Now that he has been sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump is entitled to a four-year lease on the White House. Based on his wild start in office, it promises to be a tumultuous and consequential tenancy.
But will Trump still reside in the East Wing four years from now? That’s harder to predict. Whether he stands to take the oath again, or watches someone else get sworn in on January 20, 2021, the chances are good that Donald Trump will at least begin that day as POTUS. But it’s far from a certainty. There are four ways that the Trump presidency could last fewer than four years: (1) death; (2) impeachment by House and conviction by Senate; (3) suspension due to disability under the 25th Amendment; and (4) resignation.
1. Death in Office
Of the 43 men who have completed service as president of the United States to date, eight died in office—an impressive rate of mortality (18 percent). Of those, four were assassinated and four died of natural causes.
Today, however, the risk of death in the presidency has been substantially reduced. Three of the four assassinations took place before 1902, when presidents wandered around in public with astonishing lack of security. The protection now provided by the Secret Service is far more thorough. So, while this danger can never be eliminated, we can remove it from the realm of the rationally ponderable.
The risk of death from natural causes has also declined. The medical care available to presidents has improved dramatically since William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia just one month after delivering his inaugural address in 1841. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt became the last president to die in office of natural causes (1945), presidents have not only tended to complete their terms, but to enjoy impressive life spans as ex-presidents. These include Harry Truman (88), Dwight Eisenhower (78), Richard Nixon (81), Gerald Ford (93), Ronald Reagan (93), and the still-living Jimmy Carter (92), George H.W. Bush (92), Bill Clinton (70) and George W. Bush (70). Lyndon Johnson’s death from heart disease (64) is the only notable exception to the rising tide of post-presidential health. The Oval Office may visibly age its occupants, but it does not stop them from reaching or exceeding average U.S. life expectancy.
Nevertheless, Donald Trump took office at the age of 70 years, 220 days, edging Ronald Reagan (69 years, 349 days) to become the oldest person ever to assume the presidency. That alone means that his survival in office cannot be taken for granted. A 71-year-old American male has an average remaining life expectancy of 13.5 years. This suggests Trump has about a 50% chance of being alive and kicking in 2031 – well beyond the constitutional limit of two terms in office. But the detailed actuarial tables tell us a more complete story. A 71-year-old American male has about a 2.6% chance of dying in the next year. This figure steadily creeps up with each year, to 3.3% in Year 4. The total cumulative chance of succumbing to the actuarial reaper within four years is a far-from-negligible 11.3%. By contrast, Trump’s defeated rival, Hillary Clinton (age 69) has about a 6.7% chance of dying during the same period, mostly by virtue of being female. President Obama (who took office at the age of 47) had only about a 1.7% cumulative chance of perishing during his first term.
Of course, President Trump’s mileage may vary. He will benefit from first-rate medical care and has little risk of losing his health insurance during the next few years. By all accounts, he is a lifelong non-smoker and a teetotaler, both qualities known to give longevity a boost. On the other hand, Trump is at least somewhat overweight and not known to be fond of vigorous exercise. Overall, though Trump may fare slightly better than the average person his age, we know little about his health condition or history. Trump’s doctor released a letter during the campaign proclaiming that if elected, his client “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” – a claim which he later said was inspired by the hyperbolic literary style of his patient. After the election, the physician was more philosophical. “If something happens to him, then it happens to him,” Dr. Bornstein told the medical publication STAT. “It’s like all the rest of us, no? That’s why we have a vice president and a speaker of the House and a whole line of people. They can just keep dying.”
Indeed, as a matter of constitutional law, Dr. Bornstein is correct: that is precisely why we have them.
Estimated chance of death in office from natural causes, 2017-21: 10%
2. Impeachment
As unhappy a fate as death in office may be, it can strike the greatest of presidents. It necessarily limits future opportunities, but puts no damper on historical reputations. Impeachment is a different story. Although no president has ever been removed from office through this arduous constitutional process, no one wants to be the first. Even getting halfway there badly tarnished the legacies of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Richard Nixon chose the only slightly lesser ignominy of resigning from office to avoid it.
“Impeachment” is the popular shorthand term used for the removal of the president by Congress for significant misdeeds. Technically, however, impeachment refers only to the first step in the process – a simple majority vote by the House of Representatives to charge the president (or another high official) with misconduct. The second step is a trial on those charges, conducted not by a court, but by the Senate (albeit with the Chief Justice of the United States presiding). Only if the Senate votes to convict (by a two-thirds majority) is the president removed from office.
