Will Section IV of the 25th Amendment be used during Trump's Presidency?

While public calls for invoking the 25th Amendment against President Trump have surged in mid-2026 from figures like Governors Pritzker and Newsom, the constitutional mechanism remains functionally unworkable without the Vice President's cooperation. Section 4 explicitly requires the Vice President and a majority of Cabinet secretaries to jointly submit a written declaration of incapacity, making JD Vance the ultimate gatekeeper who is politically aligned with Trump and unlikely to initiate such a move. Even if the Cabinet were somehow coerced into agreement, the process demands a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to sustain the transfer of power if the President contests it, a threshold that has never been met in U.S. history and is virtually impossible in the current polarized political landscape.

The market price of 25% for 'Yes' appears to overreact to the volume of recent media commentary and political rhetoric, mistaking public debate for procedural viability. Legal scholars consistently describe Section 4 as unworkable in modern politics, noting that Cabinet allies would refuse to join a declaration against a sitting President they support. The surge in calls from Democrats and even some Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene reflects political frustration rather than a realistic pathway to removal, as the structural hurdles are designed to prevent exactly this type of partisan power transfer. The independent probability is significantly lower than the market suggests because the event requires a sequence of politically impossible actions: VP Vance betraying Trump, a majority of Trump's Cabinet defying him, and a bipartisan supermajority in Congress voting to remove a President during his term.