April 8, 2026
Fit For Office? Calls Grow For Trump To Be Removed Via The 25th Amendment
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RSS Feed There has been a growing call by lawmakers and organizations for President Trump to be removed from office after his violent threats to take out “a whole civilization.” Democratic members of Congress, including a few Republicans, have called on Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare him unfit to serve.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Wednesday, April eighth.
00:00:05
Speaker 2: Could it really happen?
00:00:08
Speaker 1: Are they really going to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment and remove President Trump from office?
00:00:16
Speaker 2: With that?
00:00:16
Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ scenes unlikely Robes, But there is a different type of drum beat, more mainstream, more voices, bigger voices after some of the messages from the President this week that some are saying this guy needs to be removed involuntarily.
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Yes, some of the messages, perhaps specifically a very incendiary message that was sent out yesterday declaring the apocalypse that hour are. We didn't want to do it, but they were making us wipe off or wipe out an entire civilization. We were going to make an entire civilization die if this country didn't do what we.
00:01:00
Speaker 4: Wanted them to do when we wanted them to do it.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Okay, so here we are Robes now.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: When he sent that message, a lot of people started stepping out, including some senators, and saying the twenty fifth Amendment should be invoked.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: Now, rogues.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: As we record this, there is a ceasefire shaky in place. Are some going to back off and essentially say wow? Whatever his method was it did work.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's the case, because a lot of folks aren't even buying the fact that his message is the reason why we suddenly have a ceasefire. There are questions in play right now as to just what Iran exactly has even agreed to, what their perception of a ceasefire actually is, and what it must result in before though actually have this war be over. So there is so much gray area, and a lot of folks even think some of this is contrived. That President Trump knew that there negotiations going on.
00:02:01
Speaker 4: President Trump knew that.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: We were about to get to a point where we could have some sort of an agreement where he could back off or he could have an off ramp.
00:02:08
Speaker 4: So he put out this fiery message. It looked like he was the man.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: So it wasn't really from the heart. It was a part of a strategy, so it was okay. So he didn't really mean it when he sent it. Do you think that it makes him a mad genius? He's he's You still don't want to be playing with language exactly. You actually just brought something up I didn't really think about a lot of people were saying he should be removed because this is an unhinged, crazy person who has nuclear codes. You are saying in a way that this is a very sane person who was playing us all and know exactly what he was doing.
00:02:40
Speaker 3: I think there are people who think it's one or the other, but either way, there is a whole other group who claims just by using the language he used, just by threatening to target civilians, target we didn't know. But to say you're wiping out an entire civilization, that would imply that you would be targeting everyone, not just military operations or military installations, And that, in and of itself, that threat, that fear, that trauma, that that caused is a war crime in and of itself. Just to threaten that is not something that this world tolerates.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's get caught up here, folks on the twenty fifth Amendment.
00:03:24
Speaker 4: We're going to schoolhouse rock.
00:03:25
Speaker 1: This thing a little bit and take us all back to the twenty fifth Amendment. But for the past several days, robes I have seen it even close to the number one or number two top trending topic on Twitter and other places, the twenty fifth Amendment, because so many are talking about it. Obviously it is the thing that allows for the transfer of power from the president of the vice president. Some of it voluntary, It could be involuntary. We'll get into some of that in just a second. But you now have robes. You are the one that pointed out the count to me. I'm not sure how many counts you've seen out there. And we're not just talking about one or two or on the fringe or here, but there's a now more of a collection of people who are stepped forward and publicly put their name on it saying I am calling for this to be invoked.
00:04:09
Speaker 3: Yes, and this is almost certainly in direct reaction to President Trump threatening to wipe out Iran. So more than this is according to NBC News, they are reporting that more than seventy lawmakers, including a handful of senators, as you pointed out, all said in separate social media posts. So they went into each of these lawmakers social media accounts and they publicly posted on social media that Trump's cabinet needs to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment to.
00:04:41
Speaker 4: Declare him unfit to serve.
00:04:43
Speaker 3: They want Congress to either impeach him, to convict him, or both, but they are putting their names to it.