In a system designed to set the executive and legislative branches at odds, it is striking how rarely the impeachment process has been used against U.S. presidents, with only two votes to impeach by the House and no convictions by the Senate. This is even more remarkable given that Congress alone determines whether the constitutional grounds for impeachment exist (namely, “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” per Art. II, Sec. 4). Congress’ decision on impeachment is not reviewable by the courts, a telling indication that it is a political judgment more than a judicial one.
That was certainly evident in the first impeachment of a president, when Congress attempted to remove Andrew Johnson in a dispute over post-Civil War Reconstruction policy in 1868. Formally, the House impeached Johnson for violating the Tenure in Office Act, which forbade him to remove cabinet officials without Senate approval. After trial, the Senate voted 35-19 to convict Johnson of the charges, falling just one vote short of the two-thirds majority necessary for his removal. Johnson completed the remainder of his term in office, an unsatisfactory president in many ways. But history vindicated his acquittal. The Tenure in Office Act was repealed in 1887, and in the case of Myers v. United States (1926), the Supreme Court gave belated support to Johnson’s position by finding a similar statute unconstitutional.
Johnson’s impeachment may have been misguided, but at least it involved great constitutional issues and affairs of state. The impeachment of President Clinton in 1998-99 was a more sordid affair. During a civil lawsuit relating to events before he took office, Clinton was accused of lying under oath to cover up a sexual relationship with an intern (conducted while very much in office). The House voted to impeach Clinton for this indiscretion, largely on partisan lines. The soiled laundry was aired in an uncomfortable Senate trial, climaxing in a more comfortable acquittal for President Clinton, on votes of 50-50 (on the charge of perjury) and 45-55 (on obstruction of justice). Highlighting the Senate’s discretion in interpreting Art. II, Sec. 4, several senators stated that they considered Clinton to have committed perjury, but voted for acquittal on the grounds that such conduct in a private suit did not rise to the level of a “high crime or misdemeanor” under the Constitution.
In contrast to these two failed attempts to remove a president, the 1974 impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon continue to enjoy an exemplary reputation. After amassing convincing evidence of Nixon’s obstruction of justice, the House Judiciary Committee voted to send three articles of impeachment to the full House. With impeachment certain and conviction extremely likely, Nixon resigned his office two weeks later.
This small historical data set suggests some enduring requirements for the removal of a president. First, the president must face a hostile majority in the House of Representatives that is willing and able to pursue his alleged misdeeds. Second, the president must lose the “firewall” of support from his own party in the Senate that would normally prevent a two-thirds vote to convict.
Donald Trump came to office with a full docket of legal troubles. These include investigations of Russian interference in the election that brought him to power, a web of unresolved foreign and domestic business entanglements, and a remarkable number of pending private lawsuits. Several prominent scholars claim that Trump’s undivested business empire put him in violation of the Construction’s Emoluments Clause (Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 8) from the moment he put his hand to the Bible on January 20. This docket was amassed before the famously impulsive and thin-skinned Trump put his hands on the machinery of government. With many promises of dubious constitutionality to keep, and a history of vindictive behavior toward opponents, the specter of Nixon-like abuses of power (or far worse) already haunts the West Wing.
But even if Donald Trump serves up suitably impeachable crimes, that does not ensure that Congress will take a swing at removing him. An impeachable offense provides the opportunity for removal, but rarely will itself provide the motive. The impeachments of Johnson and Clinton were driven by much deeper animosities than their alleged offenses. Nixon’s actual crimes were more pivotal, but he too had already earned a lifetime’s worth of hostility from his political opponents.
With Trump’s party in control of both houses of Congress at least through the 2018 midterms, the odds of his impeachment and conviction are low — but not zero. No political party sets out with the goal of ousting a president who has just won office under its banner. Given that their political fortunes are closely linked, a normal party will do everything in its power to shield its president from embarrassing investigations, let alone the horrors of impeachment. Only two things can change this equation: a fundamental conflict over principle, or a cold calculation of interest.
It is at least possible to imagine an ideological split between Trump and the Congressional GOP. After all, Trump happily departed from traditional Republican orthodoxy throughout the campaign. Yet on many fundamental issues (such as tax cuts and judicial nominations), Trump and his party are already fully aligned. On others (such as immigration and trade), the gravitational pull of Trump’s power is drawing the party into his orbit more than the other way around. With the president commanding firm devotion from its base, the GOP will increasingly become Trump’s party, and the potential for an ideological split will fade.
The most likely exception is the ongoing investigation into Trump’s Russian connections. Although Republican criticism has been muted so far, there is surely great disquiet in the generations of the party that grew up steeped in the Cold War. If hard evidence emerges that Russia not only aided Trump’s candidacy, but did so with his campaign’s connivance, the shock to the GOP could be severe. If coupled with personal financial benefit to Trump, the revelation would be even more explosive. The Republican Congress will have strong incentives not to probe too deeply in search of such evidence. But the evidence may emerge nonetheless. And then Sen. Howard Baker’s famous Watergate question, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” could yet emerge from the lips of his Republican successors.
