Could Trump be removed using the 25th Amendment?
As disquiet about Donald Trump’s mental state grows – an anonymous source close to the President said yesterday that he was “ranting and raving” and has “lost it” – there is speculation that there may be an attempt to remove him from office using the 25th Amendment.
The Amendment, passed in 1967, consisted of four articles that sought to clarify procedure and chain of command should the president die or be incapacitated – an issue which had caused confusion on prior occasions and gained a new urgency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War.
The relevant article in Trump’s case is the fourth, which lays out how a president who is unwilling or unable to declare themselves unable to perform the duties of the office can be declared as such by the Vice-President and a majority of the presidential cabinet. If this step is taken the Vice-President immediately becomes Acting President and the President themselves, while remaining in office, is stripped of all power.
However, the President is then allowed to object to themselves being declared unfit. They then resume their full role after four days unless a second declaration reaffirming the President’s incapacity is issued within the four-day period. If a second declaration is issued, the Senate and House of Representatives are then both given 21 days to decide if the President is indeed incapable. The president’s incapacity can only be confirmed if a two-thirds majority in favour is obtained in both legislative chambers.
This article has never been invoked before – though it was briefly considered by Reagan’s cabinet when they were concerned about his potential mental decline due to age – and it is unlikely that it will be now. It seems inevitable that Trump would object even if an initial majority was obtained. Getting two-thirds of legislators to then overrule this objection seems highly unlikely given that a majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives backed Trump’s objections to certifying Biden’s victory.
What seems more probable is that a growing number of figures in the Trump administration will simply do their best to ignore him and mitigate his actions during the dying days of his presidency.