The 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967, closing an important loophole in Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment reads:
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.
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. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
The four-year term of President Trump has but two weeks left in it.
As we are seeing today, he can wreak damage – physical, figurative, transformative – in a couple of hours.
He has not acknowledged the electoral victory of his rival, Joe Biden.
He urged his supporters to descend upon the nation’s capital as Congress assembled to conduct an otherwise pro forma certification of the election result from more than two months ago.
He stood idly by for more than an hour as supporters breached the U.S. Capitol.
There was an armed confrontation at the entrance to the House chambers.
Lawmakers were placed on lockdown, told to shelter in place.
When shamed by Biden into making a statement, Trump used the occasion to buttress his thoroughly discredited claim that the election had been “stolen” from him.
Subsequent messages from the president shared on social media have doubled down on this message.
He incited the violence of today, and he’s inciting more violence.
What’s next?
Martial law? Nuclear war?
Do we want to wait to find out?
“(T)he President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Reason: megalomania.
It’s time.
Story by Chris Graham
Share
Contributors