If mortal ideological conflict with the GOP Congress is unlikely, that leaves self-preservation as a potential motive for impeachment. The question is whether Trump becomes sufficiently unpopular that Congress is compelled, for reasons of self-preservation, to launch serious investigations of his conduct. Here the significance of public opinion is felt at last. A president can preserve authority over his own party indefinitely with approval ratings in the mid-40s. But when those numbers slip into the mid-30s, that means the party’s base support is eroding. This is more than enough to endanger congressional seats in close districts, and perhaps even in “safe” ones as well. During the Watergate scandal, Nixon’s approval ratings bottomed out at 24 percent, clearly endangering his party. By contrast, Bill Clinton’s approval ratings actually rose during his impeachment saga, while his party gained seats in the midterm election of 1998. More than any legal argument, Clinton’s 73 percent approval rating assured his acquittal by the Senate.
With Trump’s approval ratings already falling into the mid-30s, the Congressional GOP faces a difficult choice. They can distance themselves from an unpopular president by investigating, or even impeaching him. But exposure of the president’s wrongdoing risks demoralizing their own core supporters, while energizing their opponents. The longer they wait, the stronger will be the temptation to try to “ride it out” by brazening through Trump’s scandals rather than spotlighting them through hearings. This dynamic is already evident in the GOP’s indifference to Trump’s financial conflicts of interest.
The odds against Trump’s impeachment by the House are further stretched by the so-called “Hastert Rule”. Named for the disgraced former Republican Speaker of the House, the Hastert Rule is not a constitutional principle, or even a formal rule of the House. Rather, it is an informal rule of the GOP caucus that no proposal will go to the floor of the House unless it first has the support of a “majority of the majority”. It is designed to ensure that moderate Republicans cannot break away to join the Democratic minority to pass legislation opposed by a majority of the GOP representatives. Thanks to the Hastert Rule, it would not be sufficient to persuade 25 Republicans to join the 193 House Democrats to vote for impeachment, even though that would provide the simple majority required by the Constitution. Instead, impeachment must first obtain the support of a majority of the 240 House Republicans before it can even be considered. In other words, 121 GOP votes would be sufficient to block the question of impeachment from ever coming to the House floor. House Speaker Paul Ryan could decide to ignore the Hastert Rule in the case of impeachment. But since the Speaker can be toppled by a majority vote of the GOP caucus, that scenario is unlikely.
So as long as the Republicans control the House, the deck is stacked against impeachment. Trump would have to become extraordinarily – even toxically—unpopular before the idea would even be considered.
Nevertheless, those holding out hope for a GOP-initiated impeachment have one ace in their hands: Vice-President Mike Pence. Before serving a single term as governor of Indiana, Pence was a member of Congress for 12 years. In his politics, demeanor, and style, Pence is almost a composite sketch of a House Republican. In contrast to the unpredictable Trump, the House GOP would know exactly what they were getting with a President Pence: a hardline conservative with a reassuring manner. If facing steep losses in the 2018 midterm election, the likelihood of a losing the presidency in 2020, and maybe a white-knuckle foreign crisis or two, the GOP might decide they are better off weathering the storm with a steady Pence at the helm.
But it is one thing to realize the Republican Party would fare better with Pence than Trump, quite another to make it happen. From the beginning of Trump’s rise, his Republican opponents have faced a crippling collective-action problem: they want something to be done, but they want someone else to do it. Impeachment would be no different. Would pro-impeachment members wilt in the face of a barrage of Trump’s tweets? Would Trump’s die-hard supporters abandon the GOP (perhaps forever) if it dumps their hero? The track record of Republican resistance to the Trump candidacy does not bode well for how it will fare during his presidency.
If the Democrats can pick up 25 seats and recapture the House in 2018 (a tall order, but possible), the situation would change dramatically. Armed with control of committees and subpoena power, a Democratic majority could launch enough investigations to make the Trump White House a miserable place. They could even vote to impeach Trump on a party-line vote; by that time, the Democratic base might well demand one. In this scenario, the odds that a Democratic House would vote to impeach Trump would dramatically increase in the last two years of his presidency, to something close to 100%.
Impeachment, however, does not automatically mean removal from office. That requires a trial and conviction by the Senate, by no less than a two-thirds vote. With the GOP currently holding 52 Senate seats (out of 100), that means all Democrats and at least 19 Republican senators would have to vote for conviction. The Clinton impeachment showed how difficult it can be to get senators to vote to convict a president of their own party; in that case, not a single one did. Trump’s Senate firewall would consist of 34 senators – that number alone would be sufficient to keep him in office.
