does not require a jury. It requires Congress to act as the check on executive power that the Founders built.
The grounds are not difficult to identify. Articles of impeachment have already been filed in the House of Representatives, and they are damning.
Waging unconstitutional war. The Constitution's Article I, Section 8 gives Congress — and Congress alone — the power to declare war. †rump launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28, 2026 without a single vote of congressional authorization. He also attacked Venezuela without authorization. He has struck seven countries. Foreign leaders received advance notice. Members of Congress did not. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated: "The President's disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment."
Threatening war crimes and genocide. When †rump posted on Truth Social that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" and threatened to destroy Iran's civilian power grid, bridges, and water infrastructure, he was not engaging in negotiating theater. International law experts and members of both parties identified those threats as potential war crimes. Over 70 members of Congress called for his removal the same day. Sen. Ed Markey wrote: "We cannot leave this man in charge of America's nuclear weapons as he threatens to end an entire civilization."
Violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause. The Constitution explicitly prohibits public officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval. †rump accepted a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 from the government of Qatar — a country where his attorney general previously lobbied at $115,000 per month and where the †rump Organization is simultaneously investing $5.5 billion in a golf resort. Congress never approved the gift. The plane will be retrofitted at taxpayer expense and transferred to the †rump Presidential Library Foundation when he leaves office. This is bribery wearing a bow tie.
Cryptocurrency fraud and self-dealing. †rump launched the $†RUMP meme coin days before his inauguration — while simultaneously setting crypto policy as president. The House Judiciary Committee's own staff report documented how †rump "has turned the Oval Office into the world's most corrupt crypto startup operation, minting staggering personal fortunes for him and his family in less than a year," with crypto holdings worth as much as $11.6 billion and income of more than $800 million in the first half of 2025 alone. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations launched a formal inquiry into the coin's ownership, its ties to foreign nationals under federal prosecution, and its use to sell presidential access to the highest bidder. Sen. Jeff Merkley put it plainly: "Currently, people who wish to cultivate influence with the president can enrich him personally by buying cryptocurrency he owns or controls. This is a profoundly corrupt scheme. It endangers our national security and erodes public trust in government." This is not a gray area. This is a president using the power of the presidency to enrich himself directly, in real time, from anyone in the world willing to pay, including foreign governments.
Systematic dismantling of military legal oversight. Hegseth fired the top military lawyers, the JAG corps, specifically because he didn't want "roadblocks to orders given by a commander in chief." He fired the Joint Chiefs chairman, the chief of naval operations, and the Army chief of staff. He removed any senior officer who raised legal or moral objections to regime orders. Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks called it what it is: "what you do when you're planning to break the law." The regime has systematically removed the military's conscience before sending it to war.
Using the presidency as a retribution machine. †rump made over 100 explicit threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison, or otherwise punish perceived enemies before he was even re-elected — and then carried them all out. He revoked the security clearances of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. He ordered federal investigations into Democratic fundraising platforms. He targeted law firms that had represented his opponents. One federal judge called it "a shocking abuse of power." This is not governance. This is a vendetta with a federal budget.
Threatening the Pope. In January 2026, a senior Pentagon official summoned the Vatican's US ambassador to a closed-door meeting and told him that "the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side." An official in the room invoked the Avignon Papacy — the 14th-century period when the French crown used military force to subjugate the Church — as what Vatican officials interpreted as a direct threat. The first American-born pope canceled his planned US visit as a result. On July 4, while America celebrates its 250th anniversary, Pope Leo XIV will be in Lampedusa — the island where African migrants wash ashore — in a deliberate rebuke of everything this regime represents.
But Republicans Control Congress. So What's the Point?
This is the objection we hear most often. And it deserves a direct answer.
First, the math is not as impossible as it seems. A majority of Americans already support impeachment — including 20% of Republicans and over 50% of voters in swing districts. That number grows every time †rump threatens genocide, starts a new war, or fundraises off a dead soldier's coffin. The political ground is shifting.
Second, any member of Congress can file articles of impeachment, and filing them under Rule IX forces a floor vote within two working days. That vote creates a record. That record matters in November. Every Republican who votes against impeachment owns everything that comes after.
Third, even an impeachment that fails in the current Senate is not wasted. It builds the case. It forces testimony. It creates a public record of accountability that cannot be erased. As Citizens' Impeachment notes, there was a 77% increase in support for impeachment the second time a vote was forced. Momentum is built by action, not by waiting for the perfect moment that never comes.
