Donald Trump’s administration is facing another round of calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office in the wake of his remarks to an unprecedented assembly of the nation’s military leaders.

Trump’s Cabinet and then-Vice President Mike Pence faced similar demands in the aftermath of the January 6 attack, when a mob of the president’s supporters stormed the halls of Congress to derail the certification of an election he lost.

And it’s not the first time Trump has faced calls to step down since he returned to the White House in January. Liberal commentators and critics on social media routinely demand his Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    11 hours ago

    No. He got impeached multiple times already. Under this government, you ask whether he can be impeached AND removed!?

    There’s also more of a informational bubble around his opposition this time around fueled by predatory and even malicious social network algorithms. Trump’s health is not even remotely that bad yet, and this whole idea of pushing it now may hamper or even prevent pushing it later if and when Trump’s health truly gets worse and GQP can’t really argue otherwise. It is also a distraction to shift from all the real, horrible, and devastating reasons Trump should be removed, which way surpasses those he was impeached for during his first term, to “Oh, his health might be bad”.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    10 hours ago

    Even if trump can be removed then Vance (aka Pete Thiel’s puppet) will be in the driver’s seat. I personally think this would be worse.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 hours ago

      Vance can’t even get over the couch allegations.

      There’s no way he gets people to risk their future backing him the way Trump does. He’s way more evil and literate, but he’s not charismatic or competent

      He’s way more coherent, but honestly that’s probably a weakness

  • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    13 hours ago

    According to what the 25th was designed for, no, he can’t. He’s not incapacitated in the sense of being in a coma or otherwise fully non compos mentis. He’s just an asshole and a criminal in the early stages of dementia.

    The process for the 25th requires cabinet members or legislators to write a letter stating their concerns about his health rendering him unfit to carry on. If he can reply to that letter, even with a scrawled Sharpie “NO U!” then it’s game over.

    The correct processes to remove Trump are impeachment, or if the system is too corrupt for that to work, other means reserved to the citizenry.

    • Leather@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      16 hours ago

      He could epicly shit his pants on stage while babbling “Wheels on the bus” and his base would call it election interference, blame the “radical left”, and send Obama the drycleaning bill.

  • WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    69
    ·
    edit-2
    21 hours ago

    Of course he can, though it"s exceedingly unlikely that he will be, since it’s a process that would require integrity, courage and determination, all of which are virtually non-existent qualities in Washington today.

    Which is unfortunate too, since as I have cause to point out daily, the man is quite obviously a deranged lunatic.

    I really don’t think he’s ever been particularly attached to reality, but the combination of losing the 2020 election and stewing and lying for four years then lying his way to winning the 2024 election appears to have completely broken his mind. And the upshot of that is that the world in which he now lives and makes important decisions is not the real one - it’s entirely a product of his own warped perceptions, as filtered through an emotionally stunted mind that’s slaved to the task of protecting his grotesquely bloated and fragile ego and has completely lost any ability it might once have had to distinguish between reality and delusion.

  • magnetosphere@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    18 hours ago

    Even if he is removed under the 25th amendment, MAGAts would never allow themselves to forget it. To them, it would be infinitely worse than 9/11. They’d smugly remove everyone they didn’t like from office (which they’re already doing, but this would be much faster and much harsher). Everyone involved would lose their jobs, and possibly be sent to prison. Their replacements (if MAGA decides they need to be replaced, anyway) would be forced to sign a loyalty oath to President Vance.

    We Americans need to understand that our democracy has failed us. We could have stopped him when he tried to overthrow the government the first time. We could have legally prevented him from running for a second term. Too many of our leaders are cowards, though, so now we’re facing the consequences.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    22 hours ago

    The 25th Amendment is not for a situation like this, it is for a situation where a President is incapacitated. So, imagine if Kennedy hadn’t died right away, but was instead in a coma. He couldn’t execute the duties of the Presidency, but he also couldn’t have those duties taken away. This is the situation the amendment seeks to resolve.

    If it is triggered, all the President has to do is transmit a message to Congress stating “Nah, I’m good” to get his office back. Unless the VP and enough of the Cabinet all continue to say he’s actually incapacitated, and then it takes a 2/3 vote in both houses to permanently remove the President from office.

    So it is actually easier, procedurally, to remove a President via impeachment, as it does not require the VP or any Cabinet members, and only a majority of the House, not 2/3. And, if his major issue is that he said stupid shit to the Military, impeachment is the more proper way to do it anyway.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      21 hours ago

      If it is triggered, all the President has to do is transmit a message to Congress stating “Nah, I’m good” to get his office back.

      But Congress can just as easily disagree…

      And it’s for any situation, left open by design. You can 25th a president for not liking glizzies (any kind) and it would be totally cool and totally legal.

      It’s the emergency eject button, applicable under any situation.

      And because of all that, the president has no say in the process. It’s the VP and cabinet that have to keep renewing it, and if they don’t, or if they do it too much, then it does go to congress for the 2/3s vote in both.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

      It’s too much to quote, but just read all of Section 4 if you want more details.

      • dhork@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        21 hours ago

        The text may theoretically be applicable in any situation where the President is “unable to discharge his duties”, but if you read the requirements of the act and put it in context, it is clear that it is really meant for when the President is incapacitated.