00:04:49
Speaker 4: And they are putting it out for everyone to see and read, to be on.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: The record with they're saying he is unfit and unwell. He is actually not mentally stable enough to continue as president.
00:05:00
Speaker 2: Now we would expect robes.
00:05:02
Speaker 1: And I think one that got a lot of attention with Senator Murphy from Kinetic, a Democrat. He got a lot of attention because he is a high profile Democrat who came out and said this should happen. But there were a couple of high profile Republicans Marjorie Taylor Green she's still a Republican and Candice Owen say with you, I guess a firebrand conservative. These two women came out and they had.
00:05:23
Speaker 2: Something to say. I'm ropes.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: And Tucker Carlson he didn't exactly call for the twenty fifth, but he is against the president in some of the language he's used this week. But it's significant to hear some Republicans stepping up and so former members of convicts who are Republicans as well calling out the president.
00:05:41
Speaker 3: Yes, and people are saying that basically, and it just boils down to this, threatening a war crime is a violation of our constitution. We have never had a president We've never even had to consider this or even imagine this, that a president of the United States would threaten a war crime, reaten to wipe out a civilization if our demands aren't met by a specific time. That is a violation of our constitution. The truth is, legal experts have weighed in, of course, and said there are grounds, period for lawmakers to move forward with this. It's just whether or not these lawmakers have the stomach for it.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: Do I have right robes? That is it?
00:06:23
Speaker 1: Lawmakers are kind of powerless in this situation. Isn't this the cabinet? Aren't they the only ones who have the power right now to remove the president?
00:06:31
Speaker 4: That is what the call is for the cabinet.
00:06:33
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what I've seen people calling on the cabinet, the Trump administration to invoke this. And look, have we When has the twenty fifth Amendment been invoked in our nation's history, certainly not in recent history.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: In this way.
00:06:50
Speaker 4: Never ever has it been used in this way.
00:06:54
Speaker 1: There's never a time that a president was deemed so incapable, mentally incapable, on st able, unwilling, unable to fulfill the duties that his own colleagues had to step up and say, no, Robe, this has never ever happened. He surrounds himself with loyalists. The cabin includes Hexith and Marco Rubio. You think that group is going to vote against this guy?
00:07:21
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, I guess I was just gonna say, and they just saw him get rid of Pam Bondi and.
00:07:29
Speaker 4: Christy.
00:07:29
Speaker 3: No. I didn't want to say Ice Barby, but that's unfortunately what popped into my head. But yes, they just saw, Hey, you do something he doesn't like, You're out, You're gone, You're forgotten. If they like their stature, if they like their power, if they like their platform, they're not going to do anything to upset the president.
00:07:47
Speaker 2: And they've been.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: Towing the line publicly, the complete in line with the president, praising the President at every chance they get in front of microphone. I can't imagine that happening. But so right now, everybody on the outside robes at this point is a little powerless and what they can do a lot of people are getting on the record. I'm not sure how significant this is, but I mean, the NAACP is a storied organization in this country. For them to step up, and I actually gave them credit rogue. I pointed out and showed you their statement. At least the first paragraph. I said, that was well said without the politics. It just kind of got to the point, and I thought, kind of nailed what a lot of people are thinking.
00:08:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't heavy on emotion.
00:08:29
Speaker 3: It was mostly just on logic and on basically lawfulness. So here's what the NAACP put out today. The n DOUBLEACP demands urgent action to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment in response to alarming signs of President Trump's deteriorating health and increasingly delusional behavior. This is the first time the N DOUBLEACP has ever called for the twenty fifth Amendment to be invoked. The rhetoric and actions emanating from the highest office in the land has reached a level of instability that poses a direct threat to the well being of millions of Americans and the integrity of our armed forces.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: It is well said. I mean, it kind of nails it without being so partisan. And a lot of people will take issue with that. And I say that robes remembering as we are looking at so much in the President's like, how could anyone defend the president saying he's not going to just bomb a place, or take out the civilian infrastructure, or blow up a power plan, he said. And not just the people, he said, I Am going to wipe out a civilization. No, an entire civilization will die tonight tonight. Right, So you see that, and obviously everybody would react to that the same way. That's too far, And Robobes, I always leave space for I mean, his supporters. Maybe they see this rhetoric and they like it. We watched a pretty remarkable interview on Fox News, and again not taking issue with it anybody over there or this anchor in particular, but to hear this interview Robes with his anchor with a member of a high profile member of Congress, and he was simply asking and trying to get her to agree that that language is not something that we should be proud of as Americans, right putting out there, and she refused to concede the point even a little bit. That what the president said was wrong.
