The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Not yet at the 17th month of a four-year term, Donald Trump is on the ropes if the salon talk around Washington means anything. At almost any political hangout in the Nation’s Capital, a patron can hear self-appointed experts explaining to friends how the rules of succession work in the world’s most important democracy.
The experts are often wrong.
The issue of Presidential succession has been kicked around since the Founders gave this subject insufficient thought at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
In an era when death often occurred far earlier than today, the participants simply delegated to Congress the uncomfortable issues of Presidential competence and succession. The result was the Succession Act of 1792, which worked until it didn’t: that was when James Garfield was shot but lingered for 80 days. Vice President Chester A. Arthur waited in the wings without legal authority to govern and left that role to the Secretary of State James Blaine.
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Arthur took the Presidency after Garfield died and served the term without a Vice President. Arthur was himself in poor health and died a year after his term ended in 1886.
Two further attempts were made to clarify the line of Presidential succession until the Kennedy assassination caused the 89th Congress in 1965 to draft the 25th Amendment, establishing the rules under which we operate today.
This subject has hit the political party line as Donald Trump’s mental and physical decline have been hard to miss. Some claim it will be death by Big Mac as the President’s weight and cholesterol numbers seemingly converge. Others believe that his battle with Pope Leo is politically deadlier than the war with Iran. The resulting low poll numbers are rarely experienced this early in a Presidential term. The accumulating case against Trump ranges from corruption to war-making to violating basic American freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Still another concern is that Trump has used the cover of ICE and the anti-immigration program to build a personal army.
Until now, the President has mostly ignored his critics and lied his way out of trouble. This is the guy who claims he barely knew Epstein, settled eight wars, and won scores of nonexistent golf championships. Yet he rose to the most powerful political job on the planet.
But the volume of boos that follow him everywhere have finally registered in his tin ear, leading a panicked President to depict himself as Jesus in a social media post all-world whopper, by the lights of many Christians a sacrilege. Instead of inventing another escape route from trouble, Trump may have worsened his standing and finally prepared the ground for his political burial. Yet kicking a President out of the Oval Office is no easy task.
One method is impeachment; a road Trump has traveled twice without losing office. That is because a simple majority in the House can begin the process, but conviction requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. His removal from office would probably require Republican votes even if the Democrats became the majority party after this year’s elections. The 25th Amendment is often cited as another way to remove a President, but that is a long reach. It was written to clarify succession in death and temporary impairment that is reversed when the President declares his or her ability in a letter to Congress.
Under current law, first in line is Vice President Vance, a public figure who has changed his name three times and his positions on issues as often as the polls require. Trump senses Vance’s weakness and sends him on missions impossible, like campaigning for Hungarian strongman Victor Orban. Vance’s entire political career has been funded by high-tech billionaires with libertarian fantasies. Second in line is Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump sycophant, who spends a lot of time in hiding. Johnson hails from a conservative district in Louisiana and is on the extreme end of the evangelical movement. If both Vance and Johnson died or resigned, next in line is the nonagenarian Senator Pro Tem Charles Grassley, who was born when Hitler was rising to power in Germany. Not until the fourth in line do we arrive at Secretary of State Marco Rubio, thought by former Senate colleagues to be credible Presidential material before suddenly abandoning every avowed principle in pursuit of power.
It is certainly not an all-star lineup, suggesting that it is time for the U.S. to take yet another crack at our Presidential succession procedures.
Terry Bracy
Terry Bracy has served as a political adviser, campaign manager, congressional aide, sub-Cabinet official, board member and as an adviser to presidents.