While the odds of impeachment would invariably rise if Democrats regain control of the House, so, paradoxically, would the odds of Trump’s acquittal in the Senate. For the House to overcome the Hastert Rule and impeach Trump in 2017-18, his stock within the GOP would have to have fallen so far that his Senate firewall would probably fail as well. But if the House is under Democratic control in 2019-20, impeachment could (and probably would) proceed without waiting for much Republican support. Even if the Democrats overcome a highly unfavorable map and gain the three seats needed to capture control of Senate, there’s no imaginable scenario in which they would approach a two-thirds majority. This could set the stage for an acquittal in the Senate, after which both sides would grumpily take their case to the voters in the 2020 election.
Impeachment and removal of a president are much easier in theory than in practice. Finding evidence of an impeachable offense will not be the key obstacle. That determination is well within the discretion granted to Congress by the Constitution. But all the constitutional math boils down to this: a president cannot be ousted unless the bulk of his own political party abandons him first. Given this reality, the chances of Donald Trump’s impeachment and removal from office depend more on political alignments than legal revelations.
Estimated chance of impeachment and removal from office, 2017-18: 10%
Estimated chance of impeachment and removal, 2019-21 (if GOP controls House): 5%
Estimated chance of impeachment and removal, 2019-21 (if Democrats control House): 25%
Overall estimated chance of impeachment and removal, 2017-21: 15%
3. Disability
Impeachment is not the only way a president can be dislodged from power. The Constitution has always recognized the possibility that a president could become physically or mentally incapacitated. The original Constitution stated that “In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President.” (Art. I, Sec. 1). Left ambiguous was who would decide when the president could not “discharge the Powers and Duties” of the office, and how.
This led to some serious difficulties. For example, when President Woodrow Wilson suffered a serious stroke in 1919, the White House covered up the fact that he was completely incapacitated for months. First Lady Edith Wilson quietly ran the government until her husband was able to resume some minimal duties. Although Wilson’s true condition became known within the administration, no one was willing to take responsibility for certifying his constitutional incapacity, even at a time of pressing foreign and domestic troubles. Wilson managed to complete his term, but with little of the energy or success that marked his first seven years in office.
The constitutional ambiguity was tolerated until the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Concern about continuity of government at the height of Cold War tensions led to a significant re-write of the presidential succession provisions, which were ratified in 1967 as the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. The Amendment included two sections dealing with presidential incapacity. The first is quite straightforward, a “voluntary” incapacity provision that allows the president to declare himself temporarily unable to perform his duties:
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
This clause has been invoked three times, always by presidents undergoing planned medical procedures. In each case, it was a presidential colonoscopy that led to the brief Acting Presidencies of George H.W. Bush (1985) and Dick Cheney (2002 and 2007).
But a president will not always have prior notice of a pending incapacity, nor the capacity to recognize that incapacity when it comes. So the drafters of the Amendment also tackled the tougher task of an “involuntary” incapacity provision. This is a text that Americans may soon come to know very well, so it is worth quoting in full:
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
To remove a president from power, the advantages of the involuntary incapacity provision should be immediately evident. First, it is probably easier for the president’s party to acknowledge his gathering mental incapacity than to accuse him of impeachable crimes. Second, while the impeachment process can take weeks or months, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment can be invoked in an afternoon. If the vice-president and a majority of the cabinet are willing to put their names on a paper declaring the president incapacitated, the president’s powers will vanish the moment that paper finds its way into the hands of the Speaker of the House and the most senior member of the majority party in the Senate (currently Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah). Anyone worried about twitchy fingers near nuclear launch codes should find some comfort in this.
But the president’s powers are not necessarily gone for long. In the case of physical incapacity, the president may simply recover and reclaim his duties as well as his office. In the trickier case of mental infirmity, if the president is still sentient enough to convey his objections to Congress, the odds are good that he can claw his powers back from a presumptuous vice-president. Unless Congress backs up the declaration of incapacity by a two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate, the president can dive back into the Oval Office and recover the nuclear football. In this respect, the involuntary incapacity provision is harder to invoke than impeachment, which only requires a majority vote in the House before a two-thirds vote in the Senate. So either 145 members of the House or 34 members of the Senate would be enough to reverse a declaration of incapacity. This requirement is only slightly higher than the number of GOP House members needed to block impeachment under the Hastert Rule, and the same as that needed to block conviction for an impeachable offense in the Senate.
So how might the Twenty-Fifth Amendment play a role in the Trump Administration? For anyone of Trump’s age, progressive physical or cognitive impairment is a serious possibility, particularly under the inevitable strains of office. In Trump’s case, we must add a possible genetic susceptibility to Alzheimer’s (his father was diagnosed with the disease at age 87, six years before his death).
