Conservative columnist suggests ousting President Trump with the 25th Amendment

A conservative columnist has suggested in a recent New York Times op-ed that President Trump be removed from office using the Constitution's 25th Amendment.

According to the Cornell University Law School website, "The 25th Amendment, proposed by Congress and ratified by the states in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, provides the procedures for replacing the president or vice president in the event of death, removal, resignation, or incapacitation."

It was used multiple times in the 1970s; for example, to replace President Nixon after he resigned.

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In his Times op-ed, Ross Douthat, in making a case for Trump's unfitness to serve, states that, in order to be president, "one needs some basic attributes: a reasonable level of intellectual curiosity, a certain seriousness of purpose, a basic level of managerial competence, a decent attention span, a functional moral compass, a measure of restraint and self-control."

He then says that "Trump is seemingly deficient in them all."

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As such, Douthat suggests the option of invoking the 25th Amendment because "his incapacity to really govern, to truly execute the serious duties that fall to him to carry out, is nevertheless testified to daily — not by his enemies or external critics, but by...the men and women who serve around him in the White House and the cabinet."

According to Vox, the language of the amendment means that "one vice president and any eight Cabinet officers can, theoretically, decide to knock the president out of power at any time."

Douthat later adds that "...leaving a man this witless and unmastered in an office with these powers and responsibilities is an act of gross negligence..."

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Despite his arguments, Jennifer Rubin counters in a Washington Post piece that Douthat "confuses unfitness with inability 'to discharge the powers and duties' and thereby recommends a disastrous process."

She also says that the 25th Amendment is "not meant for a situation in which the president is so stupid as to raise questions about whether he is a danger to the country."