Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is back. Again. With another plan to remove Donald Trump from office. This time it’s the 25th Amendment — because impeachment didn’t work, the 14th Amendment didn’t work, and apparently Raskin has a punch card where the tenth attempt is free.
The White House response? Spokesman Davis Ingle called him “a stupid person’s idea of a smart person.”
Here’s what Raskin cooked up this time. He wants a 17-member commission — physicians, psychiatrists, former executive officials — to evaluate President Trump’s “mental and physical capacity” under the 25th Amendment. Because when you can’t beat a guy at the ballot box, impeach him in Congress, or disqualify him with the 14th Amendment, you call a bunch of shrinks and hope they declare him crazy.
This is constitutional whack-a-mole. Every time one scheme fails, Raskin pops up with another amendment he thinks he can weaponize to target President Trump.
Raskin put out a statement dripping with the kind of self-importance that only a man who calls himself a “constitutional scholar” can muster: “We have a solemn duty to play our defined role under the 25th Amendment by setting up this body to act alongside the Vice President and the Cabinet.”
Alongside the Vice President and the Cabinet. JD Vance and Trump’s own Cabinet. The people Raskin thinks are going to team up with him to remove their own boss. That’s not a plan — that’s fan fiction.
He also threw in this gem about Trump: “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.” Threatens to destroy entire civilizations. The man who just brokered a ceasefire with Iran is apparently one bad Tuesday away from nuking a continent.
But here’s where it gets truly hilarious. This is the same Jamie Raskin who, in February 2024, went on CNN and said — and we’re quoting directly here — “I just spent an hour with President Biden and the entire Democratic caucus, where he regaled and entertained everyone.”
Regaled! Entertained! This was four months before Biden shuffled onto a debate stage and told 50 million viewers that “we finally beat Medicare.” The man couldn’t finish a sentence, couldn’t find his way off the stage, and looked like he didn’t know what state he was in. But Raskin told us Biden was sharp as a tack. Entertaining, even!
(So we’re taking mental fitness advice from THIS guy now?)
The White House didn’t stop at the “stupid person’s idea of a smart person” line, either. Ingle added: “President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the last administration, when Democrats like Raskin intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people.”
That’s the part that should sting the most. Raskin didn’t just fail to notice Biden’s decline — he actively covered it up. He went on television and lied about it. The Robert Hur special counsel report described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” and Raskin was out there telling America that Joe was the life of the party.
And now this same man wants to convene a panel of psychiatrists to evaluate Trump. A president who just negotiated a ceasefire, flew to the Middle East, and posts on social media at 2 AM with more energy than most 30-year-olds. Whatever you think of Trump’s style, the man is not sitting in a basement forgetting what day it is.
This isn’t Raskin’s first rodeo with the 25th Amendment, either. He tried this in 2017. He tried it again in 2020. Both times it went nowhere because — and this is apparently a surprise to Jamie every single time — the 25th Amendment requires the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to agree. Not a ranking member of the Judiciary Committee who writes angry letters.
Raskin is the House Democrats’ version of the guy who keeps ordering the same thing at a restaurant and complaining that it tastes bad every time. Impeachment? Didn’t work. 14th Amendment? Didn’t work. 25th Amendment? Won’t work. But sure, try it a third time. Maybe the amendment changed its mind.
The real story here isn’t Raskin’s latest doomed stunt. It’s that Democrats still — STILL — cannot accept the results of an election. Trump won. He’s governing. He’s making deals, signing orders, and running the country whether Jamie Raskin likes it or not.
And the best they can come up with is a 17-member psychiatrist panel that requires Trump’s own Vice President to cooperate.
A stupid person’s idea of a smart person, indeed.