00:10:31
Speaker 4: It's true.
00:10:32
Speaker 3: She kept going back to, well, diplomacy, how's that.
00:10:37
Speaker 4: Worked, How's that worked for us?
00:10:39
Speaker 3: How did Biden and Barack Obama's diplomacy work?
00:10:43
Speaker 4: Not so well? Did it?
00:10:44
Speaker 3: She kept talking about fifteen hundred Americans who've been killed and then just basically said it's time for tough talk. And the thing is, this wasn't tough talk. This was, frankly, an illegal threat. And there's a line, and it wasn't even close. It was clearly stepped over and trashed and disregarded. How I think we pride ourselves as Americans. People know we're not going to target civilians, or at least I would hope that would be what people would assume. Maybe I'm crazy, but at least it's been the policy from my seat that we don't target civilians, that we don't threaten civilian life, we don't threaten to take out an entire civilization, like that's unthinkable. That's the word we were using, because never before have we heard it, and never would I have ever anticipated that we would hear something like that.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: That's where I like to leave space, because there might be someone Is it possible there are people or a decent amount of the population, or he has his supporters who saw.
00:11:48
Speaker 2: Him threaten to wipe out a population.
00:11:51
Speaker 4: And thought, yeah, it's about time.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: And now looking at the result, I don't even want to get into the result. It doesn't matter what the result is the language. I don't know how we would ever go about endorsing so all of that language. That's what prompted people to say twenty fifth amendments. So, yes, we are going to next take you down, oh middle school lane, take you back to school, and we are going to do a little twenty fifth Amendment lesson and remind you how many times it's been invoked in our history, Why was put in place in the first place, and if it's ever been used in this way?
00:12:27
Speaker 2: Not even close.
00:12:28
Speaker 1: Actually, stay here, all right, we continue here on Amy and TJ.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: Rogues twenty fifth Amendment.
00:12:42
Speaker 1: We all kind of generally, you know what, I think I've seen more about the twenty fifth Amendment in movies or on twenty four Maybe.
00:12:51
Speaker 4: That's so funny.
00:12:52
Speaker 3: That's the only time I actually even remember it being referenced, the twenty five.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: But we all have a general idea that the president can be removed from office. We see I think we've seen it dramatized, but it's never happened in real life. I didn't remember this either, Robes. It was put in place after the assassination of John F.
00:13:11
Speaker 2: Kennedy.
00:13:12
Speaker 4: It makes a lot of sense.
00:13:13
Speaker 1: We didn't have a mechanism for the easy transfer of power. So it was put in place. Yes, Congress approved it in nineteen sixty five. It was ratified by the right number of states. I think it was thirty eight. That was in nineteen sixty seven. It goes into place. But rose, there are several sections of it, and there's one section that's never been invoked before in that section four. But the sections that have been invoked robes section three in particular. You see it, let's see whatever the president the Vegas have man. Yeah, Section three is the one that's been invoked mostly, and this is when essentially you can kind of plan this when the president's going to have surgery or something like that.
00:13:53
Speaker 2: So the text of it, we will read you. Section three. You have in front of you, Yep.
00:13:56
Speaker 4: Section three.
00:13:56
Speaker 3: Whenever the president transmits to the President pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the vice president as acting presidents. So, yes, when a president has to go into surgery.
00:14:21
Speaker 4: Is that really the only time that it's happened.
