How has the 25th Amendment been used or interpreted to remove or replace a president?

1. Section 1: Automatic succession on death, removal or resignation — already practiced and constitutionally affirmed

Section 1 makes clear that if a president dies, resigns, or is removed, the vice president becomes president, codifying the “Tyler precedent” and removing earlier ambiguity; that clarity has governed the most consequential transfers of power in modern history, including the succession practices affirmed by Congress and constitutional scholars ^{[4] [1] [6]}.

2. Section 2: Filling a vacant vice presidency — used to maintain stability after resignations

Section 2 lets a president nominate a new vice president who takes office after confirmation by both houses of Congress, a provision that was employed when Gerald R. Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller after Ford ascended to the presidency following Nixon’s resignation, and it was used earlier in the 1970s to fill successive vacancies created by Agnew’s and then Nixon’s departures ^{[7] [8]}.

3. Section 3: Voluntary, temporary transfer of power — routine, medical, and uncontroversial uses

Section 3 permits a president to voluntarily declare an inability and transfer power temporarily to the vice president, a mechanism that has been used for brief medical procedures and is the amendment’s least controversial operational component; presidents have used it to ensure continuity during anesthesia or procedures, with official transfers recorded and power returned upon written declaration of fitness ^{[5] [3]}.

4. Section 4: The never‑invoked, involuntary removal procedure and its political obstacles

Section 4 — which authorizes the vice president and a majority of cabinet secretaries (or another body as Congress may legislate) to declare the president unable to discharge duties and make the vice president acting president unless the president contests and Congress resolves the dispute — has never been invoked, and its complexity and political peril help explain why that is so ^{[3] [5]}.

5. Near‑uses and political drama: Reagan, post‑Jan. 6 pressure, and institutional reticence

Administrations have come close: the Reagan White House reportedly flirted with Section 4 in the 1980s but did not press it into law, and after the January 6, 2021 attack some senior officials and lawmakers urged Vice President Pence to consider Section 4 against President Trump, but Pence declined — demonstrating both the amendment’s availability and the steep political threshold to use it ^{[5] [9] [10]}.

6. Interpretive debates: law, culture, and the risk of weaponization

Legal scholars disagree about the amendment’s proper scope: some argue Section 4 was designed to remove a manifestly unfit president and should be a living tool of constitutional self‑defense, while others warn of dangers — that Cabinet officers will be too timid to act, that the mechanism could be politicized, and that many procedural details remain unresolved by courts or Congress ^{[11] [4] [10]}. The Amendment’s silence on some operational questions and the absence of judicial definitive interpretation leave its involuntary‑removal provisions more theoretical than tested ^{[4] [6]}.

7. Practical takeaway: used for succession and vacancies, not for forcible ouster — yet

In practice the 25th Amendment has functioned as the constitutional scaffolding for orderly succession and for plugging vice‑presidential vacancies (Sections 1 and 2) and for predictable temporary transfers (Section 3), but its most dramatic tool — Section 4’s involuntary removal of a sitting president — remains unused and fraught with legal ambiguity and political risk, leaving scholars and policymakers divided over whether and how it could or should be deployed ^{[7] [9] [3] [4]}.