Could Donald Trump legally be removed from office? American rules allow two different ways it could happen. Photo / Mandel Ngan, AFP
By Nik Dirga of RNZ
US President Donald Trump’s fiery rhetoric towards Iran has raised concerns about his fitness for office and calls to invoke the 25th Amendment. But can America legally remove a President from office?
Trump has been ramping up the stakes with his threats toward Iran as the US/Israel-led conflict in the Middle East continues, warning today that “a whole civilisation will die” if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t reopened to boat traffic.
On the weekend, he made extreme threats using profane language that shocked many, writing on social media, “Open the F****n’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”.
It led to increased talk of using the “25th Amendment” to remove the President from office – but what does that mean?
Former loyalists like ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have spoken out against the President, calling for his administration to “intervene in Trump’s madness”, while media supporters like ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson have also publicly broken with Trump.
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’s Constitution to do so – although they’ve never quite been tested in real life.
“The 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,” University of Otago professor of international relations Robert Patman said.
“That post ... I just couldn’t believe it when I saw that,” he said of Trump’s profanity-laced Easter post.
“I thought it was one of those parody accounts when I first saw it ... I think that’s not done him any good whatsoever and that does raise doubts about his judgment.”
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said Trump’s attitude was “completely, utterly unhinged,” and added: “If I were in Trump’s Cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th Amendment.”
There are basically two ways an American President can be removed from office – through impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
But what is that 25th Amendment, and are there ways a President could be legally forced from office? Here’s how it all works.
It’s an amendment to the US Constitution that was passed in 1967 to clarify how presidential succession works in the case of death or disability.
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 “acting” 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.
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 “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”, but it also includes Section 4, which is the one people are talking about at the moment.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment says the Vice-President and a majority of Cabinet, or the Vice-President and a majority of another “body” 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.
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.
If this were to happen to Trump, it would require Vice-President JD Vance and Trump’s Cabinet to essentially rebel against him.
While Vance has not spoken out, Patman said: “It’s no secret that the Vice-President doesn’t share the President’s view on Iran, which makes it dangerous for the President.”
The problem is what exactly “unable” to do the duties of the office would mean in reality. Can that apply to misconduct or decisions people don’t agree with?
“The 25th Amendment has a limited focus on whether a President is physically or mentally incapable of doing his job,” Michael J. Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor, told nonprofit fact-checking website PolitiFact. “The 25th Amendment is not a remedy for misconduct that the President might have committed.”
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.
“In other words, he’s surrounded himself not with competent individuals, but with people who are loyal to him. And I remember saying to someone, that’s going to create the perfect storm.”
No. Impeachment is a quasi-trial process where an elected official can be removed from office for serious misconduct. It’s 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.
The lower house, the House of Representatives, must first vote to bring articles – or charges – of impeachment against an official. If those articles pass by majority vote, the higher house, the Senate, then holds an impeachment trial.
Impeachment requires a slightly lower bar than the 25th Amendment – 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’s Section 4 to pass.
It’s frequently misunderstood, but to be “impeached” does not mean a president is actually removed, only that the articles of impeachment have been adopted and sent to the Senate.
Three US Presidents have been impeached – Andrew Johnson way back in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War, Bill Clinton in 1998 – and yes, Donald Trump, who was impeached in both 2019 and 2021 and remains the only President to be impeached twice.
All four presidential impeachment trials in the Senate ended in acquittal.
Republicans currently control the House of Representatives, which means it’s far less likely a vote to impeach Trump would pass. That hasn’t stopped some people from trying – Texas Democrat Al Green has introduced resolutions to impeach Trump at least three times, the most recent in December – none of which were passed.
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.
It has – 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.
Section 4, which starts the process of removing a leader for inability, has never been used.
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 – although none of those claims have ever been verified.
At 82 when he left office, Biden was the oldest and Trump, nearly 80, is currently the second-oldest American President.
Back before the Iran war began, in February CNN reported that polls showed Americans were increasingly concerned about Trump’s mental sharpness.
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 – yet he never stepped aside or handed off power to his Vice-President.
“There may be a certain reluctance, however badly [Trump] does ... to use the 25th Amendment on anything other than health grounds,” Patman said.
“If everything falls apart for Trump, having to leave office on health grounds might be sort of a face-saving way out.”
Yet for Trump, who said in 2015 he would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency, that seems unlikely.
Absolutely nobody knows, to be honest.
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.
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.
“Let’s be quite clear, there has been a drift towards the imperial presidency in the post-1945 period,” Patman said. “President Trump has been able to capitalise on that.
“At the moment there doesn’t 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.”
Yet cracks have been developing in the Maga coalition – 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.
“That’s become really quite acrimonious now. There’s certain divisions opening up in Maga world over the Epstein thing.”
Fears of a landslide result for Democrats in the midterm elections in November – which will determine if Congress stays under Republican control – may also be a factor in how Trump is seen by his party.
“Faced with a choice of continuing to support the President and losing their jobs, they might actually become increasingly defiant,” Patman said.
– RNZ