Comment and analysis: President Trump and the 25th Amendment
US President Donald Trump addressing the 74th UN General Assembly, Trump White House Archived,Flickr
US President Donald Trump’s rambling, combative address to the UN General Assembly in September did more than unsettle diplomats. It has reignited debate over his fitness for office and whether the US Constitution’s rarely invoked 25th Amendment could be used to remove a sitting president.
Serious questions are being raised about President Trump’s repeated reliance on misinformation, apparent cognitive lapses and the risks his leadership poses to US stability.
Speaking in New York to an audience of world leaders and diplomats who mostly sat in silence, President Trump began his UN address with typical campaign-style bombast – touting imaginary achievements and disparaging his political opponents. He then launched into a series of falsehoods, insults and ominous threats, punctuated by detours.
President Trump claimed he had ended seven wars – a suggestion many observers found problematic – and that some commentators had said he deserved the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded instead to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado. He later digressed into grievances about the renovation of the UN’s headquarters in the early 2000s, which he claimed was plagued by cost overruns. He criticised European migration policies, and told the audience that ‘your countries are going to hell.’
While his UN speech raised eyebrows, President Trump’s subsequent address to 800 top US military leaders at a Marine Corps base in Virginia set off alarm bells
President Trump’s UN speech received a largely negative and apprehensive reaction. He had attacked core multilateral principles and the norms of the UN. Worse, he had needlessly offended allies and trading partners.
Trump criticised ‘the globalist migration agenda’ and boasted he had saved thousands of lives by stopping illegal entries to the US. He overtly threatened Venezuela and its President Nicolás Maduro, who he accused of leading trafficking networks supplying drugs into the US. ‘Please be warned we will blow you out of existence. That’s what we are doing,’ Trump said in a statement aimed at those trafficking drugs into America.
He went on to reject climate change as a ‘con job’ – despite the broad scientific consensus that human activity is causing the climate crisis – and attacked the renewable energy policies of other countries, while extolling US oil and coal. He detoured into falsely claiming he had stopped crime in Washington, DC, by deploying national guard troops to the US capital. He meandered through a description of how China’s ‘dirty air’ crosses the Pacific Ocean to the US. And he called out Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whom he had passed in the hallway prior to the speech. ‘I only do business with people I like […] for about 39 seconds we had excellent chemistry,’ he said of the brief meeting.
While his UN speech raised eyebrows, President Trump’s subsequent address to 800 top US military leaders at a Marine Corps base in Virginia set off alarm bells. He delivered a partisan message that warned of ‘vicious’ enemies inside the US. He mused about major American cities being used as ‘training grounds’ for the US military and said the country was under ‘invasion from within’.
Health concerns
Such public statements have prompted legal scholars and lawmakers alike to revisit one of the US Constitution’s least-used mechanisms for dealing with presidential incapacity.
The 25th Amendment was drafted by Congress after the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy and ratified by 38 states in 1967. It clarifies the line of succession: the vice-president assumes the presidency if the president dies, resigns or is removed from office through impeachment. The process has been invoked on several occasions when presidents have temporarily transferred power to their vice-presidents during medical procedures.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, however, has never been used. It sets out a process for removing a president deemed unable to discharge the duties of the office. Under this provision, the vice-president and a majority of the 15-member Cabinet must jointly declare the president unable to perform their duties. The vice-president then immediately assumes the powers of the presidency.
‘Sending troops into cities, thinking that that’s some sort of proving ground for war, or that indeed there’s some sort of internal war going on in the United States is just, frankly, inane and I’m concerned for his health,’ said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker after President Trump’s military speech. Even earlier than September, Representative Maxine Waters meanwhile argued in a televised interview that the 25th Amendment should be used after President Trump removed Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, in order, Waters said, to ‘determine his unfitness, to determine that something’s wrong with this president.’
Trump and his allies have dismissed any suggestion that the President’s cognition is slipping or that the 25th Amendment should be used. The President has repeatedly boasted about his energy and stamina.
