Several Democratic lawmakers in Congress are calling for the immediate removal of President Donald Trump from office, through the use of terms laid out in the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, given the disturbing genocidal social media post he issued on Tuesday morning.

However, given current political realities in Washington, the likelihood that Trump’s removal will be attempted, let alone be successful, is minuscule.

Referencing his ultimatum to Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” he added.

Democrats immediately condemned the statement by Trump, with some calling for his impeachment or his direct removal through the 25th Amendment.

“We need to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump. Threatening war crimes is a blatant violation of our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D–California) wrote on X.

“This is not ok,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–Minnesota). “Invoke the 25th amendment. Impeach. Remove.”

The concept is also on the minds of many internet users in the U.S., as Google searches for the term “25th amendment” jumped up by 525 percent from 7 a.m. ET this morning to 3 p.m. ET this afternoon. (Trump issued his post around 8 a.m. ET.)

The 25th Amendment deals with presidential succession, detailing who becomes president in the event of a president’s death, illness, or other situation rendering them incapable of serving. Section 4 of the amendment provides a means for the vice president and the cabinet to remove a president if they deem them unfit to serve.

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.

Theoretically, Vice President J.D. Vance and half of Trump’s cabinet could invoke the amendment to remove Trump from the presidency. However, that’s not likely to happen for myriad reasons.

First, the amendment also provides presidents with the means to challenge their removal. If a president says they are fit to serve, they’re immediately reinstated, unless the vice president and the cabinet challenge again. At that point, the matter moves to Congress, where two-thirds of lawmakers would have to side with the vice president in order to keep the president from serving again.

With several Republican lawmakers already indicating support for Trump after his post this morning, and a high number of loyalists in the GOP conference itself, the possibility that Vance could convince two-thirds to remove Trump is next to nonexistent. Indeed, the Senate Republicans’ account on X has indicated they back the president’s genocidal rhetoric.

“Iran would be wise to take President Trump at his word. They can choose the easy way or the hard way,” the account wrote on Tuesday.

Second, Vance probably doesn’t want to remove Trump anyway. Aside from the obstacles preventing him from doing so, Vance expressed support for Trump’s words, too, in a speech he gave in Hungary shortly after.

“They’ve got to know we’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use. The president of the United States can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them, if the Iranians don’t change their course of conduct,” Vance said.

While Republicans appear to be either in lockstep with Trump’s words or tepidly defending them, most Americans disapprove of what Trump wrote in his post, according to a snap poll conducted by YouGov on Tuesday.

Per that survey, only 23 percent said they approved of the post. Meanwhile, 64 percent of Americans said they disapproved of what Trump wrote.

In separate questions, nearly 6 in 10 Americans (58 percent) said they felt “uneasy” with Trump’s approach to dealing with international crises, and 54 percent said they were not confident in his ability to be an effective commander-in-chief of the military.

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