Could the US Constitution’s 25th Amendment be used to oust Trump?

WASHINGTON – How could a sitting US president be legally removed from office?

Most people have heard of impeachment, a power granted to – and rarely used by – the US Congress. But there is also the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides an avenue for a president to be removed under extraordinary circumstances by his or her own leadership team.

Talk of deploying the Amendment erupted in response to US President Donald Trump’s handling of the war with Iran. A number of prominent political figures called for invoking the Amendment to oust Mr Trump after he threatened to destroy the “whole civilisation” in Iran if the country did not agree to a ceasefire deal.

Earlier in 2026, a handful of Democratic lawmakers advocated the Amendment’s use to unseat Mr Trump over what they considered his erratic behaviour regarding Greenland. Using the Amendment against Mr Trump also came up during his first term. 

What does the 25th Amendment say?

It provides that a president can be removed if the vice-president and a majority of the “principal officers of the executive departments” – that is, the Cabinet – determines that he or she is “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office.

If the president contests the finding, and the vice-president and Cabinet persist, Congress can order the president’s removal by a two-thirds vote in both Chambers.

The Amendment also clarifies that the vice-president is the successor if a president leaves office midterm, and that the vice-president becomes acting president when, say, a president undergoes major surgery.

Why is the 25th Amendment coming up now?

Democratic lawmakers and a handful of conservative political figures called for Mr Trump to be removed from office after he posted on social media that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”.

The April 7 post came as a deadline Mr Trump set for Iran to reopen the blockaded Strait of Hormuz approached. In the days prior, Mr Trump had warned that if the strait was not reopened, the US would deliberately bomb civilian infrastructure in Iran, drawing criticism that he was threatening to commit war crimes.  

Why did the Amendment come up in the context of Greenland?

The Democratic lawmakers who in January called for removing Mr Trump using the 25th Amendment – Senator Ed Markey and US Representatives Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Yassamin Ansari and Eric Swalwell – cited the aggressive position Mr Trump had taken on Greenland, a self-ruling territory of Denmark.

Insisting that the US must own the island, Mr Trump had demanded that the Danish government agree to a US takeover and threatened European allies with a new round of punishing trade tariffs if they pushed back. He later backed off.

How was the 25th Amendment raised during Trump’s first term?

At points during Mr Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, critics cited the Amendment approvingly while reviewing what they considered his erratic behaviour.

The New York Times and ABC News reported in September 2018 that Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein had in the previous year discussed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the Amendment to remove Mr Trump from office. Mr Rosenstein denied the account and said in a statement to the Times that he saw “no basis” to invoke the Amendment.

Weeks earlier, the Times had published an op-ed by a person identified only as “a senior official in the Trump administration” who wrote: “Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the Cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until – one way or another – it’s over.”

Following the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Mr Trump, the House of Representatives passed a resolution urging former vice-president Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr Trump from office. The resolution was non-binding and largely symbolic.

Mr Michael Pompeo, then Mr Trump’s Secretary of State, later told congressional investigators that “I’m sure the words ‘25th Amendment’ came up in some conversations” among Trump Cabinet members in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol assault.

But he said there was no serious consideration of invoking the Amendment.

In contrast to his first term, Mr Trump has stocked his second-term Cabinet with officials who have shown intense personal loyalty to him. 

Why does the 25th Amendment exist?

It addresses some questions about presidential and vice-presidential succession that the Constitution does not specifically answer.

For instance, when former president William Harrison died in office in 1841, there was a debate over whether his vice-president John Tyler would become acting president, or president, or officially remain vice-president. Mr Tyler decided on his own to have a judge administer the presidential oath of office.

The 25th Amendment was introduced in Congress and ratified by the requisite three-quarters of US states after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the immediate confusion following the shooting, there were tense questions about who would run the country should he survive but only in a semiconscious or otherwise grievously wounded condition.

Has the 25th Amendment ever been used?

Never to remove a sitting president, but twice to fill a vacant vice-presidency. Before the Amendment took effect, the US occasionally went for long periods without a vice-president.

In 1973, after Spiro Agnew was forced to resign the vice-presidency because of tax evasion charges, then President Richard Nixon nominated Representative Gerald Ford to the position. He was approved by the House and Senate. After Mr Nixon resigned the following year, Mr Ford became president and nominated Mr Nelson Rockefeller, a former governor of New York, as vice-president. He was confirmed by Congress. BLOOMBERG