Was Article 25 section 4 invoked today on President Donald Trump?
Executive summary
No — based on the reporting provided, Section 4 of the 25th Amendment has not been invoked against President Donald Trump today; the record in these sources shows only discussion and advocacy about invoking it at various moments, not any formal invocation or transfer of power [1] [2] [3].
1. What Section 4 is and who can use it
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment authorizes the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” which would make the vice president acting president pending further congressional procedures, and it has never actually been used in U.S. history [1] [3] [4].
2. Public debate, advocacy and internal discussions documented in the reporting
In the weeks after January 6, 2021, a range of commentators and scholars urged invocation of Section 4 and some members of Congress and commentators publicly called on Vice President Pence and the Cabinet to act, while multiple news outlets reported that discussions were taking place among some Cabinet members and allies about invoking the amendment — but those reports describe conversations and calls for action, not an implemented constitutional procedure [5] [3] [2].
3. Practical and political hurdles the sources highlight
Legal and political analyses emphasize that Section 4 is harder to use than impeachment because only the vice president and Cabinet can initiate it, and because loyalty, political calculation, fear of reprisal, and procedural complexity make an invocation unlikely; commentators and legal scholars cited these obstacles repeatedly in the coverage [3] [6] [4].
4. The historical context and rarity of invocation
The 25th Amendment itself was ratified in 1967 to clarify succession and incapacity procedures after Kennedy’s assassination, and while Section 3 has been used for temporary medical transfers, Section 4 has never been invoked — a fact underscored across the constitutional summaries and commentaries in the provided reporting [7] [8] [1].
5. What the available sources do and do not show about “today”
None of the supplied sources reports a formal invocation of Section 4 against President Trump on any specific “today” date; the materials document debate, commentary, and in some accounts private discussions [2] [5], but they do not provide evidence that the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet signed the joint declaration required to transfer authority under Section 4 [3]. If a Section 4 invocation had occurred, it would require a verifiable joint declaration or an official notice to Congress and the White House records; the provided sources contain no such record [3] [9].
6. Alternative routes and parallel actions captured in the record
The same period of reporting shows lawmakers pursuing impeachment resolutions and other political remedies — for example, the House resolution text and related reporting on impeachment efforts are present in the files — which underscores that multiple removal mechanisms were being discussed even as Section 4 remained legally and politically fraught [10] [5].
Conclusion and limits of this analysis
Based on the documents and news excerpts provided here, there is clear evidence of calls, analyses, and private conversations about invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment but no evidence in these sources that Section 4 was formally invoked today against President Donald Trump; this analysis is limited to the supplied reporting and does not incorporate live wire reporting or official notices outside these materials [2] [3] [1].