Many Trump critics have no need to wait for further signs of mental impairment. They have seen enough strange behavior in the campaign, the transition, and now his brief presidency to worry aloud about whether “the president is barking mad”. Yet if this be madness, it is hard to distinguish from the method that led Trump to capture a solid majority of electoral votes on Nov. 9. We need not attempt to settle that question here. But Trump’s obsessions about the size of his inaugural crowd — and ungrounded certainty that 3 million illegal votes were cast for his opponent – have hardly set these concerns to rest. Even more than the president’s policies, his very connection to reality has been put in doubt, and will likely remain there so long as he holds office.
Trump’s critics, however numerous, can’t trigger the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. That power is entrusted to the group of people mostly likely to express boundless confidence in Trump’s capacity and judgment: his vice-president and cabinet. After all, they owe their present prominence to Trump, and their political futures are linked with his. Moreover, they may not have enough regular contact with the president to know much more about his mental state than anyone else. Nothing in the Constitution requires the president to hold regular cabinet meetings. In most administrations, second-tier cabinet officials struggle to get any face time with the president.
But let’s imagine something happens that forces the cabinet to take notice. It could be a foreign crisis, driven by presidential neuroses rather than national interests. It might be a dramatic resignation by a high-level White House staffer, announcing to the world that the president is not in his right mind. Or it could just be a president visibly cracking under the strain of the office and the pressure of his critics, in a way that shocks even his most loyal adherents.
That’s when things get hard. Yes, it’s time for some game theory. How does a letter declaring the president’s incapacity even get written? Who proposes it to the cabinet? Who gathers the signatures? And what happens if the cabinet is not unanimous, and the effort becomes known before it is complete? Would the effort collapse in the face of a tweetstorm from the POTUS?
The most likely ringleader would have to be Vice-President Pence, for two simple reasons. First, he is the only official whose signature on the letter is absolutely required by the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. The vice-president cannot passively await succession (as in the case of impeachment), but must actively seek to wrest powers from the president. Second, the vice-president is the only relevant official who cannot be dismissed by the president. Any cabinet official who starts musing about invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment could be called into the boardroom for a “You’re Fired!” scene before the effort even gets off the ground.
The vice-president does, at least, have something to gain from invoking the procedure: an acting presidency of uncertain duration. Members of the cabinet, by contrast, already have their positions. They are unlikely to improve them if the president is ousted, but are certain to lose them if they fail and he hangs on to power.
Vice-President Pence would also face a high-risk political calculation. If he invokes the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in contestable circumstances, he will likely be branded as a traitor and an opportunist by pro-Trump die-hards, whose numbers within the GOP could remain considerable. Pence’s acting presidency could quickly be extinguished by minorities in either house of Congress. If so, that would likely be the end of his political career. Although Pence could not be ousted from the vice-presidency, he would lose all influence for the remainder of his term–and along with it, any chance of continuing on the ticket or being elected president in his own right. His fate might be one of serial humiliations, of the like not seen since Roman triumphs, or at least the captivity of Chris Christie.
As long as President Trump remains able to contest a determination of disability – and has enough control over his thumbs to tweet – invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment would be a deadly serious business for Pence and the cabinet. That does not make this scenario impossible. But if it happens, it won’t be the result of long public debate. Pence would have to build confidential alliances in the cabinet with the greatest of care, especially with the secretary of defense and attorney general. He would have to be confident of his standing with the GOP in Congress. Then he would have to act swiftly and decisively, leaving Trump with little opportunity to react. Pence and his co-conspirators would need to be prepared to press their claims of presidential madness to the Congress and the public – particularly if Trump took to friendly airwaves to make a case for his undiminished competence.
But even that is an optimistic scenario. What if Trump refuses to accept even temporary suspension of his powers? What if the acting president issues orders to oust the president from the Oval Office, while the president orders the acting president’s arrest? Whose orders will the Secret Service obey? What about the police and the military? As a matter of constitutional law, Acting President Pence could rightfully claim to be the lawful authority. But unlike the impeachment scenario, there will have been no time to prepare the country psychologically for a transition. Would Pence’s claim be persuasive to the men and women holding the guns? Or to those looking to their political futures? After all, President Trump’s powers could be restored within days or weeks. With the decision in the hands of Congress, we could expect mass demonstrations from all sides. And in the nation’s capital, we would find a tense standoff at best, bloodshed at worst. No matter who prevails, the result would start looking less like a constitutional procedure and more like a coup.
As painful as it would be to conclude that the president has lost his mind, that could just be the beginning of the story. The country might lose its mind as well.
