LinkedIn on Saturday, September 5, 2026
The 25th Amendment was certified, after having been ratified by 38 states, in February of 1967. Our founding fathers had nothing to do with it. Until the 25th Amendment, impeachment was the Constitution’s only tool for removing a President.
Most people I know think that the 25th Amendment is how, other than by impeachment, the Constitution allows senior officials in a given Administration – or others “as Congress may by law provide” – to remove the sitting President who is unable to do his or her job. That’s not entirely true. According to Section 4 of the Amendment…
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.
Note, in particular, the second string I’ve put in bold. “Unable to discharge”? What exactly does that mean? The terminology is vague, at best. It certainly covers medical conditions – heart attack, surgery, and other debilitating circumstances – related to physical incapacitation. But what about problems with the President’s mental state relative to which specific disorders may be hard to diagnose until they are severe and blatantly obvious – by which time the impact of early stage mental issues may already be having detrimental effects on decision-making?
Do Presidents have regular physicals? Yes, but not by law and the physicals the President does have are not required to include testing for cognitive illnesses. In any case, results are private and will not be released to the Vice President, Cabinet or public without the President’s permission.
Think carefully about where we are… We have an aging, relatively unintelligent President suffering from malignant narcissism, who is, by virtue of the narcissism, a self-absorbed sociopath who lacks empathy which is essential to his position. This individual is in charge of the United States government – including its foreign policy and military. As such, he and the awful government he has created, are well into the process of trashing the institutions which our founders codified in the Constitution and which generations of Americans have fought, in all manner of ways, to protect and perfect. If nothing else, his lawlessness is intolerable. It may be grounds for impeachment, which is very difficult to accomplish, particularly if the President’s party controls Congress. Unfortunately, removing the President via a 25th Amendment procedure – for reasons of incompetence, dishonesty or psychological issues is not an option. Not really.
Making matters worse, the 25th Amendment completely ignores the likelihood that the Vice President and Secretaries in the Cabinet, having been hand-picked by the President and loyal to him. In fact, loyalty to our President was the primary attribute of these officials that justified their nomination in the first place. Ability to actually do their jobs had little or nothing to do with their nomination or their confirmation by a Senate majority that is also cultishly loyal to the same President.
The point is that, as written, the 25th Amendment fails to protect us from a person like Donald Trump who, once in power, is determined to be plainly nuts, to put his condition in layman’s terminology.
The simple solution, other than a formal impeachment which is far easier said than done, is to require by law that Presidents – and members of Congress as well – receive regular and thorough exams – including cognitive and other testing for potentially disqualifying psychological disorders – to qualify for their top secret security clearances.
What? You didn’t know that the President, Vice President and members of Congress qualify for top secret clearances, without testing, just by virtue of their having been elected? How ‘bout them apples? Why does that make any sense? A foreign adversary need only have a, let’s say, “cooperative” candidate elected to Congress or President to obtain access to our most carefully guarded secrets.
Had Donald Trump been required by law and/or Constitutional amendment to qualify for his top secret clearance, he would have never been allowed to run for office in the first place. Psychological disorders, criminal behavior and conflicts of interest would have disqualified him in a proverbial heartbeat.
-Les Cohen
