It is known that there are essentially two ways a US president could be removed from office: through impeachment and conviction by the Senate, and through the section 4. No president has ever been removed by either measure – although three presidents have been impeached: including Trump, twice.
Section 4
of the 25th Amendment
Section 4:
Declaration by vice president and cabinet members of president's inability
Section 4.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of
the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide,
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, the Vice President shall
immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
That leaves
section 4 of the 25th amendment, designed to be used when a president is
“unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”.
- Despite
the White House claiming earlier this year that Trump’s “mental sharpness is
second to none”, the examples of unusual behavior keep stacking up. There was
an incident this summer where Trump invented an entire story about his deceased
uncle having met the Unabomber. The time in July when he went on a sudden rant
about windmills driving whales “loco”, during a meeting with the European
Commission president. The occasion when he derailed a cabinet meeting by
talking, unprompted, for 13 minutes about the decor of the room.
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- Donald
Trump’s administration is facing another round of calls to invoke the 25th
Amendment to remove the president from office in the wake of his remarks to an
unprecedented assembly of the nation’s military leaders. But prominent
Democrats claim the president is unfit for office, that his cognitive health is
in decline, and that a speech to military leaders this week all but endorsed
the idea of active-duty troops fighting civilians in U.S. cities.
- After
Trump suggested cities like Chicago should be used as “training grounds for our
military,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said the 25th Amendment should be
invoked to oust the president, marking the first time that the governor has
publicly called for his removal.
How does
it work?
- First, the
amendment explicitly makes clear that the vice president becomes president “in
case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or
resignation.”
- But
removing the president would require the vice president and a majority of the
16-member presidential cabinet to jointly agree that “the President is unable
to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
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- Another
option would require the creation of a disability review panel that would need
approval by Congress and signed into law by the president, or, if vetoed, the
support of at least two-thirds of the House and Senate.
- Once the vice president and either the cabinet or a disability review panel agree that the president must be removed, the vice president would then immediately be able to “assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”