Estimated chance of suspension of Trump’s presidential powers due to incapacity (2017-2020): 10%
4. Resignation
It is admittedly hard to imagine Donald Trump voluntarily renouncing power under any circumstances. So why even consider it as a possibility?
Trump showed considerable energy and drive in his run for the presidency. His ultimate victory — confounding skeptics and enemies at every turn – offered him tremendous gratification. But apparently not satisfaction. At what should be the moment of his greatest triumph, Trump is visibly troubled by a sense of underwhelming adulation.
Although Trump clearly wanted to win the presidency from the beginning, his effort often seemed to be aimed at more realistic goals: to build his brand and influence, and to earn the respect of important people who had previously scorned him. Now that he has unexpectedly checked in to the Oval Office, Trump continues to send signs of ambivalence. He was reluctant to move from Trump Tower to the White House. His wife and young son are staying behind in New York, at least temporarily. He refuses to cut ties to his business empire in any meaningful way. He declines to engage in many of the necessary mechanics of his new job (including presumably fascinating ones, like intelligence briefings). All this suggests an unusual sense of temporariness about Trump’s presidency. Perhaps it will fade as Trump becomes more comfortable in the job.
But it might not. Trump could get bored with the duties of the presidency. He could continue to get extraordinarily annoyed with critics. He might find himself deeply, persistently unpopular. Mass demonstrations could unnerve him. Investigations might tie his administration in knots and put him under tremendous pressure. The international situation could fall apart and he might find himself unable to cope with the stress of the situation. Having won the presidency, and enjoyed its perks for a spell, and yet finding further validation unobtainable, Trump just might quit.
That’s only one possibility. A more realistic view is that the more pressure Trump is under, the more he will dig in and fight to win the elusive validation he has sought throughout his life. Even if threatened with impeachment and removal, or a declaration of mental incapacity, it is easier to imagine Trump doubling down than folding. Nevertheless, if President Trump can somehow be persuaded that his work is done and there are no more points to score, it is only just possible to imagine him taking a graceful retirement. A soft pillow in Trump Tower beckons.
Chance of Trump’s resignation (2017-2020): 10%
Prepare for Four Years, But Prepare To Be Surprised
Alone, none of these scenarios for President Trump’s early departure seems likely. They are all to some degree in the president’s control—but only if he can first control himself. Even the risk of death from natural causes could be moderated with a program of diet and exercise, and regular sleep in lieu of tweeting. But Donald Trump has shown little capacity so far to manage his own impulses. If he continues to challenge the American constitutional system, in the same way he has overturned the American political order during the past two years, he may yet find a way to force it to act. Although the odds still suggest Trump should wake up as president on January 20, 2021, he faces a formidable risk of evicting himself from the White House well before that date.
Interesting article, but it didn’t mention what I still regard as the most likely cause of 2 or 4: He could get Bill-Cosby-ed out of office. Trump actually set the trap himself with his typically intemperate (and even disrespectful) remarks at Gettysburg, where he promised to sue all those liars.
So why hasn’t he started suing them? I think it’s because he’s afraid of being forced to confess or perjure himself. His best strategy is probably to hope that people forget about it, but I believe several of the accusations and strongly suspect that there are some other Donald stories out there. More importantly, the cash value of those stories has skyrocketed now that Trump is in Washington. Not like he had any shortage of enemies BEFORE he started with the crazy shenanigans.
Thanks for your comment. Based on the Bill Clinton experience, I’m doubtful that Congress would impeach and impeach Trump based on private conduct occurring before he took office, or that Trump would resign over such accusations. But lawsuits on this issue could cause him considerable political grief. I think his threats to sue accusers are a bluff, based on the reasons you mention.
Two more thought that came to me as I mulled it over. What if Melania divorced Trump? Would that bother Trump enough to get his resignation?
That led me to notice you didn’t mention the possibility of KGB-era dirt on Trump coming out. Speculative, but I think the recent golden shower story was created by Putin to reassure Trump. The Donald would know if he ever did anything that the Russians could use against him, and (1) I’m certain that Trump was on their list of targets, and (2) I’m quite sure that Donald did some of those things, whether or not the Russians got the goods.
The fake golden shower story is actually a set-up for a Dan-Rather-ing if necessary. Putin has a couple of women ready to come out and blow up the story, followed by snuffing of the story because he also has carefully prepared and absolute proof that those women’s stories are false. For example, they will testify that it happened on a certain date in Moscow, but Putin has news video that “accidentally” shows them in some other distant city on that date.
The author presents a comprehensive scenario encompassing what would and could happen under “normal” circumstances. But he does not take into consideration all the dynamics in play, especially organized resistance from the American majority — aka America.
