Congress Has the Tools to Act on Trump's Fitness — and Won't
Rep. Raskin's 25th Amendment push is gaining unusual cross-aisle traction, but the math for removal remains firmly against it.
A question that dogged the Biden White House has migrated to the Trump administration — and this time, it's coming from inside the house. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) formally called on the White House physician to administer a comprehensive cognitive and neurological evaluation to President Trump on April 10, demanding results be shared with Congress. His follow-up: 
a proposed bill to establish an independent commission authorized to trigger Section 4 of the 25th Amendment — the removal clause — if Trump is found unfit to discharge his duties.
The unusual element isn't Raskin. It's who's now echoing him.
The Crack in the MAGA Wall
Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Candace Owens — not a Democratic caucus lineup — have each, in varying registers, raised public doubts about Trump's mental acuity in recent weeks. Owens explicitly called for 25th Amendment intervention. Jones described Trump as "babbling." Former White House counsel Ty Cobb suggested visible signs of deterioration. A new poll cited by 
USA Today shows a majority of Americans — including independents and a slice of Republicans — view Trump as more erratic with age. That's a significant political data point as the 2026 midterms approach.
The proximate trigger is foreign policy: Trump's escalating public rhetoric on Iran, including social media threats that alarmed national security officials and reportedly confused allies. Raskin explicitly framed the cognitive test demand around the Iran situation, arguing that a Commander-in-Chief initiating war must be demonstrably capable of command.
Why Congress Won't Move
Despite the noise, the 25th Amendment math is prohibitive. Section 4 requires the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the President incapacitated — a bar that VP JD Vance and Trump loyalists occupying virtually every Cabinet seat show zero appetite for crossing. Congress can designate an alternative body, which is what Raskin's commission bill proposes, but that legislation has no path through a Republican-controlled House.
The historical precedent is thin. The 25th Amendment has never been successfully invoked against a sitting president. Sections 3 and 4 were used temporarily during Reagan-era surgery and briefly considered after January 6, 2021 — but Cabinet solidarity, not constitutional ambiguity, has always been the real barrier.
What's happening instead is a slow delegitimization campaign operating outside formal mechanisms — a media and grassroots pressure track that aims to shape the 2026 midterm environment rather than remove Trump before it.
What to Watch
The inflection point is the midterm election cycle, now fully underway. If Democrats flip the House in November 2026, Raskin's commission bill becomes viable legislation with committee power behind it. Before then, watch whether any Republican member of Congress formally co-sponsors a cognitive transparency measure — that single vote would represent a qualitative shift in the political calculus.
The second signal: whether the White House physician issues any voluntary health disclosure to pre-empt the pressure, as Reagan's team did in 1987. Silence will be read as confirmation by critics; disclosure carries its own risks.
For deeper context on the constitutional and political dynamics at play, see 
US Politics and International coverage at Diplomat Briefing.