This isn’t the first time calls have been made to remove Trump via the 25th Amendment. In 2021, after the 6 January riot at the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, Democratic leaders and even some Republicans called for President Trump’s cabinet members to promptly remove him. President Trump said at the time that he was at ‘zero risk’ of being removed in this way. Ultimately, he was instead impeached in the House of Representatives. With Joe Biden shortly to take up office as president, the US Senate declined to convict Trump.
Unless President Trump was truly incapacitated, the political reality is that it’s exceedingly unlikely that he would be removed by a cabinet that includes loyalists such as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Anti-ICE protest in New York City, vivalapenler/Adobe Stock
There is a theory that if Trump were to become enough of a political liability to the Republican Party then Vice President JD Vance would lead a bloodless coup via the 25th Amendment. This too is unlikely, but it reflects real fears among opponents that a more stable and coherent Vance would carry on leading President Trump’s autocratic takeover.
These anxieties have been fuelled by what some commentators view as President Trump’s increasingly out-of-touch conduct, which has deepened doubts about his capacity to govern. The president has made numerous absurd claims in recent months and his outbursts are increasingly a matter of constitutional concern.
The president announced he wouldn’t attend the G-20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, scheduled for late November, citing what he described as ‘human rights abuses’ against white Afrikaners. There is no evidence of systematic abuses against descendants of original Dutch, French and Italian settlers in South Africa. Yet Trump’s White House has given refugee priority to Afrikaners while sharply curtailing admissions from other countries.
Seeking to justify expanded military involvement in the mass arrests of Latino migrants, President Trump claimed the city of Portland, Oregon, was consumed by ‘anarchy’ and that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities were ‘under siege by [protest movement] Antifa, and other domestic terrorists’. In reality, the unrest was simply local and relatively peaceful protests against ICE. In November, a federal judge blocked Trump’s attempt to deploy troops, ruling that the facts on the ground didn’t support the President’s claims.
Sleepy Donald
The pattern has continued in recent weeks. Indeed, some have suggested that President Trump’s health appears to be deteriorating. In early November, he appeared to doze during an Oval Office press event at the White House. President Trump struggled for about 20 minutes to keep his eyes open, according to an analysis of video feeds from the event. ‘The President was not sleeping; in fact, he spoke throughout and took many questions,’ according to a White House spokesman.
Some clinical psychologists have recently noted that President Trump is showing early signs of dementia, including incoherent speech, memory lapses, confusion and difficulty maintaining a train of thought – evident in his public speaking. Psychologists John Gartner and Harry Segal have argued in a podcast that President Trump’s public appearances increasingly show signs that he suffers from ‘early’ dementia.
The White House has pushed back on these concerns. A spokesperson said in August for example that ‘President Trump’s mental sharpness is second to none.’
To be sure, unlike his predecessor President Joe Biden – who hid his declining mental capacity by avoiding the press – Trump speaks regularly with reporters, exposing himself to more frequent gaffes. Off camera, he often cracks jokes and appears to command the room, White House reporters say.
Still, President Trump underwent an MRI scan in October during a medical checkup, raising speculation it could have been related to neurological or cardiovascular concerns the White House hasn’t fully explained. The scan was part of a ‘routine’ examination and after reviewing the full results of his MRI, the president’s doctors ‘all agreed that President Trump remains in exceptional physical health,’ White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. The President was given a cognitive test in April, meanwhile, following which his doctor assessed his cognitive function as ‘normal’.
Trump would be the oldest president in US history at age 82 by the time his term ends in January 2029. Were Vice President Vance, who is 41, and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, it would be a first in American history. Whether or not Section 4 is ever invoked, the debate underscores the fragility of America’s constitutional safeguards of presidential competence and the depth of unease about President Trump’s capacity to govern.
William Roberts is a US-based freelance journalist and can be contacted at wroberts3@me.com.