Fourth, and most importantly, the Constitution does not give Congress the option to look away. It gives Congress the obligation to act. Silence is not neutrality. Inaction is not caution. When a president wages unauthorized war, accepts foreign bribes, and threatens genocide, lawmakers who do nothing are themselves complicit in the collapse of the republic they swore to defend. As Free Speech For People put it: Congress failed to impeach †rump after Venezuela, and as a result he remained free to attack Iran. Inaction has consequences.
But What About JD Vance?
Yes. If †rump is removed, JD Vance becomes president. We know.
Vance is not a good man. He is a cynical opportunist who has abandoned every principle he once claimed to hold in exchange for proximity to power. He has enabled, defended, and celebrated this regime's worst actions.
But here is the thing: Vance would also be subject to impeachment. He would also be bound by the Constitution. He would also face the 2026 midterms. And critically, Vance does not have †rump's authoritarian instincts, his contempt for every institution, his willingness to threaten civilizations into submission, or his documented ties to the Epstein Class. Vance is dangerous. †rump is existential.
As Citizens' Impeachment puts it: "If Vance proves as dangerous and unlawful as †rump, the remedy is the same: impeachment, conviction, and removal. The Constitution does not grant immunity to successors." We deal with what's in front of us. What is in front of us right now is a man who launched an unauthorized war, threatened genocide, accepted foreign bribes, and fundraised off the coffins of the soldiers he sent to die in that war. One crisis at a time.
This Is Congress's Job. It Is Also Ours.
Citizens Against Tyranny is proud to be a partner organization of the Removal Coalition — the grassroots force behind the Remove the Regime movement, which has hosted the largest single-day lobbying of Congress for impeachment in American history. We share one unified demand: Impeach. Convict. Remove.
The Removal Coalition, Citizens' Impeachment, and dozens of allied organizations are doing the work: lobbying Congress directly, forcing votes, tracking every lawmaker's position, and building the kind of relentless public pressure that moves the unmovable. They need your voice. They need your body at rallies. They need you calling your representatives every single week until those representatives understand that their jobs depend on doing theirs.
Here is what you can do right now, and the single most important thing is a phone call.
Calling your representative is the most effective form of constituent pressure. Emails get deleted. Tweets get ignored. Calls get logged, tallied, and reported up the chain. When a congressional office gets flooded with calls on the same issue, it moves. 5 Calls makes this as easy as possible; it finds your representatives automatically, gives you a script, and tracks your calls. They already have a dedicated Impeach †rump issue page ready to go. Pick up the phone. Use it. Today.
Beyond that call:
Stop the Iran War. 5 Calls has a dedicated page for this too. Call and demand Congress end †rump's unauthorized war immediately.
Demand Hegseth be impeached too. 5 Calls has a page for that as well. The man who gutted the military's legal conscience and cheered war crimes doesn't get a pass.
Track your rep's position. Citizens' Impeachment maintains a House position tracker and a Senate position tracker so you know exactly where your lawmakers stand, and who needs the most pressure.
Request a meeting with your Member of Congress. Citizens' Impeachment will prep you and attend with you.
Join the Removal Coalition. RemovalCoalition.org
Support Citizens Against Tyranny. Come to our meetings. Show up. Donate. citizensagainstyrannynetwork.org
The Constitution does not enforce itself. We the people do.
The 25th Amendment asks the regime to remove itself. That is never going to happen.
Impeachment asks Congress, the people's branch, to do its job. That can happen. That must happen. And it will happen if enough of us refuse to let it not.
References
25th Amendment, Section 4 — Constitution Annotated, Congress.gov / Library of Congress
How the Constitution's 25th Amendment Works — National Constitution Center
25th Amendment Full Text — Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute
How the 25th Amendment Would Work Against †rump — International Bar Association
H.Res.1155 — Articles of Impeachment, 119th Congress — Congress.gov
H.Res.537 — Articles of Impeachment, 119th Congress — Congress.gov
Free Speech For People — Congress Must Impeach and Remove Trump
Democrats Call for †rump Removal After Iran Threat — The Hill
House Judiciary Committee Report: "Trump, Crypto, and a New Age of Corruption"
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — Inquiry into Trump Crypto Corruption
†rump's Iran War Is Grounds for Impeachment — Independent Institute