Frances views Lee as well-meaning but misguided. “The medicalization of politics is always a mistake, and there’s actually no chance that Trump will be removed from office as mentally unfit under [Amendment] 25 of the Constitution,” he told me. “Trump should not be underestimated; he’s crazy like a fox,” Frances said, but “there is clearly nothing substantial to [Lee’s] claims and no reason to believe an evaluation would change anything.”

In our interview, Lee also told me that there are Washington-based doctors and legal groups who’ve said they would be willing to help commit the president involuntarily if they receive concerned reports from the White House that the president is an immediate danger to himself or others. (She declined to name the doctors or legal groups). “Surprisingly, many lawyer groups have actually volunteered, on their own, to file for a court paper to ensure that the [White House security staff would] cooperate with us,” Lee recently told Vox. “But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don’t wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection.” Lee also claims that “if [a psychiatrist] were to see [the president] on film and he were decompensating”—exhibiting a sharp deterioration—“and no other psychiatrist were stepping forth, then we actually have to step forth, we don’t have a choice, that’s an emergency. A physician has emergency clearance so they should be able to get to the site of emergency.”

According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, in Washington D.C., an emergency psychiatric evaluationcan be ordered by a police officer; an agent of the Department of Mental Health; or a person’s qualified psychologist “who has reason to believe that a person is mentally ill and, because of the illness, is likely to injure himself or others if he is not immediately detained may, without a warrant, take the person into custody.” But it’s not likely that an emergency evaluation—let alone involuntary commitment—would be ordered on hearsay or television evidence alone.

“You’ve got to be kidding. That’s preposterous,” said Jeffrey Lieberman, the chairman of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. “What kind of chaos would you have? … That would be anarchy.” The president could hypothetically be compelled to undergo tests under the 25th Amendment, but that would be up to the vice president and the Cabinet—and is not something an independent psychiatrist could instigate, he said.

Even so, the number of congressional Democrats interested in hearing from Lee appears to be growing, though they still constitute a small share of the party’s total representation in Congress. Earlier this week, I contacted the offices of every House and Senate Democrat to find out which lawmakers have already attended the private briefings and which are interested in attending in the future. While the majority of offices didn’t respond, 16 indicated that they are seriously considering the question of Trump’s mental fitness for office, including two who are planning to attend upcoming briefings.