Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before Congress on Friday, and, true to form, a spectacle was made of whether President Donald Trump is fit for office. This conspiracy theory that Trump is mentally unstable goes back to even before he took office in 2017, and from where I sit, the real question should be whether the Democrats’ Trump Derangement Syndrome has now reached a dangerous point.
During a tense back-and-forth, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) asked Kennedy, "Will you insist that President Trump undergo an assessment of his mental fitness and emotional stability?"
Kennedy didn't flinch.
"Absolutely not," he said.
That was the right answer, delivered without hesitation, and it deserved every bit of the frustration it sent through the Democratic side of the aisle.
Here's what makes this so rich: these are the same people who spent four years pretending Joe Biden was sharp as a tack. While the president of the United States was shuffling off stage, losing his train of thought mid-sentence, and needing aides to hand him note cards telling him which reporters to call on, Democrats and their allies in the media were telling you everything was fine, that videos of a diminished Biden were “cheap fakes,” and that behind the scenes he was actually running circles around his staffers—nothing to see here. Move along. Never mind that his cognitive decline was visible to anyone paying attention. They covered for it anyway.
Now they want to talk about mental fitness?
But, here’s the thing. The 25th Amendment gambit isn't new. It isn't even close to new. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen was already wargaming such a scenario. On January 9, 2017 — eleven days before Trump's first inauguration — he published a piece titled "How to remove Trump from office," arguing that impeachment wasn't a reliable enough tool and that the 25th Amendment was the smarter play.
As you know, under the 25th Amendment, the vice president and a majority of cabinet officers can remove a president deemed "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." Cohen acknowledged the move would "summon a horde of lawyers to Washington to contest it." That didn't stop him from floating it before Trump had even been sworn in.
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It didn't stop others, either. In June 2017, Rep. Jamie Raskin introduced a resolution to create an independent commission to assess Trump's mental and physical fitness — triggered, reportedly, by his tweets — with more than 20 co-sponsors. He did the same thing this week.
In the summer of 2017, Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced her own resolution calling for Trump to undergo a physical and mental health exam to determine whether he "suffers from mental disorder or other injury that impairs his abilities and prevents him from discharging his Constitutional duties." She is also calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked again.
Do you see the pattern? Democrats are making the same play over and over again. This has never been about genuine concern. It's a standing political option the left keeps reaching for every time they can't beat Trump at the ballot box.
And trust me, they know it’s going to go nowhere. Why? Because they know it’s bunk.
Citing New York Times reporting on Trump's internal deliberations over a potential strike on Iran, CNN's Michael Smerconish noted the accounts showed "airing of competing views, some open to dissent, reliance on legal counsel, and a deliberative process, not the impulsivity with which Trump is so often associated." He added: "There's nothing in the Times behind closed doors account of an unstable Trump at the same time that he was playing the madman card in public."
Democrats have spent nearly a decade trying to remove Trump through impeachment or the 25th Amendment. The one time they actually had a legitimate case — a sitting president visibly unfit for office — they looked the other way. That was Joe Biden, and they said nothing. All of this talk about the 25th Amendment has nothing to do with removing Trump; it’s about pandering to the radical base and raising money.
