Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druke. After a group of pro-Trump

extremists violently rioted inside the Capitol on Wednesday, two of the big questions we're

grappling with are why did this happen and what happens next.

Politically, impeachment seems imminent. Over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

announced plans to pass a resolution asking Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th

amendment, saying that if he didn't within 24 hours, the House would move forward with impeaching

the president. So we're going to talk about how such an impeachment would play out and the extent

to which Republicans would join the effort. We're also going to tackle the question of why this happened.

Numerous forces led to the insurrection on Wednesday, President Trump's incitement,

election conspiracy theories promoted by many Republicans, white nationalism, unprepared law

enforcement, and more. So in the second half of the show, we're going to speak with various

writers at 538 who have looked into those forces. But here we meet to kick off the show and discuss

the political and legal repercussions for the president, our senior politics writer Perry Beacon,

Jr. Hey, Perry. Hey, Galen. All's here with us is senior writer and legal analyst Amelia Thompson

DeVoe. Hey, Amelia. Hey, Galen. And neat is out this week. So as I mentioned, House Democrats

are introducing a resolution today Monday asking Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment.

And then if he doesn't within 24 hours, the Democrats are planning to introduce articles of

impeachment or vote on those articles. So Perry, kick us off here. Why have Democrats chosen to go

this route? It's Monday. It has been five days since this insurrection. There has been a bunch

of conversations within the Democratic Party and amongst a few Republicans about how to move forward.

How did they settle on this plan that I've described here? The short answer is that the 25th

amendment did not, you know, Pelosi was hoping that Mike Pence did the 20th amendment himself,

...