House to Vote on 25th Amendment Resolution Against Trump

Updated at 5:20 p.m. ET

The House of Representatives is expected to vote Tuesday evening on a resolution calling for Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment against President Trump, days after violent insurrectionists breached the U.S. Capitol.

The measure, which is likely to pass the Democratic-controlled House, urges Pence to use his powers “immediately” to convene the Cabinet and declare Trump unfit for office and assume the powers and responsibilities of acting president.

Trump “widely advertised and broadly encouraged” the protests that led to last week’s violence, the resolution argues, and then ignored calls to condemn his supporters’ actions swiftly. It also cites his repeated efforts to delegitimize the presidential election results with false claims of widespread voter fraud.

Watch the House proceedings:

The vote comes as Democrats in the House have also filed an impeachment resolution charging Trump with fomenting the insurrection.

If Pence does not respond within 24 hours to the 25th Amendment resolution, the House plans to move forward with impeachment proceedings. Trump is just the third U.S. president to have been impeached. He would be the only one to have been impeached twice.

Pence has given no indication he plans to seek Trump’s removal from office. But Democrats, emboldened by bipartisan outrage over last week’s siege of the Capitol, are resolved in their efforts to seek Trump’s dismissal even before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20.

Speaking Tuesday in Texas, Trump said that “the 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration.”

Earlier Tuesday, Trump called the move to impeach him again “ridiculous.”

“For [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and [Senate Democratic leader] Chuck Schumer to continue on this path, I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our country and it’s causing tremendous anger,” he told reporters.

Some Republican supporters of Trump were pressed Tuesday on their role in encouraging his baseless election fraud claims, and in pushing events that led to the violent insurrection at the Capitol.

“Those of us who spoke against the unconstitutional way several states conducted their election were following the process,” Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said. “And we did nothing different than Democrats have done every time a Republican’s been elected this century.”

In a news conference Tuesday, Schumer said he’s asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to call the Senate back into session immediately to begin a likely impeachment trial.

“We could come back ASAP and vote to convict Donald Trump and get him out of office now before any further damage is done,” Schumer said.

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