Going Deeper: The 25th Amendment

There is a way to stop Trump’s madness. Will the GOP have the courage to use it?

Note: Going Deeper is a weekly column where we step back and take a deeper look at one of the top issues of the day.

On Tuesday, the world held its breath as a war-crime apocalypse approached. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” threatened Donald Trump. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

As U.S. warplanes were readied to bomb Iran’s civilian infrastructure, Pakistani diplomats raced to fashion a ceasefire. The attack was paused, and the planet heaved a sigh of relief as Iran, Israel, and the U.S. accepted the deal. But concern about a future under a deranged madman left many Americans searching for a way to expel him from office. The 25^th Amendment to the Constitution does create a mechanism to do just this.

What is the 25^th Amendment?

Ratified in 1967, the 25^th Amendment was proposed in response to John F. Kennedy’s assassination four years prior. “What if an incapacitated Kennedy had lived?” asked the authors.

At the time, Presidential succession was governed by Article II of the Constitution, which provided for the Vice President to be elevated should the President become “unable to discharge the Powers and Duties” of his office due to death or removal. It did not envision a President rendered incapable of serving due to physical or mental disability.

The 25^th Amendment does a lot of things. It allows the President to give his or her powers to the Vice President during a brief period of incapacity. It also gives the President the authority to nominate a new vice president (whom Congress must confirm) should the sitting Veep leave office.

But the key provision, the one everyone is talking about today, allows for the Vice President and the Cabinet to consider the President’s condition and determine whether he or she is “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office. If the majority determines that the President is incapacitated, then the Vice President “shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

Before I go any further, let me post the exact wording here:

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.

As you read this, you’ll see that Congress can create a “body” (commission or committee) that could play the cabinet’s role. But given how Congress works, this is highly unlikely. Thus, it is sensible to focus on the cabinet. Imagine, if you will, that a Vice President learns that the President is gravely ill. He or she could go to members of the cabinet, report on the President’s condition, and literally “count votes.” Should a majority agree, they can notify Congress, and the deal would be done.

In the current context, J.D. Vance would consult with 15 department secretaries and seven secretary-level officials like the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Included would be higher-level figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and relative unknowns like Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Unable to Discharge the Powers and Duties?

The problem of an incapacitated President has occurred before. The most compelling example was Woodrow Wilson, who was President from 1913 to 1921.

Although a policy hero to generations of Democrats, Wilson is best known for the serious stroke he suffered in October of 1919 and the subterfuge that kept his condition largely secret. When the stroke occurred, Wilson was partially paralyzed and lost most of the vision in one eye. Although he was generally lucid, he was subject to emotional swings. Historians agree that during this time, his wife, Edith Wilson, and his doctor controlled him. America was essentially without a President for almost a year and a half.

After Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s health -- heart disease and polio -- caused some discussion of his capacity to lead, but instead of stepping down, he stubbornly sought a third term. He won it only to die 82 days into it.

Then there was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who suffered a major heart attack after serving just two years and eight months of his first term. Ike spent seven weeks in the hospital, during which his chief of staff, Sherman Adams, shielded him from stress. Ike may not have been fully disabled, but his capacities were diminished for months.

Although no President has been removed under the 25^th Amendment, it was used when both Presidents Nixon and Ford named vice presidents, and both Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush used it to transfer power to their VPs when they underwent surgery.

Physical vs Mental Disability

In the era from Wilson to Eisenhower mental health was little discussed, and what we call the mind-body connection was a thing of the future. Today’s President shows so many signs of mental illness that psychologists and psychiatrists have openly discussed the likely possibility that he is mentally unfit.

In October 2017, 27 mental health professionals published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, which sounded a loud alarm about Trump’s condition. One of the book’s authors, Robert Jay Lifton, said that Trump does not have “clear contact with reality.” In its review of the book, The Washington Post concluded that “anyone as mentally unstable as Mr. Trump simply should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency.”

The powers of the presidency have increased exponentially in the modern era, when our country’s military, including its nuclear forces, can reach any corner of the globe in a matter of hours with devastating results. This so-called “hand-on-the-button” reality has

hovered over the presidency ever since America first used an atomic weapon in 1945. In the same time span, the President’s military authority has only increased as Congress has ceded its power over war and peace.

With the nuclear button in mind, in 2024, a group of 200 experts signed a letter warning that Trump suffered from a dangerous condition called “malignant narcissism,” which made him “grossly unfit for leadership…” The letter, which was published in The New York Times, went on to say that “Even a non-clinician can see that Trump shows a lifetime pattern of ‘failure to conform to social norms and laws,’ ‘repeated lying,’ ‘reckless disregard for the safety of others,’ ‘irritability,’ ‘impulsivity,’ ‘irresponsibility,’ and ‘lack of remorse.’”

