YOU CAN'T 25TH TRUMP, BUT YOU COULD DECLARE HIM INSANE

I got into a brief argument with Marcy Wheeler (Emptywheel) this morning. In a post she published on Friday, she accused The New York Times of sanewashing President Trump's words about Greenland in his big Times interview. She quoted the Times:

“Ownership is very important,” Mr. Trump said as he discussed, with a real estate mogul’s eye, the landmass of Greenland — three times the size of Texas but with a population of less than 60,000. He seemed to dismiss the value of having Greenland under the control of a close NATO ally.

When asked why he needed to possess the territory, he said: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

The conversation made clear that in Mr. Trump’s view, sovereignty and national borders are less important than the singular role the United States plays as the protector of the West.

In her post, Wheeler was right about this:

... after Trump describes contemplating blowing up the alliance that has been the centerpiece of American national security since World War II out of a psychological need to own other people and other countries, nothing more, the NYT describes it to be a comment about Trump’s imagination that he is “the protector of the West.”

You’re both fucking insane! Donald Trump, for contemplating making the US and Europe less safe because of his own psychological inadequacies that drive him to covet big empty spaces on a map, and the NYT for describing it as the exact opposite of what it is, not Donald Trump needing to tend to Donald Trump’s increasing fragile psyche, but instead as something that protects the West rather than destroys the very concept of it.

But I disagree with what she posted on Bluesky this morning:

This is a 25th Amendment confession, contrary to what NYT would have you believe. www.emptywheel.net/2026/01/09/a...

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— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 7:51 AM

In response to her, I raised my usual objection to invocations of the 25th Amendment: that attempting to use Section 4 of the amendment to remove a president from office ultimately requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress to remove, a hurdle we couldn't even jump in one house of Congress when Trump was impeached in 2020 and 2021. We would need significant Republican support in order to remove Trump using either of these methods, and we'll never get it.

Wheeler, however, believes that invoking the 25th could put real pressure on Republicans:

It is ALSO a political tool. It is VERY useful to say to Republicans, "The President has confessed he is nuts, why won't you 25th him to preserve NATO?" Because this is something they know is wrong and this assigns them agency, which they love to disavow.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 8:48 AM

I don't buy this at all. I know we're told that many Republicans secretly hate Trump and regard him as mentally unfit. I know that many of them believe in the old global insitutions. But they don't believe in the old global institutions enough to stick their necks out and challenge the head of their party, a man 95% of their voters worship. They don't want to be political pariahs and they don't want their families living with constant death threats from the MAGA faithful.

But maybe there's public opinion value in saying that Trump is mentally unwell. It really might be time to play the "nuts" card.

After all, here's a set of headlines just now:

* Donald Trump 'orders army chiefs to draw up plan to invade Greenland': US President emboldened by success of Maduro capture operation

* Trump Is Briefed on Options for Striking Iran as Protests Continue

* U.S. Launches Major Strikes on Islamic State Targets in Syria

* Trump threatens Cuba: Negotiate "BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE"

That's one day! And that's while the administration is also engaging in a shooting war with domestic political opponents. Trump isn't a strong leader asserting American might -- he's a guy who walks into a bar, orders a beer, smashes off the lower half of the bottle, and challenges everyone in the bar to a fight. He's deranged. He's dangerous.

Critics of the president need to denounce specific policies and acts in a thoughtful, measured way, but maybe it's time for even the more thoughtful critics to tell the likes of Jake Tapper and Kristen Welker that it looks as if the president is out of his goddamn mind -- not with a specific removal process in mind, because Republicans will act as roadblocks to any such process, but in order to shift the ground so a greater and greater number of Americans are asking, "Is the president out of his goddamn mind?"

This is Tim Walz's successful "weird" talking point, but ratcheted up a few notches, because, well, the president isn't just weird right now, he's unhinged. His aides -- Kristi Noem, J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller -- also seem as if they're crushing and snorting whatever it is that's making the president this way. They think a policy of unchecked aggression toward everyone who looks at them funny will keep America safe, and that's a very, very dangerous belief, the kind of thing you believe when you pose a clear and present danger to others.

Trump will continue to be this way until his job approval rating slips well below the 42% where it's been parked for the past couple of months.

Calling him a threat to NATO -- even an emotionally needy threat -- won't move the needle. But if ordinarily sober-sounding Democrats start asking whether he's a deranged lunatic? Maybe that could make a difference, especially when his actions are offering so much supporting evidence.