00:14:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm misspoken a previous podcast Reagan. It happened under Reagan. I thought, yeah, of course during assassination temp they didn't invoke it. Then it was he had actually a surgery during his presidency in nineteen eighty five, and he invoked it then, but it was not officially invoked after the assassination.
00:14:45
Speaker 3: Crazy.
00:14:46
Speaker 4: That is some reason I got more respect from him.
00:14:48
Speaker 3: I would have assumed it was that point as well.
00:14:51
Speaker 1: That one, but the other three times were all colonoscopies.
00:14:55
Speaker 4: That is hilarious.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: Joe Biden had one, and George W. Bush too. That was the So the twenty fifth Amendment, that's when it's been used.
00:15:05
Speaker 2: Now.
00:15:05
Speaker 1: Section one in section two have to do with when there's a vacancy and the vice presidency and trans That is not relevant to what we're talking about in the presidency. So it's Section three and four that are relevant. Section four is the one we're talking about robes that has never ever been invoked. I'm not sure however close the country has come to this.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'm sure there might have been moments, but there's not a moment that I can recall, at least so in the past thirty years as a journalist, I have never once covered a rallying cry for a sitting president to be removed and people talking about the twenty fifth Amendment.
00:15:40
Speaker 4: I have never witnessed that professionally.
00:15:44
Speaker 1: Actually, no, we haven't, and I'm trying to think of in our life, tousins we've been on earth, have we ever had a president in which they ever were questioned in such a way that this person's gone mad?
00:15:55
Speaker 3: Correct, like their mental health was, yes, specifically in question. Jo Biden's the only other president where I know people were curious or questioning where he was, what he was capable of mentally and physically. But never I still didn't hear the twenty fifth Amendment being talked about the.
00:16:12
Speaker 1: President right now, Versident Trump still who Sinhala's that the twenty fifth should have been invoked when it comes to Biden. But Section four says this, 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 tempt 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 President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting president. That says they have to take a vote. The majority of that cabinet have to say, Yep, we don't think this guy is capable of continuing. They have to let the Congress know. Congress then has to vote. The president, who is sideline, gets a chance to make his case, and then is two thirds of Congress has to vote for him whether or not the acting Vice president or the acting president continues. So it's not just a matter of the cabinet. There's a whole legal process that would be fascinating to watch.
00:17:12
Speaker 2: No chance that no change.
00:17:14
Speaker 1: You're gonna get two thirds of Congress to say this guy is incapable of continuing in the office, right.
00:17:20
Speaker 4: I don't think so. And his cabinet, you're not gonna get a hat. You're not gonna get.
00:17:23
Speaker 3: Two of them, obviously, No within his cabinet, that's the stuff that's right there.
00:17:27
Speaker 4: That's not going to happen, clearly.
00:17:30
Speaker 3: But I just to me, I'm imagining if not these last few truth social posts that we've witnessed. Then what I mean, that's what scares me because each time we have been talking about his leadership this second term NonStop, and we constantly are doing podcasts saying he's just dropped, dropped my jaw again, he's just surprised me again. Just when I think he couldn't do something that's more shocking, he does, And Babe, it just continues to happen.
00:18:01
Speaker 4: So I just don't know where it's headed, Like what's next?
00:18:04
Speaker 2: This isn't going to make you feel good.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: But I did read several I really want to give this person credit, but I was reading a a legal scholar constitutional scholar trying to explain bad acts don't constitute somebody not capable of pulling off the job. Just because you don't like what that person's doing, how crazy what that person is doing might seem to you. Are they capable of making the decision? Doesn't matter what the decision is. Wow, So it's such a high bar constitutionally, even you can't just make the decision. That's an unhinged statement. Okay, was he capable of composing a tweet doesn't mean he's incapable just because you don't like what he's doing.
00:18:49
Speaker 3: That's unfortunate, But what if it's dangerous, It's not about me liking it or not.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: Who gets what'sous dangers? Who gets to deem people make angerous decisions every day as leaders, so they're in lines are but twenty fifth Amendment. The conversation did start to swell up more in the past forty eight hours. Who knows how much it will continue, but we wanted to hop on and be a part of that conversation as well. Always appreciate you being a part of it with us. For my dear Ammy Robot, I am TJ. Holmes and we will talk to y'all soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Wednesday, April eighth.
