Relieving or replacing a president

The 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967 after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The amendment creates procedures for replacing the president or vice president in various scenarios in which they resign or are unable to fulfill their duties. Various sections of the amendment have been used since then. In the 1970s, Sections 1 and 2 were used to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew and later President Richard Nixon after each resigned due to separate scandals, with Gerald Ford becoming vice president in 1973 and president in 1974.  More recently, Section 3 has been used by presidents such as George W. Bush and Joe Biden to temporarily give presidential powers to their vice presidents while the presidents were under anesthesia during medical procedures.  

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, which has never been used, allows the vice president and the Cabinet to remove a president who is deemed incapable of fulfilling his duties. In such a case, the vice president and a majority of the president’s cabinet can submit to the leaders of Congress a “written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” at which point “the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.” Since Trump returned to the White House in 2025, his strange and rambling statements, struggles staying awake during meetings, mysterious health concerns and references to having taken multiple cognitive tests have all fueled speculation concerning whether he is fit to perform the duties of president.

With extensive questions about Trump’s ability to do his job, the president’s increasingly unhinged statements and threats toward Iran have onlookers worried that he may be acting irrationally and dangerously. These concerns are now leading some to say that it is time for Trump’s own inner circle to step in and employ a previously unused constitutional remedy to remove Trump before his decisions lead to disaster.