Senator Bernie Sanders has called for the invocation of the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, describing him as “dangerous and mentally unbalanced.” The statement, posted on X, comes amid escalating concerns within Congress about the president’s conduct during the Iran war.
Sanders is not alone. A growing number of lawmakers from both parties have raised questions — publicly and privately — about the president’s decision-making as the conflict enters its sixth week. The pattern of behavior that prompted Sanders’ statement includes threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages,” the firing of military generals who counseled against ground invasion, and a prime-time address that offered no exit strategy while celebrating the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
The 25th Amendment allows for the removal of a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It requires the vice president and a majority of cabinet members to act — a threshold that makes its invocation effectively impossible in the current political environment. JD Vance has shown no indication of willingness to challenge Trump, and the cabinet is composed entirely of loyalists handpicked for their alignment with the president’s agenda.
Sanders’ call is therefore symbolic rather than procedural. But the symbolism carries weight. When a sitting senator with decades of experience publicly declares the president mentally unfit during an active war, it enters the historical record in a way that cannot be retracted.
The broader question is whether the concerns Sanders articulates are shared more widely than elected officials are willing to say publicly. The firing of General Randy George — the Army’s Chief of Staff — for resisting preparations for a ground invasion suggests that dissent within the national security establishment is real and consequential. Generals do not typically resist orders without substantial professional conviction that those orders will produce catastrophe.
Related: NewsRescue — Hegseth Fires Army Chief as Generals Resist Ground Invasion
The defense establishment, the intelligence community, and now members of Congress are, through different channels, raising the same alarm: the trajectory of this war is being driven by political calculation rather than strategic judgment, and the institutional safeguards designed to check that impulse are being systematically removed.
Whether Sanders’ call gains traction is almost beside the point. The 25th Amendment will not be invoked. What matters is that the question is being asked — publicly, by a senator, on the record — while the bombs continue to fall and the generals continue to be fired.
The historical parallel that Sanders is implicitly drawing — a leader whose judgment has become a danger to the nation he governs — is one that future historians will evaluate with the benefit of outcomes that are not yet known. What is known, today, is that the question is on the table.
