Has the 25th Amendment Section 4 ever been used to remove a president?

1. What Section 4 says and why it matters

Section 4 authorizes the vice president together with a majority of “principal officers of the executive departments” — commonly read as Cabinet secretaries — to declare a president unable to discharge the duties of office, making the vice president “acting president” until the president contests the declaration and Congress resolves the dispute ^{[1] [3]}. The provision was designed to fill a constitutional gap revealed by past presidential deaths and disabilities and to ensure continuity of government, but its language is deliberately vague about the precise thresholds and processes for determining “inability,” which is why legal scholars and officials view the mechanism as politically fraught ^{[4] [5]}.

2. Section 4’s place in the amendment’s history and other sections’ use

The 25th Amendment as a whole was ratified in 1967 to clarify succession and disability; other parts of the amendment have been used repeatedly while Section 4 has not — Section 2 was employed twice to fill vice-presidential vacancies in the 1970s, and Section 3 (the president’s voluntary transfer of power) has been used several times for medical procedures under Presidents Reagan, George W. Bush and Joe Biden, among others ^{[3] [1]}. Those precedents show the amendment functions in practice, but they also underscore that involuntary removal under Section 4 poses different legal and political stakes ^[1].

3. Near-invocations and aborted efforts

There have been notable near-invocations. After President Reagan was shot in 1981, White House aides prepared paperwork and some officials urged invoking Section 4 to make Vice President George H.W. Bush acting president, but the transfer never occurred because Reagan’s team decided not to proceed and Reagan regained capacity after surgery ^{[2] [6]}. In later years some staffers reportedly contemplated Section 4 during Reagan’s second term amid concerns about his fitness, but those efforts did not materialize into an official declaration ^[2]. Similarly, in January 2021 senior officials and lawmakers publicly debated using Section 4 against President Trump after the Capitol attack, but the mechanism was not invoked and the conversation remained political rather than procedural ^{[6] [7]}.

4. Why Section 4 remains unused: law and politics

Legal authorities warn that Section 4’s first use against a sitting, politically supported president could trigger a constitutional and political crisis because the amendment leaves several unresolved questions — including the scope of “inability,” the identity of the deciding body beyond the Cabinet, and the role of Congress in adjudication — and because it transfers presidential authority immediately to the vice president pending resolution ^{[5] [3]}. That combination of legal ambiguity and high-stakes political consequence helps explain why officials have preferred other tools — impeachment, resignation, or voluntary transfers under Section 3 — over an untested Section 4 action ^{[5] [7]}.

5. Competing views and implicit agendas

Observers diverge on Section 4’s intended use: some constitutional drafters and scholars envisioned it mainly for physical incapacity, like anesthesia or stroke, while others accept a broader reading that could encompass mental incapacity or extreme misconduct, which in practice makes invocation a political judgment ^{[8] [5]}. Political actors who publicly call for Section 4 may be motivated by expedience, by signaling concern, or by partisan strategy; conversely, opponents portray such calls as opportunistic or constitutionally dangerous, revealing that appeals to Section 4 often carry implicit political agendas as much as legal ones ^{[7] [5]}.

6. Bottom line

Every authoritative source reviewed states that Section 4 has never been used to remove a president; what exists are close calls, public debates, and legal commentary about the risks and ambiguities of doing so, but no actual invocation has ever transferred power under Section 4 ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The historical record therefore leaves Section 4 as an available but untested constitutional remedy whose first use would be as consequential legally as it would be politically ^[5].