So if they see deeply troubling things, they are the ones who have the ability — and, arguably, the responsibility — to act. This article was originally published in It has been updated to reflect recent news. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
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The 25th Amendment, explained: how a president can be declared unfit to serve. Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: The 25th Amendment, explained: how a president can be declared unfit to serve. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. President Woodrow Wilson was debilitated by a stroke toward the end of his second term in office. Section 4 continues: 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.
The rest of Section 4 is about this contingency: Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. Is it a coup? Trump realDonaldTrump February 18, Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email.
Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. Two months into his first term, Washington underwent surgery for a tumor that required him to rest on his right side for six weeks. President William Henry Harrison died in office in William Henry Harrison became the shortest-serving president when he died just 34 days into taking office from pneumonia he contracted on inauguration day. Tyler moved into the White House and had himself sworn in as president, even giving an Inaugural Address.
In , Grover Cleveland needed surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his mouth. He had a quarter of his upper palate entirely removed, was fitted with an implant, and went back to work.
The public was none the wiser. Woodrow Wilson nearly died of the flu pandemic during sensitive negotiations with world leaders at the Paris Peace Talks. Ultimately, Wilson relinquished his demands on French leader Georges Clemenceau , accepting the demilitarization of the Rhineland and French occupation of it for at least 15 years.
The United States' longest-serving president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt , hid the severity of his polio from the American public, fearing he would be perceived as weak. The press was forbidden from taking pictures of him walking—an offense the Secret Service was tasked with preventing.
Bush for short periods of time while he was sedated for a colonoscopy. But Section 4 of the amendment has never been used and it opens up a gray area around presidential capacity. The wording leaves open the possibility that mental incapacity could become grounds for removing a 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.
So, what would happen if the Vice President and other leaders get to the point where they go ahead and invoke the 25 th Amendment?
If two-thirds of both houses vote to remove him, the vice president becomes the acting president. Of course, the big problem here is that no vice president in his right mind would do anything that looked like he was trying to unseat and then succeed the president.
Vice presidents can do a great deal of damage to themselves and to our democracy by seeming to engineer a palace coup against the president who selected them. Short of watching Donald Trump run naked and screaming down Pennsylvania Avenue on prime-time television, Mike Pence or any vice president would never begin such proceedings.
So in April, Raskin introduced a bill to create a constitutional mechanism for removing a president from office if he were nuts.
Of course, "nuts" wasn't in the bill; the more genteel language is "mentally incapacitated. But in May he wasn't so restrained. This week Raskin preferred to talk about a gap in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, passed four years after John F. Kennedy's assassination, which called for the creation of a bipartisan body to assess whether an ailing president was able to carry on "the powers and duties" of his office. That body was never established, Raskin discovered.
So, he thought, "Well, there's no time like today. So, we should go ahead and do it. The bill has virtually no chance of passing, of course.
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