00:00:05
Speaker 2: Could it really happen?
00:00:08
Speaker 1: Are they really going to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment and remove President Trump from office?
00:00:16
Speaker 2: With that?
00:00:16
Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ scenes unlikely Robes, But there is a different type of drum beat, more mainstream, more voices, bigger voices after some of the messages from the President this week that some are saying this guy needs to be removed involuntarily.
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Yes, some of the messages, perhaps specifically a very incendiary message that was sent out yesterday declaring the apocalypse that hour are. We didn't want to do it, but they were making us wipe off or wipe out an entire civilization. We were going to make an entire civilization die if this country didn't do what we.
00:01:00
Speaker 4: Wanted them to do when we wanted them to do it.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Okay, so here we are Robes now.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: When he sent that message, a lot of people started stepping out, including some senators, and saying the twenty fifth Amendment should be invoked.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: Now, rogues.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: As we record this, there is a ceasefire shaky in place. Are some going to back off and essentially say wow? Whatever his method was it did work.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's the case, because a lot of folks aren't even buying the fact that his message is the reason why we suddenly have a ceasefire. There are questions in play right now as to just what Iran exactly has even agreed to, what their perception of a ceasefire actually is, and what it must result in before though actually have this war be over. So there is so much gray area, and a lot of folks even think some of this is contrived. That President Trump knew that there negotiations going on.
00:02:01
Speaker 4: President Trump knew that.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: We were about to get to a point where we could have some sort of an agreement where he could back off or he could have an off ramp.
00:02:08
Speaker 4: So he put out this fiery message. It looked like he was the man.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: So it wasn't really from the heart. It was a part of a strategy, so it was okay. So he didn't really mean it when he sent it. Do you think that it makes him a mad genius? He's he's You still don't want to be playing with language exactly. You actually just brought something up I didn't really think about a lot of people were saying he should be removed because this is an unhinged, crazy person who has nuclear codes. You are saying in a way that this is a very sane person who was playing us all and know exactly what he was doing.
00:02:40
Speaker 3: I think there are people who think it's one or the other, but either way, there is a whole other group who claims just by using the language he used, just by threatening to target civilians, target we didn't know. But to say you're wiping out an entire civilization, that would imply that you would be targeting everyone, not just military operations or military installations, And that, in and of itself, that threat, that fear, that trauma, that that caused is a war crime in and of itself. Just to threaten that is not something that this world tolerates.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's get caught up here, folks on the twenty fifth Amendment.
00:03:24
Speaker 4: We're going to schoolhouse rock.
00:03:25
Speaker 1: This thing a little bit and take us all back to the twenty fifth Amendment. But for the past several days, robes I have seen it even close to the number one or number two top trending topic on Twitter and other places, the twenty fifth Amendment, because so many are talking about it. Obviously it is the thing that allows for the transfer of power from the president of the vice president. Some of it voluntary, It could be involuntary. We'll get into some of that in just a second. But you now have robes. You are the one that pointed out the count to me. I'm not sure how many counts you've seen out there. And we're not just talking about one or two or on the fringe or here, but there's a now more of a collection of people who are stepped forward and publicly put their name on it saying I am calling for this to be invoked.
00:04:09
Speaker 3: Yes, and this is almost certainly in direct reaction to President Trump threatening to wipe out Iran. So more than this is according to NBC News, they are reporting that more than seventy lawmakers, including a handful of senators, as you pointed out, all said in separate social media posts. So they went into each of these lawmakers social media accounts and they publicly posted on social media that Trump's cabinet needs to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment to.
00:04:41
Speaker 4: Declare him unfit to serve.
00:04:43
Speaker 3: They want Congress to either impeach him, to convict him, or both, but they are putting their names to it.
00:04:49
Speaker 4: And they are putting it out for everyone to see and read, to be on.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: The record with they're saying he is unfit and unwell. He is actually not mentally stable enough to continue as president.
