After what happened Wednesday, Democrats (and some Republicans) are calling for a 2nd impeachment of President Trump or a removal under the 25th Amendment. It’s not clear if either thing will happen in the remaining 12 days of his term but today Nancy Pelosi upped the ante by suggesting she was concerned Trump might attempt to use nuclear weapons.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke with the nation’s top military officer on Friday about precautions in place to prevent President Donald Trump from ordering a nuclear strike or conducting other military hostilities as Democrats seek his removal from office…

“This morning, I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike,” Pelosi said in the letter.

“The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy,” she added.

My first thought is that this is a pretty out there thing to worry about. But it turns out there has been some discussion about it over the past couple days. Maybe Pelosi read this story published yesterday in Forbes: “Enraged And Isolated, Donald Trump Still Has Sole Control Of America’s Nukes.”

U.S. law and custom gives the president, and the president alone, the authority to order a nuclear attack. Even if that president is stoking violence against another branch of the federal government, and is in a state of mind that his aides reportedly say is unsettled, to put it mildly.

“We should indeed be worried,” said Kingston Reif, a nuclear expert with the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C.

There are just two safeguards for preventing a rogue president from starting a nuclear war—impeachment and the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The latter allows the vice president and the cabinet to remove a chief executive who no longer can perform the duties of the office.

Not coincidentally, those are the two paths Pelosi and Dems are now pursuing.

The article cites an argument between nuclear experts that took place on Twitter Wednesday. Ankit Panda, the Stanton Senior Fellow, Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued that Trump could still launch a strike under certain circumstances. Thomas Shugart, who describes himself as a “former USN submariner” said it was not possible.

Physically, yes. But the same guy who incited today's seditious insurrection has unilateral launch authority for the next 14 days. And that's how we designed our system to work. https://t.co/6XjAfHorW7

— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) January 6, 2021

An order would need to be 1) valid and 2) legal for execution. 1) is automatic if issued by biscuit-toting POTUS (short of 25th amendment/removal), but 2) is hairier. There are existing strike packages that would be both, however.

— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) January 6, 2021

I'm not so sure that's correct (or, insofar as it is, I don't think its watertight under all envisaged scenarios, which is admittedly a high standard). As a matter of policy, we reserve the right to conduct first strikes, and not necessarily with a clear standard of provocation.

— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) January 7, 2021

In a murky situation, officers will probably follow orders.

But the idea that, for example, right now POTUS could call the NMCC and order a nuclear strike on Iran and it would just robotically happen just isn't true.

(And I feel I keep having to say this over and over again.)

— Thomas Shugart (@tshugart3) January 7, 2021

I would bet my next retirement check that if, given the current situation (international, not domestic), POTUS ordered a nuclear strike of any kind against Iran, even low-yield, the responsible commanders would would decline to execute it.

— Thomas Shugart (@tshugart3) January 7, 2021

Shugart says that’s true based on the current international situation but my guess is that even without being asked by Speaker Pelosi, the Joint Chiefs weren’t about to roll over and turn a blind eye if the President tried to drop nukes on his way out the door.

The whole scenario is worrisome for another reason. Our nuclear arsenal exists as a deterrent to bad actors around the world. How many of them are listening to this debate and taking from it that America is effectively out-of-order at the moment. The internal divisions are so strong after Wednesday that no military response to any provocation, short of a direct attack on Americans, could be responded to at this moment. It’s terrifying to think what Kim Jong Un or Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin or the Ayatollah Khamenei might decide to do during such a 12-day window. As big as our problems look here at home at this moment, there are always bigger ones that are kept on the horizon because we’re able to insist they remain there.