Trump’s Not All There—And He’s Not Going Anywhere

Can the American people use the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump from office? Nope. Not even a little. Farron Cousins breaks down why the 25th is completely useless when a president surrounds himself with loyal sycophants. Trump could be mumbling nonsense and drooling on a podium, and his cabinet would still swear he’s “sharp as ever.” Spoiler: this is exactly how authoritarianism survives.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Up until Donald Trump's first term in office, most people in the United States had no idea that the 25th Amendment even existed, let alone what it said. And of course, the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution is the one that has the, uh, instructions on how to remove a sitting president if they are unable to fulfill the duties of the office. And that brings me to yet another question from one of our viewers. This comes from Big Dog 51 rr, who asks my question is, is there any way US American people can use the 25th Amendment against Trump to get him out of the White House? And unfortunately, the answer to that is unequivocally, nope. The 25th Amendment is not for the people of the United States. That is not something we can do. That is not something we can invoke. Here is how the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution in terms of removing an unfit president works, the Vice President of the United States, in this case, JD Vance, along with a majority of the cabinet members or a separate body delegated to make this determination.

Either way, either Vance in the Cabinet or Vance in that separate delegation have to make the determination that the president of the United States is somehow some way unable to fulfill the duties of the office and must be removed. At that point, the President of the United States is given the chance to rebut the Vice President and the delegation or the cabinet members. And then after the president either chooses to say, Nope, I'm totally good, or Yeah, I'm, I suck, I should be gone. Then the matter goes to both houses of Congress. At that point, you have to have a two-thirds majority of both the House and the Senate vote on whether or not the president should be removed from office. If you get two thirds in both chambers that say, yes, they should be removed, then JD Vance becomes president of the United States. If you fail to hit that two thirds majority, Donald Trump would stay the President of the United States.

So that is how the 25th Amendment works. It's not something the public has any control over. It's not, uh, a conversation we can even be involved in. It relies solely on the very people that Donald Trump packed his cabinet with. And I don't think for a second that any of them is willing or has the courage or intelligence to do that. Donald Trump could sit out there during his next next, uh, uh, press briefing and do one of these like for 30 minutes. And even if he did that, this cabinet would not say, you know what, maybe he's not all there and should be removed. It doesn't matter what he does. He picked people that he knows will never turn against him. And I do think part of that is to prevent anyone from invoking the 25th Amendment.