00:05:00
Speaker 2: Now we would expect robes.
00:05:02
Speaker 1: And I think one that got a lot of attention with Senator Murphy from Kinetic, a Democrat. He got a lot of attention because he is a high profile Democrat who came out and said this should happen. But there were a couple of high profile Republicans Marjorie Taylor Green she's still a Republican and Candice Owen say with you, I guess a firebrand conservative. These two women came out and they had.
00:05:23
Speaker 2: Something to say. I'm ropes.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: And Tucker Carlson he didn't exactly call for the twenty fifth, but he is against the president in some of the language he's used this week. But it's significant to hear some Republicans stepping up and so former members of convicts who are Republicans as well calling out the president.
00:05:41
Speaker 3: Yes, and people are saying that basically, and it just boils down to this, threatening a war crime is a violation of our constitution. We have never had a president We've never even had to consider this or even imagine this, that a president of the United States would threaten a war crime, reaten to wipe out a civilization if our demands aren't met by a specific time. That is a violation of our constitution. The truth is, legal experts have weighed in, of course, and said there are grounds, period for lawmakers to move forward with this. It's just whether or not these lawmakers have the stomach for it.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: Do I have right robes? That is it?
00:06:23
Speaker 1: Lawmakers are kind of powerless in this situation. Isn't this the cabinet? Aren't they the only ones who have the power right now to remove the president?
00:06:31
Speaker 4: That is what the call is for the cabinet.
00:06:33
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what I've seen people calling on the cabinet, the Trump administration to invoke this. And look, have we When has the twenty fifth Amendment been invoked in our nation's history, certainly not in recent history.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: In this way.
00:06:50
Speaker 4: Never ever has it been used in this way.
00:06:54
Speaker 1: There's never a time that a president was deemed so incapable, mentally incapable, on st able, unwilling, unable to fulfill the duties that his own colleagues had to step up and say, no, Robe, this has never ever happened. He surrounds himself with loyalists. The cabin includes Hexith and Marco Rubio. You think that group is going to vote against this guy?
00:07:21
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, I guess I was just gonna say, and they just saw him get rid of Pam Bondi and.
00:07:29
Speaker 4: Christy.
00:07:29
Speaker 3: No. I didn't want to say Ice Barby, but that's unfortunately what popped into my head. But yes, they just saw, Hey, you do something he doesn't like, You're out, You're gone, You're forgotten. If they like their stature, if they like their power, if they like their platform, they're not going to do anything to upset the president.
00:07:47
Speaker 2: And they've been.
00:07:47
Speaker 1: Towing the line publicly, the complete in line with the president, praising the President at every chance they get in front of microphone. I can't imagine that happening. But so right now, everybody on the outside robes at this point is a little powerless and what they can do a lot of people are getting on the record. I'm not sure how significant this is, but I mean, the NAACP is a storied organization in this country. For them to step up, and I actually gave them credit rogue. I pointed out and showed you their statement. At least the first paragraph. I said, that was well said without the politics. It just kind of got to the point, and I thought, kind of nailed what a lot of people are thinking.
00:08:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't heavy on emotion.
00:08:29
Speaker 3: It was mostly just on logic and on basically lawfulness. So here's what the NAACP put out today. The n DOUBLEACP demands urgent action to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment in response to alarming signs of President Trump's deteriorating health and increasingly delusional behavior. This is the first time the N DOUBLEACP has ever called for the twenty fifth Amendment to be invoked. The rhetoric and actions emanating from the highest office in the land has reached a level of instability that poses a direct threat to the well being of millions of Americans and the integrity of our armed forces.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: It is well said. I mean, it kind of nails it without being so partisan. And a lot of people will take issue with that. And I say that robes remembering as we are looking at so much in the President's like, how could anyone defend the president saying he's not going to just bomb a place, or take out the civilian infrastructure, or blow up a power plan, he said. And not just the people, he said, I Am going to wipe out a civilization. No, an entire civilization will die tonight tonight. Right, So you see that, and obviously everybody would react to that the same way. That's too far, And Robobes, I always leave space for I mean, his supporters. Maybe they see this rhetoric and they like it. We watched a pretty remarkable interview on Fox News, and again not taking issue with it anybody over there or this anchor in particular, but to hear this interview Robes with his anchor with a member of a high profile member of Congress, and he was simply asking and trying to get her to agree that that language is not something that we should be proud of as Americans, right putting out there, and she refused to concede the point even a little bit. That what the president said was wrong.
