If Trump wins, given his dementia he’ll be a President in Name Only (PINO)

Forget the 25th Amendment!

Trump last week falling asleep during voter roundtable event

No one—I mean no one—can deny Donald Trump has exhibited a significant level of cognitive decline since leaving office in 2020.   You don’t need a degree in psychological to get that Trump’s cognitive decline would become more pronounced with the pressures of being President. In fact, psychologist Dr. John Gartner—the founder of “Duty To Warn”-- explained in our recent interview, “I honestly believe that if Trump were to get re-elected that he would become completely incapacitated in office.”  

That’s why many have raised the possibility that if Trump were to win, Republicans would invoke the 25^th Amendment to remove Trump, thus, enabling his 40 year old running mate, J.D. Vance to become President--and serve for potentially 10 years. If you ask what I mean by Vance serving for 10 years, it’s because the 22^nd Amendment allows a person to serve up to two years of the unexpired term of an elected President and then run for two more terms.  Thus, if the Republican powerbrokers ousted Trump via the 25^th Amendment shortly after he served two full years, Vance could serve out the final nearly two years and seek the office for two additional terms.

But to be blunt, while I know it’s makes for good cable news segments, the 25^th Amendment scenario is extremely unlikely. The reason is that it’s too visible and potentially destabilizing for the nation. Keep in mind, the 25^th Amendment-- since it was ratified in 1967-- has never been utilized to remove a President against their will. And for good reason.

For starters, the process to remove a President laid out in Section 4 of the 25 Amendment is a convoluted mess--to say the least. It first would require that the “the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments…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.” But the Amendment leaves undefined what the criteria is for a President to be deemed “unable to discharge” his duties are.

Plus, this Section then allows the President to simply send a “written declaration that no inability exists” to Congress and then “he shall resume the powers and duties of his office.” That means the President would be removed from office in a very public way and then the very next day after being dethroned, the President can say “I’m fine” and he gets all his powers back.

If that scenario happens, then the 25^th Amendment gets even more murky. The original people who first petitioned to remove the President can then send another letter to Congress within four days saying the President is still unable to serve. At that point, Section 4 mandates that Congress meet within a proscribed period of time to consider the issue—between 48 hours and 21 days depending on if they are in session.

Congress is then charged to decide if the President is able to do his job. As the Amendment states, if Congress then “determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President.” If not, then “the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.” You must be thinking: Who the hell wrote this mess of a procedure?!!

Invoking the 25^th Amendment would of course trigger a massive spectacle and constitutional crisis. Imagine if this all played out on the national stage with members of Congress being lobbied by pro-Trump forces while others lobby to remove him?! If Trump truly didn’t want to let go of power, he would make it ugly from slamming Republicans trying to remove him as “traitors” to calling on his supporters to engage in another Jan 6 attack upon Congress. And it would cause the MAGA base to likely despise JD Vance and other Republicans who supported what will be seen as a coup.

That is why this is not how the GOP bosses and oligarchs will proceed. If Trump does increasingly become incompetent, they will simply manipulate him behind the scenes to fulfill their right-wing dreams such as turning Project 2025 into law. They will limit his public appearances as much as possible while getting him to sign executive orders, laws, etc. that implement their pro-wealthy and pro-religious fundamentalist aspirations.

This very scenario appears to have already occurred during Ronald Reagan’s final years in office. While it was never confirmed by doctors at the time, some have revealed that Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s in his final years of office in 1986-1989. (As a reminder, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1994, five years after he left office.  He then died 10 years later at 93.)

In 2000, long time White House correspondent Lesly Stahl wrote in her book that in 1986 she actually first saw signs of Reagan exhibiting an alarming level of cognitive decline. One story she recounted was of a 75-year-old Reagan in White House who—despite having numerous conversations in the past with Stahl—did not recognize her. She wrote, “He gave me a distant look with those milky eyes and shook my hand weakly. Oh, my, he’s gonzo, I thought.”

Stahl noted after Reagan had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she asked one of his chief advisers if Reagan had been senile when he was president. “Maybe there were symptoms,” this aide told her, “though I say that in hindsight. He would come to life for the cameras. He was on/off, on/off.”

In 2011, Reagan’s son, Ron, wrote a book that shared that his father did in fact have Alzheimer’s in the final years in the White House.  He wrote that in 1984 he noticed concerning episodes and by 1986 his father could not remember the names of familiar landmarks, etc.

Assuming that is all accurate, Reagan’s handlers didn’t try to invoke the 25^th Amendment to remove him. They knew what they would do to the country and the GOP. Instead, they managed him behind the scenes to continue imposing their agenda.

That is far more likely scenario. Trump will become a PINO—or a President in Name only. And nothing will make the GOP power brokers and Trump’s oligarchs like Elon Musk happier than a Trump puppet they can easily control to impose the agenda they have long dreamed of implementing.

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