A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives would require President Donald Trump to undergo a physical and mental health exam to determine if he is stable enough to stay in office.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced the bill on Friday. Should the results of the said exam be unfavorable, the bill calls for Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Cabinet to remove Trump from office.
The move would invoke the 25th Amendment, a rarely-used constitutional provision that allows the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members to jointly remove the president from office and replace him with the vice president.
โDoes the President suffer from early stage dementia,โ Lofgren asked in a statement announcing the bill.
โHas emotional disorder so impaired the President that he is unable to discharge his duties,โ she continued. โIs the President mentally and emotionally stable?โ
Lofgren pointed out that Trump has not yet released a โseriousโ medical evaluation to the public.
Lofgren, who represents Californiaโs 19th district,ย is not a professional psychiatrist or psychologist, according to Mercury News.
She doesnโt expect the bill to pass, but she told the newspaper โit will stimulate conversation,โ adding that Trump would get the evaluation if โhe cares about the country.โ
Lofgren has often criticized Trumpโs remarks and policies throughout his presidency. The representative suggested on Tuesday that โsomething is seriously wrong with President Trump,โ responding to his off-the-cuff remarks on the Charlottesville white supremacist riot made during an impromptu Q&A with reporters in New York.
โWhy canโt he just condemn Nazis,โ she asked on Twitter. โUnscripted words today show who he really is. Shameful!โ
Lofgren isnโt the first politician or critic to suggest invoking the 25th Amendment to boot the 45th President out of the White House.
In June, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) led 25 House Democrats to co-sign a bill that would also oust Trump from the Oval Office under the amendment. Commenting on his bill, Raskin told Yahoo News โin case of emergency, break glass.โ
Articles and op-eds exploring the 25th Amendment in detail have also sprung up onย Washington Post,ย Rolling Stones, New York Times and Time Magazineย since Trump took office. Meanwhile, Trump has continued to draw ire from the country for everything from his policies on immigration, Muslim travel bans and dangerous health care bills, to remarks that suggest that there are โfine peopleโ who attend a white supremacy rally.
And this summer, the hashtag #25thAmendment began trending on Twitter.
Thatโs why Lofgren is calling for Mike Pence and other Cabinet members to โquickly secure … medical and psychiatric professionalsโ to evaluate Trumpโs mental health and any possible impairments.
โIf it was a physical ailment, you would be getting the advice of doctors,โ Lofgren told Mercury News. โThe same thing should be true to take a look at his stability here.โ
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
