Author Michael Wolff said White House staffers are mentioning the 25th Amendment — specifically, the clause in the Constitution that allows the Cabinet and congressional leaders to oust the president and let the vice president take over the Oval Office — “all the time.”
Wolff, the author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” his time in the White House researching for the book resulted in him hearing talk of the 25th Amendment on a regular basis.
“All the time,” Wolff said when asked if White House staffers mentioned the 25th Amendment.
“They would say — sort of in the mid-period — we’re not at a 25th Amendment level yet. … This is alarming in every way, and then — this went on: OK, this is a little 25th Amendment. So, the 25th Amendment is a concept that is alive every day in the White House.”
Section Four of the 25th Amendment states the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet can write to the Senate president pro tempore and the speaker of the House that the president is mentally unfit for the job. If the president contests that vote and the majority of the Cabinet once again votes that he is unfit, then Congress will vote on whether the president is fit for office.
If two-thirds of the House and the Senate vote that the president is unfit for office and cannot do the job, then the vice president becomes acting president. If the vote fails, then the president continues in the job.
Wolff’s book has raised louder questions about Trump’s mental state and stability. He said he didn’t leave out any portions of the book that may have disputed the notion that Trump’s mental stability is deteriorating.
“If I left out anything, it’s probably stuff that was even more damning. It’s that bad,” he said.
He added that he didn’t come into the experience of researching the book intending to write a book slamming the president.
“I literally kind of knocked on the door and said, ‘Can I come in?’ And they said, OK,” he said. “And I came in, I sat on the couch, and that’s the point of view that I’ve written this book from. I mean the real intention of this book is to have readers sit with me on the couch and watch what’s going on in the West Wing.”
“I went into this with absolutely no agenda whatsoever. I have no particular politics when it comes to Donald Trump. This is really all about human nature.”
He added that he would have been happy to dispute the media narrative that Trump is an out-of-control president.
“You know, I went into this and a decent part of the country went into this, his entire staff went into this thinking maybe this can work,” he said. “It’s different, even peculiar, but who knows what can happen here? And that was exactly my frame of reference. I would have been delighted to have written a contrarian account here. Donald Trump, this unexpected president, is actually going to succeed. OK, that’s not the story. He is not going to succeed. This is worse than everybody thought.“