        First of all, it requires the VP and at least half of the Cabinet to agree. That is an extremely high bar, because in our current system the President selects all of those people. They are part of “his team”, and whatever is up would need to be very serious in order for the amendment to be invoked.

        And go ahead and read the text - the President simply has to communicate that whatever cause the problem is over to get his job back. It’s clear that what they had in mind was an incapacitation that prevented him from communicating.

        Congress has no ability to agree or disagree at this stage. It’s only after those same Cabinet members reaffirm the incapacity that it goes to Congress. And the threshold of 2/3 of both Houses simply cant be achieved in any partisan environment. Significant members from both parties would have to agree to get that to pass. It requires so much consensus that, in practice, it can only be done in situations where it’s obvious to the whole country.

        It is particularly obvious when paired with Section 3, where the President himself is allowed to temporarily designate the VP as Acting President. This has been invoked a handful of times over the years, mainly for when the President has been put out for a colonoscopy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_President_of_the_United_States

        The two sections make sense together: Section 3 is for a planned incapacity, and Section 4 is for an unplanned incapacity.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          20 hours ago

          Confidentially incorrect as usual…

          On the plus side. You e been learning a lot since I unblocked you, not sure how long it’ll last tho…

          Section 4 addresses the case of a president who cannot discharge the powers and duties of the presidency but also cannot, or does not, execute the voluntary declaration contemplated by Section 3.[3]: 117  It allows the vice president, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide”,[note 3] to issue a written declaration that the president is unable to discharge his duties. When such a declaration is sent to Congress, the vice president immediately becomes acting president,[note 4] while (as with Section 3) the president remains in office, temporarily divested of authority.[9]

          John Feerick, the principal draftsman of the amendment,[3]: xii,xx [4]: 5 [10] writes that Congress deliberately left the terms unable and inability undefined “since cases of inability could take various forms not neatly fitting into [a rigid] definition … The debates surrounding the Twenty-fifth Amendment indicate that [those terms] are intended to cover all cases in which some condition or circumstance prevents the President from discharging his powers and duties”. [3]: 112  A survey of scholarship on the amendment found no specific threshold—medical or otherwise—for the “inability” contemplated in Section 4. The framers specifically rejected any definition of the term, prioritizing flexibility. Those implementing Section 4 should focus on whether—in an objective sense taking all of the circumstances into account—the President is “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office. The amendment does not require that any particular type or amount of evidence be submitted to determine that the President is unable to perform his duties. While the framers did imagine that medical evidence would be helpful to the determination of whether the President is unable, neither medical expertise nor diagnosis is required for a determination of inability … To be sure, foremost in [the minds of the framers] was a physical or mental impairment. But the text of Section 4 sets forth a flexible standard intentionally designed to apply to a wide variety of unforeseen emergencies.[4]: 7,20

          Among potential examples of such unforeseen emergencies, legal scholars have listed kidnapping of the president and “political emergencies” such as impeachment. Traits such as unpopularity, incompetence, impeachable conduct, poor judgment, or laziness might not in themselves constitute inability, but should such traits “rise to a level where they prevented the President from carrying out his or her constitutional duties, they still might constitute an inability, even in the absence of a formal medical diagnosis.”

          • dhork@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            12 hours ago

            And you are missing the fact that the threshold for this is higher than impeachment, for a reason. Impeachment is for fixing something a President does. The 25th Amendment is for fixing something a President is.

            They didn’t want to say “only use this for documented medical emergencies” because they didn’t want to limit its possible use only to things they anticipate. But the simple fact that they made it more difficult than impeachment means that they intended for impeachment stuff to be handled by impeachment instead. They didn’t have to spell that part out, either, because it’s plainly obvious to anyone who is not making disingenuous arguments on the Internet…

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              11 hours ago

              And you are missing the fact that the threshold for this is higher than impeachment

              And you’re “missing the fact” that Opossums are the only marsupial in North America…

              Another topic no one was talking about…

              And you’re still wrong because it’s the exact same 2/3s vote. You are consistently and habitual misunderstanding everything I say…

              A page reloaded without me signing in, and I thought you were close I could help, and it was concerning how you appear to reply to me frequently with completely wrong I formation.

              There’s no way I can help you get anything I just hope people dont automatically believe your ramblings when you keep replying to factual.psiats.

              • dhork@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                11 hours ago

                And you’re still wrong because it’s the exact same 2/3s vote.

                In the Senate. Impeachment is only a majority vote in the House.

  • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    20 hours ago

    The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because the people who would have to support it would prefer to hide behind an erratic Trump who is prone to manipulation. His cabinet can get what they want and let Trump take any heat from the consequences. And congress sure as fuck doesn’t want to be seen as betraying Trump, nor do I expect many of them want to see a president Vance, especially in the lead up to the 28 primaries.

  • LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    21 hours ago

    lol

    Stop trying to use the constitution and the rule of law, they have taken it over and it is meaningless….

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    16 hours ago

    His supporters would go absolutely nuclear if they did that. Not a chance in hell of it happening.

  • MynameisAllen@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    20 hours ago

    Before I say this I need to emphasis that this is a joke. But it seems getting rid of him with the second amendment didn’t work, so hopefully the 25th hits the mark