At least 6 areas of resistance and revolution are present:
(1) protest and mass demonstration, on the ground and in the cyberspace world we all inhabit;
(2) establishing moral illegitimacy through loss of the popular vote, rigging of the vote, including the hacking investigations, still underway through Anonymous and WikiLeaks;
(3) establishing unfitness of the “POTUS” and the corporate conservative Republican government that has taken over the Federal Government of the US. This includes criminal malfeasance.
(4) Establishing the POTUS and the corporatists to be Without Honor or Humanity by revealing each act that fits that definition. Show that there is a rapid transformation toward fascism,”a philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.” (American Heritage Dictionary) This is blatantly obvious in the choice of Cabinet Secretaries.
(5) Re-establishment of a government of, by and for the People, starting with what is called a “shadow cabinet.”
(6) Security via Cyber warfare strategies.
These factors in play could rapidly speed up the process.
This is the most pile of shit for an article I have ever seen! 1. Don’t these reasons point to every President? Oh forget it, I could get too probably 20 different reasons why this article could apply to ALL past and future presidents, but I am going to stop. If this is your full time job writing posts like this, then you really should find a new job.
You might note that the author says that the probability for each scenario is 10-15% ie unlikely.
Well, you are correct – none of these scenarios for President Trump’s early departure seems likely. I think you would be pleased if Donald Trump left office, though. That’s what I gathered from your rather long treatise here.
A shame such articles are published, but Democrats will at least be busy hating Trump. Hopefully such preoccupation will distract them from finding a credible candidate for 2020,,,
Listen buddy why don’t you finish your possum roadkill dinner and STFU>
I don’t know which I’d be more likely to believe. But I’m pretty sure he will want to bail when the aggregate effect of the environment, education, unwanted military escalations (up to and including war), trade wars, tax increases, national debt increases, dollar so strong that it hurts US companies and jobs, trade wars and the other scenarios are predicted to play out, play out. Bannon will try to force him to stay to continue his vision of the Fourth Reich.
GOP has the most to lose if they allow him to keep going and fail to take action. GOP owns all responsibility if this turns into a calamity.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx
According to the current Gallup poll your statements about President Trump’s approval rating is FALSE. Maybe you were just talking about your group of friends.
I had hoped that this article would analyze the possible effect of the CREW litigation that claims Trump is violating the foreign emoluments clause, but no mention was made of it. The recent scholarly articles by the law profs pursuing that litigation assert that the Framers intended strict application of that clause. If Judge Gorsuch is confirmed, he being an “originalist” should rule based on the Framers’ 1790-era intentions and agree with those challenging law profs. If Trump is faced with a choice of divesting his ownership interest in his active businesses or resigning his presidency, I suspect he would choose the latter.
Doug, thanks for an excellent question. The article did mention the current suit over the Emoluments Clause, but only in passing. Whether a self-proclaimed originalist or not, I think all federal judges would look to the intent of the founders and the ratification debates to try to determine what the Emoluments Clause prohibits (if for no other reason than that we don’t have a lot of case law about it).
It would certainly be a major event if a federal court found that (a) the plaintiffs have standing, (b) the case is justiciable, and (c) Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause. But how would the court enforce such a decision? At most, I imagine it could issue a divestment order and then try to hold Trump in contempt if he refuses to comply. That would be rather bold, but it’s conceivable.
But a federal court can’t impeach Trump (or force him to resign). That power lies solely with Congress. For the reasons mentioned in the article, I think the current majorities in Congress are unlikely to impeach Trump, particularly on this issue. (If Congress were concerned about Trump’s overseas financial ties, it would already be holding hearings, which it conspicuously has not done.) That being said, if Congress were to turn hostile to Trump for other reasons, the Emoluments Clause could certainly provide suitable grounds for articles of impeachment.
Also note that the Emoluments Clause only prohibits such things “without the consent of Congress”. I could see an effort by the Trump Administration and its allies in Congress to pass enabling legislation in the event of an adverse court ruling. Perhaps it would fail (especially in the Senate), but we might then end up with a stalemate: one branch maintaining the foreign payments are constitutional, another maintaining they are not, and the third unable to take a clear position.
Hey Dean, Any suggestions for starting RECALL elections to remove Republican MoCs from office in more or less Democratic States? That might apply some leverage, or at least instill a little FEAR in their hearts…
Recall is an option for state officials in many states. The requirements are determined by state law. Sometimes a minimum number of voter signatures alone is required to put the question on the ballot; in other cases some kind of crime or malfeasance must at least be alleged. Some of those laws also allow for the recall of members of Congress — but the constitutionality of such a recall could be challenged based on U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (1995), which held that the states cannot add to the minimum qualifications for members of Congress set forth in the Constitution. A similar argument could be made that congressional terms are fixed by the Constitution and can’t be altered by the states. It would be an interesting case. But as you point out, even the threat of a recall could have an effect on a representative’s voting, at least before the constitutional question is decided.