More recently, experts and laypeople have begun to speculate that Trump suffers from a form of dementia. Although his father died of Alzheimer’s disease, in the President’s case, the talk is of “frontotemporal dementia.” According to psychologist John Gartner, who has been outspoken about Trump’s mental health, this disease causes people to “lose all judgment, all inhibition, all ability to inhibit their behavior, and they become disinhibited and aggressive.”

Gartner finds evidence of Trump’s deterioration in his increasingly unhinged social media posts. Prior to the one threatening Iran with genocide, Trump alarmed Gartner with one that demanded Iran open the Strait of Hormuz to oil and gas tanker traffic. (Iran’s closing of the strait has caused a global energy and financial crisis.) “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!” wrote Trump before adding, strangely, “Praise be to Allah.”

Citing this post, Gartner said, “My fear is that Donald Trump is getting off on this. He is getting sadistic pleasure from scaring the world and blowing things up,” Gartner said. “He’s a raging id with no frontal lobes and no guardrails.”

Gartner, who believes that Trump’s deterioration is accelerating, is not alone. Other physicians and psychologists have noted Trump’s struggles with completing thoughts, and others have said that the way he now walks with a wide gait that indicates organic brain disease. Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who has a doctorate in psychology, says he often has “the look of confusion” and shows struggles with short-term memory.

The Political Reality

Trump is, no doubt, a bizarre figure and always has been. A convicted felon who lost a civil suit alleging sexual abuse, he has no shame. He has told so many lies -- the media counted more than 30,000 in his first term alone -- that you can only conclude that he is either deluded or lacks a conscience. Ironically, a Republican, Trump’s 2016 primary opponent, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, may have been the first national politician to raise the issue of Trump’s mental health. In February 2016 he said, “I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but the guy needs therapy.”

After Trump was elected, it was another Republican, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who questioned whether Trump possessed “the [mental] stability” to succeed as President. Meanwhile, White House insiders, including Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly discussed Trump’s personality and psychology as they tried to cope with his erratic behavior. In her 2024 primary campaign against Trump, Republican Nikki Haley repeatedly referred to Trump’s mental fitness.

Most recently, amid the Iran crisis, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Something is really wrong with this guy, clearly. And at a minimum, we need a wellness check. He’s unhinged. He’s out of control, and this is not presidential behavior or anything close to it…and some of my Republican colleagues need to actually step up and recognize something is wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Polls have found that a majority of the American people share Jeffries’ concern. In a Reuters poll, 61 percent said Trump has become “erratic with age.” And in a Washington Post survey 56 percent said they had questions about his mental capabilities. These are substantial numbers, and they came before the Iran war. I think they would almost certainly be higher now.

Could it happen?

During my time in Congress, some Republicans did secretly talk about Trump’s fitness, although no one spoke seriously about a 25^th Amendment solution. The same is true today in the House. But I believe that in the Senate, you could get one of two GOPers into a private, whispered conversation about Trump’s derangement.

Among Democrats, there is more discussion of impeachment than removal, but after Trump’s social media diatribe, one Democratic representative, Ro Khanna of California, said it was time. “If the United States Congress has any life left in it, every member of Congress and senator must be calling for Trump’s removal today based on the 25th Amendment,” said Khanna.

True to the ideals of democracy, the 25^th Amendment was intentionally made difficult to employ, even when a President is physically disabled. In this case, where we have a mentally deranged President, the task would be even more difficult.

If ever there was a time for the 25th Amendment, and a President whose derangement begged for its use, it is this time, and this President. Trump’s administration has perpetrated lethal violence in its anti-immigration campaign at home and war crimes in its attacks on supposed “drug” boats in the Caribbean. Now, in Iran, the President is threatening a wave of war crimes in our name.

Trump is, by far, the most dangerous individual in American history, a man so disordered, so disconnected from reality that he is incapable of leading. And deep down, Republicans everywhere know it.

So to all my former colleagues in the administration and in Congress: now is the time. You may have looked the other way as Trump trampled every principle you once believed. You may have prized your elected office over what is right for the country. But it is never too late to do the right thing.

Trust me, it won’t be easy. Some folks back home will be mad at you. You may even lose your seat. But, having walked through those fires myself, I can promise you that you will survive. And you’ll be a better version of yourself on the other side. And, most importantly, you will know that when the moment called, you put country before party and your career.

You have my number. Give me a ring. I promise to keep our conversation private and help you work through what you know needs to be done. There’s no time to waste.