Former Trump allies in the U.S. turn on him: “Invoke the 25th Amendment!”

People who were once allies of the MAGA movement and outspoken supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump now appear to be turning against him.

This Tuesday, Trump vowed to bring “a whole civilization” to an end just hours before the expiration of his ultimatum to Iran, in which he demanded that it reopen maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The president’s forceful threat prompted immediate backlash from several American political figures who had previously supported the current occupant of the White House.

“25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X, referring to the constitutional amendment that allows for the removal of a president who is unable to carry out the duties of office.

How does the 25th Amendment work?

The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was designed to clarify the order of presidential succession in cases of resignation, death, illness, or temporary incapacity of a sitting president.

It emerged in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. At the time, there was uncertainty about how presidential succession should be handled when Lyndon B. Johnson assumed office.

There were also concerns about what would happen if Johnson himself became ill or incapacitated before a replacement could be confirmed. As a result, Congress formally proposed the 25th Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in 1967 after being ratified by 38 states.

To declare a U.S. president unable to serve, the Constitution outlines a multistep process in which the vice president and a majority of executive branch officials must declare that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

In the current context, former congresswoman Greene is not the only one to comment on Trump’s remarks. Another former supporter of the president, controversial commentator Alex Jones, also raised the possibility of invoking the constitutional provision against the New York native.

Jones, one of the best-known conspiracy theorists in the U.S. and founder of the platform Infowars, asked attorney Robert Barnes on his podcast: “How do we Twenty-Fifth Amendment [Trump]?”

Carrying out that process is not nearly as simple as it may sound. “The problem is that the 25th Amendment is harder than impeachment, you have to get two-thirds of the House [of Representatives], you have to get two-thirds of the Senate,” Barnes replied.

If two-thirds of the members of both chambers of Congress agreed that Trump was unable to continue serving as president, he would be permanently removed from office, and current Vice President J.D. Vance would take over as acting president. If the required votes were not secured, Trump would resume his duties.

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