What happens now as Democrats file 25th Amendment bill to remove Trump from office

Attempts to kick President Trump out of office gathered steam this week as lawmakers began the process of using the Constitution's 25th Amendment, which would promote JD Vance to the Oval Office.

The legislation to invoke the 25th Amendment was introduced on Tuesday by Rep. Jamie Raskin, with the Democratic congressman citing Trump's 'escalating erratic conduct' and threat that Iran's 'whole civilization will die tonight' as the reason to remove him.

While this amendment has been used multiple times when a president has become incapacitated due to a health procedure, handing all the POTUS' powers to the vice president, it has never been used to remove them from office.

That is, in part, due to the complexity of applying the untested parts of the 25th, but also because Rep. Raskin has opted for a process that will end with inviting Vice President Vance to take his boss' job.

Rep. Jamie Raskin wants to convene a commission that decides if Trump is fit for office (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

The bill tabled by Raskin and supported by 50 Democrats will create a commission made up of leading figures in Congress, former officials who have worked in the executive, and medical experts, to establish whether Trump's recent erratic behavior meets the bar for invoking the 25th Amendment.

This careful approach contrasts with the dozens of previous attempts to remove Trump from office which have failed, including two impeachments that failed to make it through the Senate.

“Public trust in Donald Trump’s ability to meet the duties of his office has dropped to unprecedented lows as he threatens to destroy entire civilizations, unleashes chaos in the Middle East while violating Congressional war powers, aggressively insults the Pope of the Catholic Church and sends out artistic renderings online likening himself to Jesus Christ," Raskin said in a statement.

The statement continued: "We are at a dangerous precipice, and it is now a matter of national security for Congress to fulfill its responsibilities under the 25th Amendment to protect the American people from an increasingly volatile and unstable situation.”

But what is the Constitution's 25th Amendment? And how does it work?

The 25th Amendment is all about what to do when a president is incapable of carrying out their duties (Getty Stock Image)

The 25th Amendment of the Constitution codifies what happens when the president dies or is incapacitated, establishing what role the vice president has in this scenario and the process through which they take on the top job.

Ratified in 1967 in the wake of the JFK assassination, the amendment stipulates that the vice president automatically assumes office if the president dies, resigns, or is removed. It states that, after this point, the new president selects another second-in-command who has to be approved by both houses of Congress.

It then states that the president can voluntarily hand over powers to their number two in the event of some disabling factor, like general anaesthetic for surgery, regaining them after that stipulated period.

But most importantly for the lawmakers trying to remove Trump, Section Four also stipulates that any president can be removed from office involuntarily, so long as the vice president and cabinet agree to do so.

Giving this section of the amendment an even higher bar to pass, Congress would then be required to vote with a two-thirds majority to approve their removal.

Raskin's bill aims to build the cross-party support for this move before the 25th Amendment is invoked by creating a commission that decides whether the 25th should be invoked in the first place.

Will the 25th Amendment be invoked?

Former CIA Director John Brennan helped build the case that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election in Trump's favor (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

While it might seem like a long shot to get a Republican-controlled Congress and Trump's cabinet to agree to remove their boss from power, the pressure to do something about the man sitting behind the Resolute Desk has grown from all sides in recent days.

Former CIA Director and prominent Trump critic John Brennan has said: “I think the 25th Amendment was written with Donald Trumps in mind, because allowing someone like this to continue to be the commander-in-chief and to control the tremendous capabilities of the U.S. military, including our nuclear weapons capability, which he seemed to allude to when he said he’s going to just eliminate an entire civilization…

"Again, we really are in very, very troubling times.”

And it was not even just Trump's long-term enemies who have been calling on politicians to remove the president from office using the constitution in recent days, InfoWars host, conspiracy theorist, and early MAGA supporter Alex Jones even asked on his show - “How do we 25th Amendment his ass?”