Time to Impeach Trump Again?
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
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Summary
The events of the past week have revealed a terrifying disconnect between the constitutional remedies available to us and the gravity of the threats posed by an utterly unfit President with his finger on the nuclear button. On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick turns to two experts on impeachment and the 25th Amendment: Rep. Jamie Raskin, and Professor Michael Gerhardt. Each has been at the very epicenter of democratic attempts to access the constitutional tools demanded by this moment. Rep. Raskin explains the urgent update needed to bolster the 25th amendment, and Professor Gerhardt explains the value of impeachment, even in lieu of conviction and removal, and why right now is high time to try Trump for high crimes.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Amicus Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court. |
| 0:09.3 | I'm Dahlia Lithway. |
| 0:18.5 | It's very clear that the framers had no concept of what it would mean to live in a nuclear age |
| 0:24.3 | with weapons of mass destruction that could extinguish entire populations or civilizations, |
| 0:30.0 | as President Trump said this week. |
| 0:32.1 | If nobody impeached the president for this, they all thought it was futile. |
| 0:35.5 | What kind of precedent does that set? |
| 0:37.4 | That president helps produce more corrupt presidents. |
| 0:49.9 | Two broad themes emerged this week around Donald Trump's chilling turn as Dr. Strangelove, threatening on Easter Sunday, quote, |
| 0:59.3 | Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah, end quote. And then on Tuesday that, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. Now, one of the themes was that, gee, someone should do something about this commander in chief, who has let us be clear, sole authority over the launch of nuclear weapons, and does not need |
| 1:29.1 | clearance from Congress or the courts to say kill a whole civilization in one night. The other |
| 1:35.4 | was that the constitutional remedies afforded to us impeachment in the 25th Amendment won't help, |
| 1:41.6 | and the political remedy voting him out is already kind of cooked. |
| 1:46.8 | The aggregate effect of all this was a whole lot of so sad, too bad, America is effed, with the |
| 1:53.6 | side of panic and the bulk purchasing of canned goods. So I want to start by saying no, |
| 1:59.6 | just no. Whatever remains of the so-called two-week |
| 2:03.1 | ceasefire is not actually a reprieve from this president's unfitness. The same president, who stood |
| 2:08.9 | on a balcony next to a goggle-eyed Easter bunny while threatening to bomb sovereign nations |
| 2:14.6 | is actually not a joke. And the learned helplessness of a nation that has |
| 2:19.8 | persuaded itself that nothing can be done about this as this demonstrably dangerous man |
| 2:25.7 | tips us forever closer to the next crisis and the one after that is not a tenable plan for a |
| 2:31.5 | country that styles itself as a democracy. Our show this week starts |
... |
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