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Trump’s Insane New Threat Leaves No Doubt: It’s Time for the 25th Amendment
(www.thedailybeast.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Sigh. I keep reminding people that the 25th Amendment was not meant for this. It was meant for when a President is physically incapacitated. Like, if a President was shot in the head, and is still alive, but in a coma. Because all the President has to do is say "Naw, I'm good", and he gets his office back. If the VP and Cabinet still agree, it takes a 2/3 majority of both Houses to make the expulsion stick. And even then, the VP carries in as "Acting President", which is not formally defined anywhere.
Impeachment is the way to handle this. It has a lower threshold. It doesn't require the VP or Cabinet to sign off first, and only needs 1/2 the House to start the process. And once the President is removed from office by 2/3 of the Senate, the VP becomes the actual President, no "acting" involved.
Or, historically, his wife claims he's good, but can't speak to anyone directly, so she would talk with him away from everyone and come back with his feedback.
I predict Stephen Miller would be the one to assume that role this time.
I'm certain Stephen Miller has already assumed other wifely duties for Trump, so this wouldn't be a stretch.
I like you're assumption that's not already happening. Trump doesn't have the capacity to orchestrate what's currently going on, there is definitely multiple people using him for their own interests.
Sure, but as yet he remains the mouthpiece.
If he either falls apart or even worse, somehow grows a conscience, then they will isolate him and speak on his behalf.
What is impeachment usually meant to do? Because he's been impeached twice and here he is.
Colloquially it is also meant to include conviction by the Senate. Impeach + convict. But yes, Republicans have been assholes for many decades. It still needs to happen though, so it is what continues to get demanded.
Impeachment is meant as a check on an Imperial Presidency. In the Constitution, it is supposed to be triggered in response to "High Crimes and Misdemeanors". It leaves to Congress what that means. So it does not have to be a chargeable crime. The President is supposed to uphold the Constitution, and Treaties like the NATO treaty are supposed to have the same force as the Constitution. Threatening to attack our allies should count as impeachable.
However, he has been impeached twice and failed because Republicans in Congress have his back. In particular, the second time around McConnell said that Trump deserved punishment, but it was better done in the courts. Then Surprise! the Courts said the only way to hold a sitting President to account was through impeachment. It was an ouroborous of letting him off the hook.
We may have to live with the fact that there is no way to fix this, other than voters (or God Himself) intervening, as long as Republicans are too chickenshit to stand up to Trump.
It would lead to his removal, but it got cockblocked by the Senate. As intended.
For those that don't know. The Senate purely represents old money. They were created as a check/balance to keep citizens from taking away wealth, privilege, and power from the ruling class.
The British House of Lords used to hold the same sort of power with their ability to veto anything passed by the House of Commons. The House of Commons took this veto power away, but unfortunately they were only able to do this by getting the King to threaten to ennoble hundreds of new people and overwhelm the power of the traditional Lords. Our (US) current King would of course never agree to any such thing.
That's a fascinating historical nugget. I wonder if he would have actually gone through with it? That would have been hilarious. How would they get picked?
He (King George V) would have done it (in 1911). Asquith (the Prime Minister) told him that his father (King Edward VII) had promised to do it before his death in 1910 and King George assented. Asquith actually prepared lists with hundreds of names on them.
Which is why the House is often called "the People's House".
For what I know, impeaching him means the house will vote to send him home. If the vote doesn't pass, he won't go home.
Impeachment is the House voting to put the President on trial in the Senate. The Senate is then to hear the evidence and vote whether or not to remove the President from office. Trump was impeached twice but the Senate voted partisanly to keep him in office both times.
Dementia is physical incapacitation.
It never says physically incapacitated at all. It says:
"unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office"
If the president has a stroke and becomes a psychotic menace. Nervous breakdown and won't leave his room...all sorts of things.
That's the text all right, but the text also says that all the President has to do is present Congress with a "written declaration that no inability exists" to get his job back. So as long as the President has the mental acuity to write a letter, he gets his job back. Not a high bar at all, and your "psychotic menace" or "nervous breakdown" Presidents can still write a letter.
Yes, and that process involves a higher threshold (2/3 of both houses) than impeachment (1/2 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate). It also needs the VP to agree.
So if impeachment won't work, then this won't work either.
Except for the 25th you have his cabinet turning on him first, and that's a big deal. If his cabinet doesn't have faith in him, I would suspect that the house and senate would see that as a big deal.
Honestly, if you can get 2/3 to agree, they shouldn't need to have any qualifying condition. That should just be the bar for getting fired even if enough people simply don't like him being there.
That's already how it works with impeachment. You need 1/2 of the house and 2/3rds of the Senate to agree to remove. You are describing what already exists
That's why there's been several impeachments in the last 20 years but nobody has left office.
I'm talking about straight up ejection from the moment the vote is validated type of stuff. Not the beginning to a hopelessly long series of trials and further votes. Just a one vote, done thing that could easily be official before the pres even know it might be likely.
Presidents are far too comfy as far as job security goes. They should be at risk of being fired literally every second if enough people agree that they're a fuck-up. And depending on the reason the vote happens, they should be notified they're fired by a surprise pair of handcuffs. None of this long drawn out shit. The fastest thing possible in reference should be fitting the leader.
If his condition is in decline and this is not the last stupid thing he does it might become more likely.
Right, because that's possible.
You're 100% right on the mechanics of it, but only 90% right overall. There is one small thing you might not be considering: Republicans might be more supportive of removing an "incapacitated" president than impeaching a tyrannical one because of the less damaging connotation of it.
Doubt it. Reagan likely had Alzheimer's while President, nobody cared.
The worst of his dysfunction came late in his Presidency. He wasn't demanding crazy shit publicly, so no one really wanted to kick him out, they just let me move on naturally.
And he was 77 when he left office, a year younger than Trump was when he started this term!
Did Reagan threaten war with NATO?
No, but he did declare war on an island
Excellent point. They aren't admitting that their party failed America, just that their beloved candidate is having a serious health issue. There's no shame in that.
Impeachment was attempted after the Jan. 6th Insurrection, if it didn't work when he was trying to monkeywrench the levers of power by subverting the confirmation of the vote, and it won't work now. He's been shooting his stupid mouth off for decades, being old doesn't necessarily make him demented despite very obvious signs of aging poorly.
You're absolutely correct. But people need to realize that the 25th amendment is not a viable option. The threshold for action via the 25th Amendment is higher. If impeachment won't work, the 25th amendment won't either.