Former loyalists like ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have spoken out against the President, calling for his administration to \u201cintervene in Trump\u2019s madness\u201d, while media supporters like ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson have also publicly broken with Trump.<\/p>\n
There is no sign that a serious attempt to remove Trump from office is happening any time soon, but there are mechanisms laid out in America\u2019s Constitution to do so \u2013 although they\u2019ve never quite been tested in real life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe President is very vulnerable now because he got to office on the basis that he was never going to engage in forever wars in the Middle East,\u201d University of Otago professor of international relations Robert Patman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat post … I just couldn\u2019t believe it when I saw that,\u201d he said of Trump\u2019s profanity-laced Easter post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was one of those parody accounts when I first saw it … I think that\u2019s not done him any good whatsoever and that does raise doubts about his judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said Trump\u2019s attitude was \u201ccompletely, utterly unhinged,\u201d and added: \u201cIf I were in Trump\u2019s Cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are basically two ways an American President can be removed from office \u2013 through impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.<\/p>\n
But what is that 25th Amendment, and are there ways a President could be legally forced from office? Here\u2019s how it all works.<\/p>\n
What is the 25th Amendment?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an amendment to the US Constitution that was passed in 1967 to clarify how presidential succession works in the case of death or disability.<\/p>\n
For much of American history, the process of replacing a President who died or was incapacitated was a bit fuzzy. In 1841, when President William Harrison died after just a month in office, the Constitution actually made it a bit unclear whether the Vice-President would become an \u201cacting\u201d temporary President or the full President, but Vice-President John Tyler was determined to wield the full powers of the office and set a precedent that lasted ever since.<\/p>\n
The 25th Amendment allows for how replacing a President or Vice-President works, and allows for the temporary transition of power if a President declares he is \u201cunable to discharge the powers and duties of his office\u201d, but it also includes Section 4, which is the one people are talking about at the moment.<\/p>\n
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment says the Vice-President and a majority of Cabinet, or the Vice-President and a majority of another \u201cbody\u201d selected by the US Congress, can make a written declaration that the sitting President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and the Vice-President takes over as acting President.<\/p>\n
A two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress is required to vote that the President is unable to do his duties and the Vice-President remains in charge.<\/p>\n
If this were to happen to Trump, it would require Vice-President JD Vance and Trump\u2019s Cabinet to essentially rebel against him.<\/p>\n
While Vance has not spoken out, Patman said: \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that the Vice-President doesn\u2019t share the President\u2019s view on Iran, which makes it dangerous for the President.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem is what exactly \u201cunable\u201d to do the duties of the office would mean in reality. Can that apply to misconduct or decisions people don\u2019t agree with?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 25th Amendment has a limited focus on whether a President is physically or mentally incapable of doing his job,\u201d Michael J. Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor, told nonprofit fact-checking website PolitiFact. \u201cThe 25th Amendment is not a remedy for misconduct that the President might have committed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patman noted that Trump has prized loyalty above all else in selecting his second-term Cabinet, which makes the 25th Amendment a high bar to reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn other words, he\u2019s surrounded himself not with competent individuals, but with people who are loyal to him. And I remember saying to someone, that\u2019s going to create the perfect storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is the 25th Amendment the same as impeachment?<\/p>\n
No. Impeachment is a quasi-trial process where an elected official can be removed from office for serious misconduct. It\u2019s not a criminal trial, but it does end up with an office holder being put on trial in the US Senate to answer the charges against him.<\/p>\n
The lower house, the House of Representatives, must first vote to bring articles \u2013 or charges \u2013 of impeachment against an official. If those articles pass by majority vote, the higher house, the Senate, then holds an impeachment trial.<\/p>\n
Impeachment requires a slightly lower bar than the 25th Amendment \u2013 a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate must vote to remove the official from office, as opposed to two-thirds of both houses for the 25th Amendment\u2019s Section 4 to pass.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s frequently misunderstood, but to be \u201cimpeached\u201d does not mean a president is actually removed, only that the articles of impeachment have been adopted and sent to the Senate.<\/p>\n
