Rachel Madow on delivery of two letters to initiate invoking 4th article 25th Ammendment
Executive summary
Rachel Maddow’s program and affiliated writers have repeatedly reported that talk of using the 25th Amendment’s Article IV to remove a president has circulated inside political and media circles, citing calls from lawmakers and reported cabinet chatter, but the specific claim that “two letters were delivered to initiate invoking Article 4” is not substantiated in the reporting provided to this inquiry [1] [2] [3]. The sources document renewed conversation about the amendment and note who could invoke it — the vice president together with a majority of the Cabinet — yet they do not describe a formal delivery of two letters or an initiation step matching the user’s phrasing [4] [2].
1. What Maddow and her contributors actually reported
Steve Benen and other contributors on Rachel Maddow’s platform have chronicled recurring public and private talk about the 25th Amendment after controversial presidential episodes, citing voices such as Sen. Ed Markey urging invocation and unnamed accounts of cabinet members discussing the option [1] [2]. Those pieces frame the amendment as a constitutional mechanism that has surfaced repeatedly in commentary and inside-the-Beltway conversations, not as a documented, completed legal procedure to remove a president [4] [3].
2. How the reporting describes the Article IV process — in broad strokes
The reporting explains the practical premise: Article IV of the 25th Amendment provides a route for the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare a president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” thereby transferring power to the vice president — a point emphasized across the Maddow network coverage [4] [3]. Those stories emphasize that such talk surfaced again in reaction to particular presidential actions and public concern, and that the idea had been raised in both public statements and reported private conversations [1] [2].
3. The missing element: no sourced account of “delivery of two letters”
None of the provided Maddow-related sources describe or document the delivery of two letters as the mechanism that initiated a 25th Amendment Article IV action; the materials attribute calls to invoke the amendment to comments (e.g., by Sen. Markey) and to reported internal cabinet chatter rather than to finalized written submissions triggering the statutory procedure [1] [2]. Therefore, the claim that two letters were delivered to initiate Article IV cannot be substantiated from the set of sources supplied for this analysis; there is a gap between coverage of “talk” and evidence of an executed procedural step (no direct source).
4. Competing interpretations and possible agendas in the coverage
Maddow’s platform frames the 25th Amendment talk through an alarmed, accountability-oriented lens — highlighting danger and urgency after incidents like public threats or January 6-type events — while other commentators have debated the amendment’s intended use and feasibility, warning that political weaponization or constitutional stretching could be risks [3] [5]. The Maddow pieces rely on unnamed sources at times and editorial commentary (Steve Benen is identified as a producer/columnist), which invites criticism from opponents who argue such coverage can amplify panic or partisan narratives; those critical perspectives are referenced in legal and opinion debates cited by the same network [2] [5].
5. Bottom line and reporting limitation
Maddow-related reporting in the provided archive clearly documents renewed public and internal discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment and cites lawmakers urging action, but it does not provide evidence that two letters were delivered to start an Article IV process; the supplied reporting makes the procedural possibility visible but stops short of confirming an actual invocation effort inaugurated by written deliveries [1] [2] [4]. If documentation of such letters exists, it was not included among the sources made available for this review.