How does the 25th Amendment work?

How does the 25th Amendment work?

  09 Jan 2021

President Donald Trump only has two weeks left in office, but after he fomented an assault by rioters on the US Capitol, some Republicans are actively considering whether to remove him in these final throes of his administration.

Impeaching Trump might be the appropriate remedy and using impeachment to remove him from office would bar him from running for President again. But there’s likely no time to impeach and try the President again in the next two weeks. (Reminder: Trump was already impeached by the House over his Ukraine activities, but was not removed from office by the Senate.)

A second option is invoking the 25th Amendment, which has periodically been discussed as a means of last resort to remove a rogue or incapacitated president.

Some Cabinet members held preliminary discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment to force Trump’s removal from office, a GOP source told CNN’s Jim Acosta Wednesday night.

But the bar it sets is incredibly high.

What would it require?

To forcibly wrest power from Trump, Vice President Mike Pence would have to be on board, according to the text of the amendment. Read the full language here. Pence would also need either a majority of Trump’s Cabinet officials to agree the President is unfit for office and temporarily seize power from him.

Trump could dispute their move with a letter to Congress. Pence and the Cabinet would then have four days to dispute him, Congress would then vote — it requires a two-thirds supermajority, usually 67 senators and 290 House members to permanently remove him.

Congress could also appoint its own body to review the President’s fitness instead of the Cabinet. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during the last Congress, introduced a bill to create a congressional body for this purpose, but it was not signed into law.

Why do we have the 25th Amendment?

The 25th Amendment was enacted in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, whose predecessor Dwight Eisenhower suffered major heart attacks. It was meant to create a clear line of succession and prepare for urgent contingencies.

Eisenhower suffered a debilitating heart attack while in office in the 1950s. That was before the 25th Amendment, so there was no constitutional rule. Instead he came to an agreement with Vice President Richard Nixon about handing over power.

The portion of the 25th Amendment that allows the vice president and Cabinet to remove the president had in mind a leader who was in a coma or suffered a stroke.

The Reagan administration drafted, but did not sign or transmit, letters to the Senate that would have taken power from Reagan after he was shot in 1981. You can see them at the Reagan Library’s website.

The storming of the Capitol by rioters at the request of the President may end up being the first such contingency in the nation’s history.

Appearing on CNN as rioters were being cleared from the Capitol, the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said he never thought he’d seriously be discussing ousting a president who posed a danger to the Republic.

“Our country’s being held hostage right now by Donald Trump,” he said. “Mitch McConnell and Speaker Pelosi cannot even meet in the Capitol today … so I think we now have to go into our constitutional kit bag and find what we can do to control Donald Trump and certainly the 25th Amendment is there.”

4 thoughts on “How does the 25th Amendment work?

  1. You so called patriot network news you lying bastards!! The president Donald J. Trump didn’t have to do anything with the storming in the white house, he was never a rogue or incapacitated president as you mentioned it on your report and he never requested or incited any violence you lying bastards, he is the most compassionate, honest, transparent president in the history of thus country and he will go down in history as such, all you report is lies fake news! You better change your name from patriot network news to fake bogus news because you ain’t no patriot!!

    1. That is beautiful! You are a true Anerican. It is so refreshing to listen to someone speak truth.
      McConnell has lied and debased himself. Those who stormed the area were antifa and their dem ilk. I am so astonished at McConnell and the vice president even running scared. What traitors they are.

  2. This is all about Trump Haters those that could not control him. They best check what they are doing because they themselves could find them selves being put on the chopping block by the citizens voting them all out.

  3. I’ve been here on God’s green earth going on eighty-four years. I served in our military twice because of being called back in as part of the training cadre for our Army Rangers during the Berlin crises. I’ve lived an exciting life having following several other relatives going to work on the Railroad when they accepted me as an Agent/telegraph operator on the Illinois Central Railroad. That’s where I received my Morris Code abilities for the Army ranger training.. That being said, and to make a long story short, let me just say that I have no idea where all these non-American came from that are now in our country but there not going to be successful in destroying our great country. So if the shoe fits anyone of you get the hell out of our country. We are the Home of the Free and the Land of the Brave. Not the home of the cowards and the land of the depressed.

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