00:10:31
Speaker 4: It's true.
00:10:32
Speaker 3: She kept going back to, well, diplomacy, how's that.
00:10:37
Speaker 4: Worked, How's that worked for us?
00:10:39
Speaker 3: How did Biden and Barack Obama's diplomacy work?
00:10:43
Speaker 4: Not so well? Did it?
00:10:44
Speaker 3: She kept talking about fifteen hundred Americans who've been killed and then just basically said it's time for tough talk. And the thing is, this wasn't tough talk. This was, frankly, an illegal threat. And there's a line, and it wasn't even close. It was clearly stepped over and trashed and disregarded. How I think we pride ourselves as Americans. People know we're not going to target civilians, or at least I would hope that would be what people would assume. Maybe I'm crazy, but at least it's been the policy from my seat that we don't target civilians, that we don't threaten civilian life, we don't threaten to take out an entire civilization, like that's unthinkable. That's the word we were using, because never before have we heard it, and never would I have ever anticipated that we would hear something like that.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: That's where I like to leave space, because there might be someone Is it possible there are people or a decent amount of the population, or he has his supporters who saw.
00:11:48
Speaker 2: Him threaten to wipe out a population.
00:11:51
Speaker 4: And thought, yeah, it's about time.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: And now looking at the result, I don't even want to get into the result. It doesn't matter what the result is the language. I don't know how we would ever go about endorsing so all of that language. That's what prompted people to say twenty fifth amendments. So, yes, we are going to next take you down, oh middle school lane, take you back to school, and we are going to do a little twenty fifth Amendment lesson and remind you how many times it's been invoked in our history, Why was put in place in the first place, and if it's ever been used in this way?
00:12:27
Speaker 2: Not even close.
00:12:28
Speaker 1: Actually, stay here, all right, we continue here on Amy and TJ.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: Rogues twenty fifth Amendment.
00:12:42
Speaker 1: We all kind of generally, you know what, I think I've seen more about the twenty fifth Amendment in movies or on twenty four Maybe.
00:12:51
Speaker 4: That's so funny.
00:12:52
Speaker 3: That's the only time I actually even remember it being referenced, the twenty five.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: But we all have a general idea that the president can be removed from office. We see I think we've seen it dramatized, but it's never happened in real life. I didn't remember this either, Robes. It was put in place after the assassination of John F.
00:13:11
Speaker 2: Kennedy.
00:13:12
Speaker 4: It makes a lot of sense.
00:13:13
Speaker 1: We didn't have a mechanism for the easy transfer of power. So it was put in place. Yes, Congress approved it in nineteen sixty five. It was ratified by the right number of states. I think it was thirty eight. That was in nineteen sixty seven. It goes into place. But rose, there are several sections of it, and there's one section that's never been invoked before in that section four. But the sections that have been invoked robes section three in particular. You see it, let's see whatever the president the Vegas have man. Yeah, Section three is the one that's been invoked mostly, and this is when essentially you can kind of plan this when the president's going to have surgery or something like that.
00:13:53
Speaker 2: So the text of it, we will read you. Section three. You have in front of you, Yep.
00:13:56
Speaker 4: Section three.
00:13:56
Speaker 3: Whenever the president transmits to the President pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the vice president as acting presidents. So, yes, when a president has to go into surgery.
00:14:21
Speaker 4: Is that really the only time that it's happened.
00:14:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm misspoken a previous podcast Reagan. It happened under Reagan. I thought, yeah, of course during assassination temp they didn't invoke it. Then it was he had actually a surgery during his presidency in nineteen eighty five, and he invoked it then, but it was not officially invoked after the assassination.
