Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here. If you've been through in American
Speaker 1: history or government class, some constitutional facts probably left a
Speaker 1: lasting impression. For example, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and
Speaker 1: the nineteenth Amendment afforded women the right to vote. But
Speaker 1: there are twenty seven amendments to the Constitution, and you
Speaker 1: may not have ever had a reason to ruminate on.
Speaker 1: The twenty five. Twenty Amendment has received special attention as
Speaker 1: news stories regarding President Donald Trump's fitness for office have emerged.
Speaker 1: The amendment was created during the Cold War following President
Speaker 1: Dwight D. Eisenhower's three serious illnesses and President John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy's nine sixty three assassination. Proposed by Congress and ratified
Speaker 1: by the States following it provides the procedures for replacing
Speaker 1: the president or vice president in case of death, removal, resignation,
Speaker 1: or incapacitation. Eisenhower originally entered into a letter agreement that
Speaker 1: stated if his health impeded his ability to run the country,
Speaker 1: power would be transferred to his vice president, Richard Nixon.
Speaker 1: This led to the official amendment that clarified the rules
Speaker 1: around transfer of power in the event of an incapacitated president.
Speaker 1: After numerous congressional hearings, the final version passed the House
Speaker 1: and Senate in nineteen sixty five and was ratified on
Speaker 1: February ninety seven. There are four sections to the twenty Amendment.
Speaker 1: Section one stipulates that the vice president will assume the
Speaker 1: role of president in case of death or resignation. Section
Speaker 1: two covers the event of a vacancy in the office
Speaker 1: of the vice president. In such case, the president is
Speaker 1: responsible for nominating a candidate, who must be confirmed by
Speaker 1: a majority vote of both houses of Congress. The history
Speaker 1: of section to ensures that there is both the president
Speaker 1: and vice president at all times. Section three states that
Speaker 1: the president has the discretion to declare his own inability
Speaker 1: to carry out the job and allows him to temporarily
Speaker 1: ceed power to the vice president. It makes it clear, however,
Speaker 1: that the vice president does not assume the office or
Speaker 1: title of president. Action for to date has never been implemented,
Speaker 1: but it's the peace of the amendment currently receiving media attention.
Speaker 1: The language empowers the vice president and the cabinet to
Speaker 1: declare a president incapacitated to quote the Amendment, whenever the
Speaker 1: Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers
Speaker 1: of the executive Departments or of such other body as
Speaker 1: Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro
Speaker 1: Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable
Speaker 1: to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The
Speaker 1: vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of
Speaker 1: the office as acting president. Section four addresses the problem
Speaker 1: of a president who is unable or unwilling to acknowledge
Speaker 1: his or her inability to discharge the powers and duties
Speaker 1: of the presidency. It would be used most likely if
Speaker 1: a president falls unexpectedly unconscious, though it also clearly applies
Speaker 1: when a president is incapacitated because of some other mental
Speaker 1: or physical inability. You may recall the invocation of the
Speaker 1: twenty five Amendment as a result of the Watergate scandal
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. President Nixon invoked it to replace
Speaker 1: resigning Vice President Spiro Agnew with General Ford. Then, when
Speaker 1: Ford replaced Nixon as President, Ford invoked it to appoint
Speaker 1: Nelson Rockefeller to succeed him as vice president. However, in
Speaker 1: order for Section four to be implemented, the vice president
Speaker 1: and a majority of the cabinet must declare the president
Speaker 1: incapacitated in a written statement to the Speaker of the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives and the President pro tem of the Senate.
Speaker 1: Once that happens, presidential powers are automatically transferred to the
Speaker 1: vice president. In order for Congress to successfully declare President disabled,
Speaker 1: two thirds in each chamber must conclude that he is
Speaker 1: unable to handle the office. The disability clause of the
Speaker 1: twenty five Amendment has been invoked multiple times since ratification.
Speaker 1: Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan invoked
Speaker 1: it during medical procedures, though it was never used when
Speaker 1: Reagan was shot in However, section four has never been
Speaker 1: invoked to remove a president from office. John Hoodak, Deputy
Speaker 1: director for the Center for Effective Public Management and Senior
Speaker 1: Fellow for Governance Studies at the Briggings Institute, writes that
Speaker 1: the process is more difficult than impeachment and is reserved
Speaker 1: only for truly unique and dire circumstances. So could Section
Speaker 1: four possibly be applied to President Trump because the vast
Speaker 1: majority of Trump's cabinet would need to support the president's removal.
Speaker 1: Many speculate that the invocation of the amendment during the
Speaker 1: Trump presidency is not realistic. At Politico, journalist and Karney wrote,
Speaker 1: the amendment is purposefully set up to require a high
Speaker 1: burden of proof, and there's no evidence that Vice President
Speaker 1: Mike Pence or the majority of Trump's cabinet have turned
Speaker 1: on him. Unprecedented events, from Michael Wolfe's book detailing turmoil
Speaker 1: inside the White House to the President's taunts of other
Speaker 1: world leaders via Twitter, have the potential to lead to
Speaker 1: unprecedented action. The bottom line, however, is that for now,
Speaker 1: it's all simply speculation. Former Harvard Law School professor Alan
Speaker 1: Derschwitz told Politico the twenty Amendment would require, for mental capacity,
Speaker 1: a major psychotic break. This is hope over reality. If
Speaker 1: we don't like someone's politics, we rail against him, we
Speaker 1: campaign against him. We don't use the psychiatric system against him.
Speaker 1: That's just dangerous. Today's episode was written by Michelle Konstantinovski
Speaker 1: and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and
Speaker 1: lots of other political topics, visit our poem planet how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com.