At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 6, thousands of insurrectionists in support of President Donald Trump breached the U.S. Capitol, pushing past Capitol police who were trying to block them from entering the building as lawmakers inside debated the certification of the presidential election. Hours after the breach, Democratic lawmakers began to call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office after he incited the rioters to move forth with their plans. 

As of Thursday morning, a growing number of Republican leaders and Cabinet officials have agreed that Trump should be removed from office before Jan. 20. Representatives such as Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and David Cicilline, D-R.I., have advocated invocating the 25th Amendment. As this push has been met with mounting support from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike, many citizens are now wondering what the invocation of the 25th Amendment would look like. Most importantly, what effect would it have on the future of President-elect Joe Biden’s presidency and American democracy itself? 

What is the 25th Amendment?

The amendment, ratified in 1967, creates a legal mechanism for designating a head of state when the president is disabled or dead. It also formalizes the historical practice that allowed the vice president to permanently take over if the president died or resigned, and it gives the president and Congress shared power to replace a vice president. 

While it is true that the amendment was created to deal with non-controversial instances of presidential unfitness, such as a president falling into a coma or being kidnapped, Section Four was made part of the amendment to deal with controversial cases as well: specifically for instances where the president’s unfitness to hold office was contested by the president himself. However, it’s the only section that’s never been invoked, and it’s unclear whether the White House will do so, especially since the process can be invoked by the Cabinet or by Congress. 

What could happen: Pence and the Cabinet:

The process of invoking the 25th Amendment has to be enacted by Pence and the Cabinet, at which time he would need to get a majority of the 14-member Cabinet, including himself, to sign a letter declaring the president to be unfit to carry out the powers and duties of the office. If Pence does get a majority of the Cabinet to agree, he becomes acting president the moment that he signs and transmits the letter to Congress. Read the complete text of the 25th Amendment here.

Realistically, if Pence were to invoke the 25th Amendment and transmit the letter to Congress that makes him acting president, Trump may contest the vice president’s actions via a letter of his own. Section Four, however, would give Pence and the Cabinet four days to respond to this letter. Congress would then vote, which requires a two-thirds supermajority, usually 67 senators and 290 House members, to permanently remove him. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives could — by simple majority vote — decline to act on the substantive dispute for the remaining 21 days. This, in effect, means that Pence could become acting president and would remain in the position for the rest of the current administration’s term in office, as long as House Democrats acceded to the new status quo. 

What could happen: Pence and Congress:

In an alternative path of invocation, Congress could appoint its own body to review the President’s fitness instead of the Cabinet. According to CNN, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during the last Congress, introduced a bill to create a congressional body for this purpose, but it was not signed into law. However, as of Thursday morning Jan. 7, Pelosi had not weighed in on removing Trump from office through the 25th Amendment. As the day went on, Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer joined fellow lawmakers in calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office.