Can a president be removed from office without their consent under the 25th Amendment?

1. How the constitutional tool works in plain terms

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment gives the vice president, together with a majority of the Cabinet, the power to submit a written declaration to the leaders of Congress that the president is unable to perform the office’s duties, at which point the vice president immediately becomes acting president and exercises the powers of the presidency; the president can then contest that finding and, if the vice president and Cabinet persist, Congress must decide the question under a fast‑tracked procedure ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

2. What “removal” actually means under the amendment

The amendment distinguishes two outcomes: Section 1 prescribes automatic succession when a president dies, resigns, or is removed following impeachment and conviction — the vice president becomes president outright ^{[1] [5] [6]} — whereas Section 4 is a mechanism for transferring and potentially retaining presidential powers because of incapacity, not a criminal or political conviction; it therefore functions as a procedural reallocation of authority, not a traditional “removal” through impeachment ^{[2] [6]}.

3. The political and procedural hurdles that make involuntary transfer rare

Using Section 4 requires a majority of Cabinet secretaries to join the vice president in a written declaration, an action made more difficult by presidents’ constitutional power to fire Cabinet members and by real‑world vacancies; the amendment then invites a congressional supermajority dynamic — Congress must act quickly and can reinstate the president only if it fails to sustain the incapacity finding — which is why scholars and institutions emphasize that invoking Section 4 would produce a constitutional and political crisis rather than an administrative routine ^{[7] [8] [3]}.

4. The president’s ability to resist and the congressional backstop

The president may send a written statement to Congress asserting no inability and immediately resume powers unless the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet submit another declaration within days; when that happens Congress must decide, and a two‑thirds vote threshold in both chambers is required to keep the vice president in the acting role — if Congress does not meet that threshold the president resumes the office ^{[2] [4] [6]}.

5. Historical practice, contested intent, and competing interpretations

Section 4 has never been used to permanently displace an elected president; temporary transfers for medical procedures have been routine under Section 3, and administrations have debated Section 4 in moments of crisis without acting on it, reflecting both the Amendment’s origin in addressing sudden incapacity after Kennedy’s assassination and continuing disagreement among scholars about whether it was meant as a safety valve for genuine medical incapacity or as a political tool to remove an “unfit” president ^{[3] [2] [9] [10]}.

6. Theory versus politics: who benefits and who decides

Constitutional commentators warn that Section 4 leaves significant discretion to political actors — the vice president, Cabinet secretaries and ultimately Congress — so that invoking it in a partisan context could look less like neutral protection of the republic and more like a political coup, a concern reflected in analyses from the National Constitution Center and Brookings emphasizing both the constitutional pathway and the extreme political difficulty of exercising it ^{[7] [8]}.

7. Bottom line

Yes — the Constitution provides a mechanism for removing or at least suspending a president’s powers without the president’s consent through the 25th Amendment, most notably Section 4, but the mechanism is deliberately complex, untested in removing an incumbent permanently, and bounded by political realities that make its practical use rare and constitutionally contentious ^{[1] [3] [8]}.