House Democrats Monday began an attempt to remove President Donald Trump from office with a demand that Vice President Mike Pence use constitutional authority to declare him unfit, combined with the threat to impeach the president for a second time.
Republicans blocked House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer from fast-tracking a resolution urging Pence and Trump’s Cabinet to use the 25th Amendment to oust Trump. That sets up a roll call vote on the measure Tuesday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said if Pence doesn’t respond to the ultimatum in 24 hours, the House will move toward a vote on an impeachment resolution, which could come as soon as Wednesday.
More than 200 House members have already signed on to an impeachment resolution introduced Monday and led by Representatives David Cicilline, Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu charging Trump with inciting the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6th, seeking to have him both removed from office and prevented from ever holding office again.
That’s set to be the main vehicle for House action. Cicilline said Monday it has enough support for passage, including some Republicans.
“I expect we will have Republican support,” he said.
Pence has privately dismissed the possibility that he would convene the cabinet to remove Trump. If the House impeaches Trump, Pelosi could delay sending the resolution to the Senate to prevent the trial from interrupting the beginning of Joe Biden‘s administration. That would give the new president time to get cabinet members confirmed and focus on legislative priorities.
The Senate is in recess and any trial for Trump could not begin until Jan. 20 at the earliest without the backing of all senators. And once a trial is under way, the Senate couldn’t take up other business.
“Let’s give president-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running. And maybe we will send the articles some time after that,” Representative James Clyburn, a member of House Democratic leadership, said Sunday on CNN.
Biden is treading carefully. He said last week that impeachment is a matter for Congress to decide, but he also said his inauguration would be the quickest way to get Trump out of office. His transition staff declined to comment on the latest moves by House Democrats.
With a groundswell of anger among Democrats over the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a mob encouraged by Trump, Pelosi said the House needed to act speedily.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” Pelosi said in a letter to House Democrats on Sunday.
Pelosi and other members of her leadership team plan a conference call Monday afternoon to discuss the path ahead.
Among Republicans there’s no emerging, unified position on a response to Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, but it’s clear most will oppose impeachment. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has set a conference call with rank-and-file members for Monday afternoon. But a high-level Republican aide said most Republicans are waiting to see what precisely Democrats decide to do.
There’s been an effort by Republicans to ask Biden to squelch the Democratic momentum for impeaching Trump.
McCarthy, who was among the Republicans who voted against accepting Electoral College votes from two states Biden won -- even after the riots -- tweeted on Friday that an impeachment “will only divide our country more.”
Separately, a small group of House Republicans who opposed GOP objections to Biden’s Electoral College victory asked the president-elect to persuade Pelosi to back off from impeaching Trump. The lawmakers, led by Representative Ken Buck of Colorado, warned in a Saturday letter to Biden that impeachment would inflame Trump’s supporters and damage the incoming president’s efforts to unify the country.
A few Republicans have joined calls for Trump to resign, but the president has given no sign he’s contemplating it. He has plans this week to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border area to promote his wall building on the frontier, and is also said to be preparing at least one more round of pardons.
© Copyright 2025 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.