After President Donald Trump threatened the very existence of the “whole civilisation” of Iran on Tuesday, some Democrats said it is time for the US Constitution's 25th Amendment to be invoked.
His apocalyptic post on Truth Social on Tuesday was just the latest instance of him upping the rhetoric against Iran ahead of a potential wave of US attacks on the country's bridges and power plants. On Sunday, he issued a foul-mouthed threat demanding Iran open the Strait of Hormuz.
The 25th Amendment was ratified in 1965, shortly after the assassination of president John F Kennedy, and primarily addresses scenarios in which a president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office for health reasons.
Section 4 of the amendment empowers the vice president and members of the Cabinet to determine the president's capacity to perform his role.
Moments after Mr Trump's expletive-laden post on Sunday, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy called for the President to be removed under the amendment.
“If I were in Trump's Cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th amendment,” Mr Murphy wrote on social media. “This is completely, utterly unhinged.”
His words were echoed by Iranian-American Representative Yassamin Ansari, also a Democrat, who wrote: “The 25th amendment exists for a reason.”
Ms Ansari suggested that Mr Trump's post indicated he was suffering from a mental impairment, and referred to him as a “security threat to our country and the rest of the world”.
So far, only one Republican – former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – has joined the calls for Mr Trump's removal.
“Not a single bomb has dropped on America … we cannot kill an entire civilisation,” Ms Taylor Greene wrote on Tuesday.
Google search queries on the 25th Amendment have surged in the past 24 hours.
However, there appears to be no indication that any member of Mr Trump's Cabinet, including Vice President JD Vance, has any plan to do invoke the 25th.
Democrats also called for the amendment to be invoked after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington in an attempt to prevent the certification of the 2020 election. Several politicians called for the amendment to be used to oust Mr Trump weeks before the inauguration of his successor, Joe Biden.
Although the amendment was introduced as a means to clarify and simplify presidential succession, some observers argue that Section 4 turns the decision to remove a president into a subjective judgment call.
The text states that, after members of the cabinet have submitted a written declaration indicating their invocation of the amendment, Congress must assemble within 48 hours to decide whether or not to remove the president.
Once Congress has assembled, it then has 21 days to vote on the invocation of the amendment, with the decision to remove the sitting president requiring a two-thirds majority in both houses. If the vote is passed, the vice president would take over the presidency.
Speaking to The National, Peter Yacobucci, associate professor of political science at Buffalo State University, noted that the 25th Amendment has been invoked in the past, but usually in cases in which sitting presidents have undergone medical procedures requiring them to be placed under anaesthetic.
“It has never been used to try to remove the power of a president against their will,” Dr Yacobucci said.
Section 4 complicates the process, he added. “This section also has a clause that states Congress can designate another body to make this determination. This is unchartered territory and nobody really knows what that means.”
