Top congressional Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi say Trump should be removed by office by 25th Amendment or impeachment

• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for President Trump to be removed from office with the invocation of the 25th Amendment or impeachment on Thursday.
• On Wednesday, Trump incited a violent mob of rioters to breach the Capitol and force both chambers of Congress to go into recess as members evacuated for their safety.
• "What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president. This president should not hold office one day longer," Schumer said in a Thursday statement.
• In a news conference later that day, Pelosi called the violence "a seditious act" and said: "If the vice president and the cabinet do not act the congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both called for President Donald Trump to be removed from office either with the 25th Amendment or with impeachment.

On Wednesday, Trump incited a violent mob of rioters who had gathered in Washington to protest Congress' counting of states' slates of electoral college votes.

The insurrectionists breached the Capitol and forced both chambers of Congress to go into recess.

"What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president. This president should not hold office one day longer," Schumer said in a Thursday statement.

"The quickest and most effective way - it can be done today - to remove this president from office would be for the Vice President to immediately invoke the 25th amendment," he said. "If the Vice President and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president."

In a Wednesday afternoon news conference, Pelosi called the violence a "seditious act" and said Trump had "committed an unspeakable assault" in inciting the violence.

"I join the Senate Democratic leader in calling on the vice president to remove this president by immediately invoking the 25th Amendment," she said. "If the vice president and the cabinet do not act, the Congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment. That is the overwhelming sentiment of my caucus."

After the Capitol Police secured the building in the evening, both chambers of Congress were able to go back into session and resume debate on the objection to Arizona's electors that lawmakers were debating when the violent mob forced them to disperse and evacuate.

Schumer is set to soon become the Senate's majority leader thanks to Democratic Senators-elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock flipping two Senate seats in Georgia, which will bring the composition of the Senate to 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker.

Trump was impeached by the House once before in December 2019 on articles of abusing his office and obstructing Congress over charges that he withheld military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to pressure the government to openly investigate then-2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter.

The Republican-controlled US Senate acquitted Trump on both articles in January 2020.

Shortly after the violent insurrection, multiple members of Congress called for Trump to either be impeached again or for the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. CBS News and CNN also reported that some members of the cabinet were mulling invoking the 25th Amendment, although they had not presented a plan to Vice President Mike Pence.

Under Section IV of the Amendment, Pence and a majority of cabinet secretaries would "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," at which point Pence would become acting president.

Calls to invoke the 25th Amendment have now received bipartisan support. GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a vocal Trump critic, said in a Thursday video statement that he too supports removing Trump's powers as president.

"Yesterday it became clear that the president not only abdicated his duty to protect the American people and the people's house, he invoked and inflamed passions that gave fuel to the insurrection we saw here," Kinzinger explained.