What is the 25th Amendment – could Donald Trump be removed from office?
Donald Trump has had quite the second term in office.
The 47th US president, who won a landslide re-election campaign with the promise of no more wars, is waging a war against Iran.
He escalated the deadly conflict further over Easter with threats to bomb Tehran’s power plants and bridges in an expletive-laden social media post.
‘Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,’ he said on his platform, Truth Social.
‘There will be nothing like it!!! ‘Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy b******s, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.’
Politicians are now calling on the 25th Amendment to be invoked.
But what does this all mean for the end of Trump’s reign?
What is the 25th Amendment?
The 25th Amendment to the Constitution is designed to clarify the presidential order of succession.
The law is made of four sections, the first explaining that if the president dies, resigns or is given the boot, their vice president will be in charge.
If the VP is unable to fulfil that duty, however, the president will nominate a replacement who can only take power once approved by Congress, according to section two.
The third section allows the president to temporarily let their VP sit in the Oval Office as acting president if they’re not fit to work.
But many know the 25th Amendment for its fourth section – as a way to legally remove a president from office.
Who can invoke the 25th Amendment? And how does it work?
The amendment isn’t something that can be casually declared.
It’s a multistep process that requires the vice president and the cabinet to declare their leader is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office’.
If JD Vance and Trump’s top officials did this, Trump would immediately be stripped of the powers of his office.
The amendment would let Trump send a letter saying he is, in fact, fit to lead, putting him back in the White House.
Vance would then have four days to, again, send a declaration to congressional leaders saying otherwise.
A congressional vote would then be held within 21 days and Trump would be permanently removed if two-thirds of the House and the Senate agree that he is unable to continue as president.
If the vote fell short, Trump would resume his duties.
Who wants Trump gone using the 25th Amendment?
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, is among the loudest voices calling for this.
‘If I were in Trump’s Cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th Amendment,’ he wrote on X yesterday.
‘He’s already killed thousands. He’s going to kill thousands more.’
By ‘thousands’, Muerphy may be referring to the death toll in the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
American and Israeli forces have killed a ‘minimum’ of 1,616 Iranian civilians, including 244 children, according to the US-based human rights group HRANA.
Since February 28, 13 American military service members have died.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Democrat, called Trump’s Truth Social post ‘the ravings of a dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual’
Other Democrats, including Mayland Senator Chris Van Hollen, Arizona Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari and New Mexico’s representative, Melanie Stansbury, have supported using the amendment.
Even Marjorie Taylor Green, a former Republican senator who was once Trump’s most toadying supporter, is pushing the cabinet to do so.
She wrote: ‘This NOT what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024, I know, I was there more than most.
‘This is not making America great again, this is evil.
Has the 25th Amendment been invoked before?
Yes, previous presidents have temporarily relinquished power but not fully invoked the 25th Amendment under the fourth section.
The amendment is, by design, difficult and lengthy to invoke in the case of giving a president the boot, making it unlikely it’ll be used against Trump.
The first and second sections were used in 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency and was replaced by Gerald Ford.
Ronald Reagan handed the keys to his vice president in 1985 while he underwent a brief cancer surgery.
Former President George W Bush transferred power twice to his vice president during his tenure due to undergoing two separate colonoscopies.
The fourth section of the 25th Amendment has never been invoked.
Removing a president under the 25th Amendment is not the same as impeachment, which requires a simple majority in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
Trump faced impeachment twice during his first term, once in 2019 over charges of abuse of power, and again on a charge of incitement of insurrection after the January 6 riots.
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