It’s time.

On the immediate peril of the King’s Speech

If the 25th Amendment can’t be invoked for what the sitting president has said out loud and on his chosen communication platform this week, then the Constitution is a purely ceremonial list of gentle suggestions.

Here’s what he declared yesterday:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

When my grandpa’s friend Bert started talking like this, his kids had to move him to a facility that helped him with personal hygiene and getting dressed if his shirt had buttons.

These are the dissociative, raging outbursts of a mind incapable of organizing thoughts beyond primary processing.

That this is the unchecked man entrusted with the nuclear codes and given carte blanche to take us to war without congressional approval is enraging on two levels. That it is happening, and that Congress continues to let it happen.

And here’s what he wrote this morning:

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

To the congressional staffers who read this newsletter, impeachment and building a plan for invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment should be the only thing on your agenda today.

This isn’t just a man unfit to hold presidential office, he isn’t competent enough to work in a high school yearbook office.

The most horrifying thing about these presidential outbursts isn’t that he said them, it’s that the guardrails are off to the extent he is allowed to say them.

The overarching problem is that Donald Trump exists in a culture of infinite permissiveness. His leadership approach, from the time he was a TV businessman to the time he is a TV president, is simply firing anyone who impedes his power.

It all makes for a compelling reality show on a fake boardroom set and outright despotism in the (Home Depot-gilded) Oval Office.

This isn’t projection of some grouchy liberal Substack writer, it’s what Donald Trump openly admitted on camera in a rant the White House briefly, accidentally uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday before making the video private.

In it, Trump laments:

“I can’t get a ballroom approved. It’s pretty amazing, right? If I was a king, we’d be doing a lot more. I’m doing a lot, but I could be doing a lot more if I was a king.”

On the 250th anniversary of the revolutionary war, America is contending with another Mad King.

This is hardly a new train of thought for Trump. Last February, Trump posted AI imagery of himself in a crown accompanied by the text “LONG LIVE THE KING.” There was also the AI video of Trump flying a “King Trump” airplane dumping brown liquid on “No Kings” protesters. The man is quite literally a treasonous shit-poster.

So where does that put our lawmakers, and what can be done? The MAGA majority has made it clear they’ll bend the knee, but there have to be enough moderates who got into government because they actually care about what their constituents think. And sure, many politicians are narcissists who get off on proximity to power no matter the moral cost, but we just need a handful of representatives to do their basic jobs should a vote come before them.

And as of this month, Trump’s approval rating is at an historic low, at only 39%. Most of the people who currently employ members of Congress do not support this president. And that counts for something that could move the needle.

Here’s what the fourth section of the 25th Amendment states:

“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

Most practically, this would come down to JD Vance and Trump’s cabinet, but it’s unlikely Trump’s cabinet — hand-picked sycophants chosen for their fealty and kept in check by the recent career executions of Noem and Bondi — will step in.

But, Congress can technically establish a body to invoke Section 4, so long as JD Vance, a man as (conveniently!) ideologically spineless as he is power-hungry, is at the helm.

I understand the conundrum this hope raises: “But wouldn’t a JD Vance presidency be so much worse?” In the short term, possibly. Vance makes no secret of his openly fascist ideas about immigration and women’s rights. But every member of Congress with whom I have spoken agrees: Without Trump on the throne, MAGA crumbles. Vance simply doesn’t have the Machiavellian ringmaster respect Trump holds over his henchmen. He’d flounder. The man doesn’t even have the charisma to cash out and pivot to FOX News. You need a chin for that.

The only saving grace of King Trump’s lunacy, is without him there’s no lasting successor to the crown.

I also recognize that writing about this fantastical path to Trump’s removal is a bit like writing a piece about why I should be allowed to spend one magical night with Paul Mescal, but to quote The Art of the Deal: “If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

So what do we, the people do?

A week ago, I spoke with Katie Bethell, the executive director of MoveOn.org. She said that walking through the halls of Congress recently, the phones were eerily silent. Nobody is calling.

Today, let’s light up the switchboard.

It’s time to call each of our representatives and demand they do their very basic job: Uphold the constitution and hold Donald Trump to account. You pay their salaries. Demand they do their jobs. Invoke their war powers. Stop this incapacitated madman who is treating to annihilate a civilization if he goes unchecked.

Here’s the number for the Congressional switchboard.

(202) 224-3121

Here it is again, but larger.

(202) 224-3121

You know what to do. It’s time to take the keys before he drives us off a constitutional cliff. Let’s go. Think big.