00:14:45
Speaker 3: Crazy.
00:14:46
Speaker 4: That is some reason I got more respect from him.
00:14:48
Speaker 3: I would have assumed it was that point as well.
00:14:51
Speaker 1: That one, but the other three times were all colonoscopies.
00:14:55
Speaker 4: That is hilarious.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: Joe Biden had one, and George W. Bush too. That was the So the twenty fifth Amendment, that's when it's been used.
00:15:05
Speaker 2: Now.
00:15:05
Speaker 1: Section one in section two have to do with when there's a vacancy and the vice presidency and trans That is not relevant to what we're talking about in the presidency. So it's Section three and four that are relevant. Section four is the one we're talking about robes that has never ever been invoked. I'm not sure however close the country has come to this.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'm sure there might have been moments, but there's not a moment that I can recall, at least so in the past thirty years as a journalist, I have never once covered a rallying cry for a sitting president to be removed and people talking about the twenty fifth Amendment.
00:15:40
Speaker 4: I have never witnessed that professionally.
00:15:44
Speaker 1: Actually, no, we haven't, and I'm trying to think of in our life, tousins we've been on earth, have we ever had a president in which they ever were questioned in such a way that this person's gone mad?
00:15:55
Speaker 3: Correct, like their mental health was, yes, specifically in question. Jo Biden's the only other president where I know people were curious or questioning where he was, what he was capable of mentally and physically. But never I still didn't hear the twenty fifth Amendment being talked about the.
00:16:12
Speaker 1: President right now, Versident Trump still who Sinhala's that the twenty fifth should have been invoked when it comes to Biden. But Section four says this, 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 tempt 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 President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting president. That says they have to take a vote. The majority of that cabinet have to say, Yep, we don't think this guy is capable of continuing. They have to let the Congress know. Congress then has to vote. The president, who is sideline, gets a chance to make his case, and then is two thirds of Congress has to vote for him whether or not the acting Vice president or the acting president continues. So it's not just a matter of the cabinet. There's a whole legal process that would be fascinating to watch.
00:17:12
Speaker 2: No chance that no change.
00:17:14
Speaker 1: You're gonna get two thirds of Congress to say this guy is incapable of continuing in the office, right.
00:17:20
Speaker 4: I don't think so. And his cabinet, you're not gonna get a hat. You're not gonna get.
00:17:23
Speaker 3: Two of them, obviously, No within his cabinet, that's the stuff that's right there.
00:17:27
Speaker 4: That's not going to happen, clearly.
00:17:30
Speaker 3: But I just to me, I'm imagining if not these last few truth social posts that we've witnessed. Then what I mean, that's what scares me because each time we have been talking about his leadership this second term NonStop, and we constantly are doing podcasts saying he's just dropped, dropped my jaw again, he's just surprised me again. Just when I think he couldn't do something that's more shocking, he does, And Babe, it just continues to happen.
00:18:01
Speaker 4: So I just don't know where it's headed, Like what's next?
00:18:04
Speaker 2: This isn't going to make you feel good.
00:18:05
Speaker 1: But I did read several I really want to give this person credit, but I was reading a a legal scholar constitutional scholar trying to explain bad acts don't constitute somebody not capable of pulling off the job. Just because you don't like what that person's doing, how crazy what that person is doing might seem to you. Are they capable of making the decision? Doesn't matter what the decision is. Wow, So it's such a high bar constitutionally, even you can't just make the decision. That's an unhinged statement. Okay, was he capable of composing a tweet doesn't mean he's incapable just because you don't like what he's doing.
00:18:49
Speaker 3: That's unfortunate, But what if it's dangerous, It's not about me liking it or not.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: Who gets what'sous dangers? Who gets to deem people make angerous decisions every day as leaders, so they're in lines are but twenty fifth Amendment. The conversation did start to swell up more in the past forty eight hours. Who knows how much it will continue, but we wanted to hop on and be a part of that conversation as well. Always appreciate you being a part of it with us. For my dear Ammy Robot, I am TJ. Holmes and we will talk to y'all soon.