Three US Presidents have been impeached \u2013 Andrew Johnson way back in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War, Bill Clinton in 1998 \u2013 and yes, Donald Trump, who was impeached in both 2019 and 2021 and remains the only President to be impeached twice.<\/p>\n
All four presidential impeachment trials in the Senate ended in acquittal.<\/p>\n
Republicans currently control the House of Representatives, which means it\u2019s far less likely a vote to impeach Trump would pass. That hasn\u2019t stopped some people from trying \u2013 Texas Democrat Al Green has introduced resolutions to impeach Trump at least three times, the most recent in December \u2013 none of which were passed.<\/p>\n
Richard Nixon, the only President to resign, was never actually impeached, although the process had begun. He resigned in 1974 to avoid a likely loss in an impeachment vote in the House.<\/p>\n
Has the 25th Amendment ever been invoked?<\/p>\n
It has \u2013 but only voluntarily, when a President has undergone medical procedures that required general anaesthesia. Presidents Reagan, George W. Bush and Biden all briefly handed power over to their Vice-Presidents during such times.<\/p>\n
Section 4, which starts the process of removing a leader for inability, has never been used.<\/p>\n
What about medical disability?<\/p>\n
Out on the internet, both Biden and Trump have been unofficially diagnosed with alleged dementia so many times the claims would fill the sprawling US Library of Congress several times over \u2013 although none of those claims have ever been verified.<\/p>\n
At 82 when he left office, Biden was the oldest and Trump, nearly 80, is currently the second-oldest American President.<\/p>\n
Back before the Iran war began, in February CNN reported that polls showed Americans were increasingly concerned about Trump\u2019s mental sharpness.<\/p>\n
And the 25th Amendment was also put in place because of situations like that of former President Woodrow Wilson, who had a massive stroke in 1919 and is considered to have been seriously incapacitated for the remaining 18 months of his term \u2013 yet he never stepped aside or handed off power to his Vice-President.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere may be a certain reluctance, however badly [Trump] does … to use the 25th Amendment on anything other than health grounds,\u201d Patman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf everything falls apart for Trump, having to leave office on health grounds might be sort of a face-saving way out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet for Trump, who said in 2015 he would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency, that seems unlikely.<\/p>\n
So what could happen next?<\/p>\n
Absolutely nobody knows, to be honest.<\/p>\n
Trump has weathered storms no American President has, including two impeachments, and still has a firm base of supporters despite slipping in the polls. He has also held a firm hand over his fellow Republicans and cracked down on dissent.<\/p>\n
Over the years, the office of the presidency has gained in power. Americans have often talked about how their political system is full of checks and balances on presidential power, but that may be slipping, Patman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s be quite clear, there has been a drift towards the imperial presidency in the post-1945 period,\u201d Patman said. \u201cPresident Trump has been able to capitalise on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment there doesn\u2019t seem to be a head of steam to rein in the President with threats of removing him from office. However, a week is a long time in politics, as one British Prime Minister once remarked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet cracks have been developing in the Maga coalition \u2013 the Epstein files and war in Iran driving much of it. A split is developing among some former loyal supporters over the Epstein files, Patman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s become really quite acrimonious now. There\u2019s certain divisions opening up in Maga world over the Epstein thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fears of a landslide result for Democrats in the midterm elections in November \u2013 which will determine if Congress stays under Republican control \u2013 may also be a factor in how Trump is seen by his party.<\/p>\n
\u201cFaced with a choice of continuing to support the President and losing their jobs, they might actually become increasingly defiant,\u201d Patman said.<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former loyalists like ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have spoken out against the President, calling for his administration to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[141959,51164,28174,95,5195,198,26774,42,221,185,702,43,2572,28875,61,40,38,41,39,13797,6923],"class_list":{"0":"post-368953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-25th","9":"tag-amendment","10":"tag-americas","11":"tag-and","12":"tag-be","13":"tag-can","14":"tag-dirga","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-how","17":"tag-is","18":"tag-it","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-president","21":"tag-remove","22":"tag-to","23":"tag-top-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topnews","26":"tag-topstories","27":"tag-used","28":"tag-what"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}