If the 25th amendment is not activated under these circumstances, it may as well not have been...

[NNadir]

...written.

It reads:

Amendment XXV
Section 1.
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2.
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3.
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

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.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days 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. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

This "President" has never been able to discharge his duties as President.

He is also clearly guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors,." as he is clearly in the employ of a foreign autocrat.

Is there one, or two, or three patriots left in the Republican party?

Anyone?

None?

[nini]

1. The people that have the power to do it ..won't

The next two weeks are gonna be hell. Absolute hell.

[BigmanPigman]

2. His corrupt cabinet is getting rich off of him

so it will never happen. I read a great article about it a while ago. It is long but thorough...
"The Madness of Donald Trump"

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/the-madness-of-donald-trump-197853/

[RockRaven]

3. Republican Senators betrayed their duties to the Constitution and the American people by approving

Trump's deeply unqualified, corrupt, and compromised Cabinet nominees, mostly on highly partisan votes. Article 4 will never be enacted by these criminals, morons, and traitors.

[MyOwnPeace]

4. VERY good point, indeed!

The rest of the Pugs have been aiding and abetting IQ45 from the beginning, allowing the most unqualified, dysfunctional, money-grubbing bunch of thieves to ever sit in a president's cabinet. This is not a problem with just 1 f**king idiot - it is a whole gang of them!

[NNadir]

5. "...or of such other body as Congress may by law provide..."

It doesn't have to be the cabinet.

It doesn't matter if you got rich if suddenly money is worthless.

If the United States fails or falls, and with a traitor at the top it certainly can, their "wealth" will be worthless. Dumb as they are, they may eventually get it.

[unblock]

6. It really wasn't intended for this purpose.

Impeachment was what was intended for a president who abuses, misuses, neglects, and profits off of the office.

25.4 was intended for incapacitated presidents. In a coma or seriously debilitated after a stroke, e.g.

[NNadir]

7. I have great sympathy of people with mental illnesses...I really do...

...but it is a case of being severely debilitated.

This person has unimaginable destructive power and he's clearly out of his mind.

I disagree with your analysis. The criminality is one thing; the insanity another.

[unblock]

9. Part of the analysis is that it's markedly harder than impeachment

You need the vice-president *and* a majority of the cabinet *and* 2/3rds of the House *and* 2/3rds of the senate.

That's a tall order, and deliberately so. It was intended for situations where it was widely agreed, even by most of his trusted cabinet, that he was unfit for office.

Yes, it's possible that some president could have a mental illness, be widely recognized as unable to perform the duties of office, even according to his cabinet, and not have committed any impeachable offenses (which includes neglect of office or critical duties, e.g.), in which case removal by the 25th amendment could happen.

But it's very unlikely, if only for the practical reason that impeachment is so much easier. If you had support for removal via the 25th, you surely had support for removal by impeachment before it got to that stage.

[NNadir]

10. The history of attempts to remove Presidents...

...from office demonstrates that it is difficult.

I don't agree in these times that "rightly so" is something with which I'd agree.

Our Constitution functioned well for more than 2 centuries. But it was written by slave holders whose goals included protecting slavery, hence the existence of the Electoral College, which got us into this awful mess.

As a scientist, I am aware of certain applications of technology that scare the hell out of me. This information is largely publicly available if you look. People talk about nuclear weapons passing into the hands of people who are clearly insane, as has just happened,but actually, launching a nuclear war involves the technical acquiescence of a large body of people.

Not so, biologic weapons.

We need a "no confidence" mechanism in a new constitution.

[unblock]

15. I didn't say "rightly so"; I'm not advocating.

I was just explaining the mechanism and the original intent by design.

I agree our constitution certainly has its flaws, and I agree that some sort of recall or no confidence provision would be a welcome improvement.

The current methods for removal are indeed very difficult in practice.

[kairos12]

8. They live in fear of Shitler's Twitter account. They will NEVER act.

[Vinca]

11. I agree. Republicans are fools to continue to abet this fiasco.

[ooky]

12. What we're finding out is that our checks and balances aren't really checks and balances.

That the assumptions that our leaders who would hold these powers would all be good people who would always do the right thing for the country, well, no.

[spanone]

13. AMEN...

[dansolo]

14. Impeachment is easier than the 25th Amendment

I wish people would stop bringing this up. The25th Amendment is meant for when a president is incapacitated. It is not meant to be an alternative to impeachment. It is also even more difficult to remove a president under the 25th Amendment. Did you even read the last paragraph?

[MineralMan]

16. The 25th Amendment makes it more difficult to remove the President permanently

than using impeachment and removal. Under the 25th Amendment, that permanent removal requires a 2/3 majority of BOTH houses.

The President can reseat himself by declaration. Removing him after that is much harder that simply impeaching him.

That's why it was written the way it was written. We already had a means of removing a President. The 25th Amendment was designed only use in temporary emergencies.

I wish people would read the entire Amendment before putting it forward as a way to remove a President. It is not that. Impeachment and removal are how that is done, not this.

[elocs]

17. Reality check: as unlikely as impeachment AND conviction is to remove Trump,

it is far more likely than removing him via the 25th Amendment.
Impeachment requires only a majority of the House and the Democrats could do that by themselves.
Conviction by the Senate would require 67 votes that are just not there outside of a fantasy by the Left.

When it's all played out, the 25th Amendment would ultimately require a 2/3 vote of BOTH the House and the Senate, and that's just not going to happen.

[Wrz]

18. Dictator

I think the time is coming near when he will sign an executive order dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court and declaring himself Lord Protector or some other title that indicates unlimited and lifelong power/dictatorship. If that happens I hope the US military then considers him a domestic enemy and places him under arrest.

I would love for nothing more than to see him rot in ADX Florence in 24 hour lockdown with very little human contact and lose the remainder of his sanity.

When the economy tanks under him, if it goes to depression levels it's gonna be a Weimar Republic situation all over again I suspect. And his supporters will pretty much beg him to seize power, as they will believe he is the only one to rescue the Republic.