Your response makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Completely senseless. Did you graduate from high school? Are you living under a rock? Do you know anything at all about law whatsoever? Don’t be retarded. Real Americans are any people who are citizens by birth right or by immigration you dumbass. And the only politicians who helped real people are Democrats these days. Wake the f up
^^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^
Good analysis from a legal and political viewpoint. However, I think one important aspect is missing from this analysis. Many people believe Trump suffers from the mental disorder “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”. People with mental disorders think differently from the rest of us. To better predict his behavior, I think including some input from a psychiatrist in ways that someone with this disorder might be expected to react will give us a better idea of what is going to happen in the next four years.
I think Trump’s mental condition is the most serious problem the country is facing and why it is imperative that he be removed from office before he does more harm.
This article does not take into account Trump’s mental state and how his unusual (Narcissistic?) thought process is likely to effect the outcome of any of these scenarios. Trump does not think like any other president we have ever had and to predict his actions and reactions without taking that into account makes for an incomplete analysis. You seriously need to get an experienced mental health expert’s opinion on his likely actions in order to get some degree of accuracy in your predictions.
It would be outside the boundaries of professional practice for mental health professionals to assess Trump’s personality. They can only give an account of behavior if they have assessed a person according to a battery of psychological tests. And contrary to public opinion, assessing someone’s personality does not give one the ability to predict their future actions, nor would attempting to do so be professional. The analysis I think was very thorough, and did take into account to some degree Trump’s mental state, as far as one could without having a mental health qualification, in the section on resignation–and that was just common sense. I personally think the liklihood of Trump throwing in the towel when things get too tough is higher than the other scenarios.
Very comprehensive analysis–thanks! I tend to think–and hope–that Trump will find the presidency too much trouble and will get bored and resign. The impact on his ego and his businesses may also be more trouble than it’s worth. I think he is first and foremost a businessman. When he realises that he cannot run the presidency like a dictatorship because of the checks and balances involved, the reality check could be quite shocking for him, as we see with the travel ban where judges rule against his exective order.
Thanks for a really useful article. We have much to think about here.
If he does not complete his term, my guess is that it will end with his resignation, but for very Trumpian reasons. He could concoct some yarn about his family being threatened (Didn’t Perot do something along those lines?). Or how Congress won’t play along to enact his wonderful plans so he quits for the good of the country. Or make up some health issue. Who knows? He’s not even slightly constrained by veracity, and he could no doubt come up with something that will leave his ego intact. Personally I will not be surprised at all if his term is shorter than the full four years. But then what–President Pence?! To me that’s even scarier, much scarier.
Thanks Mr. Falvy for an excellent, useful article. I’ve saved it in PDF format and also shared the link with all of my progressive friends and all of the progressive groups I’m associated with. This is the nuts-and-bolts document we all need to refer to during the next months and perhaps years that we spend focusing on Job One for every awakened citizen of the world: get Trump out of office.
His press conference the other day proves that he is absolutely not mentally fit to be president. His behavior was childish, and showed that he has almost zero self awareness. He could watch video of that whole press conference and have no idea that he comes across in it as a total buffoon. It is frightening and surreal that we have a CHILD standing at the gates guarding us, with the nuclear launch codes in his hands!
How are Trump’s hiring/firing practices not covered by The Tenure of Office Act?
never mind, see it was repealed in 1887
Interesting article that’s been on our minds a lot lately as we try to steer our country back to reason and away from paths of total unreasoning, unthinking screed. It takes practice-
Even in response/reaction to this you were hit by something that makes me say “what?? What is that?” I see angry people like Delma who understand nothing but who voted for Trump for nothing in reality, who thought the Clintons were criminals because someone told them, who don’t know what “justia” means so they make fun of people who use it.
They’re a force but force but like a ball of dry ice. Throw it around as quickly as possibly, hitting arguments, being stupid, disrupting discourse but getting morons elected. Meanwhile detract from the real discussion and real issues.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you call yourself a Christian, but no true follower of Christ speaks as you do. Get your own life aligned with Christ’s teachings on how to treat others before you try to sound “holier than” and condemn others with your hateful words. Christ had strong words for the religious leaders in his day that had no real mercy for others. Read your new testament. I may not approve of Trump or his Cabinet, but I do not resort to hate filled language as you are doing in the above text about the Clintons, young people in the 60’s, and people in the Peace Corp or whose who are Mormon.
Nice article. The POTUS’ (yet again) unsubstantiated tweet claiming President Obama tapped Trump’s phone lines seems to cross the line. Although House and Senate committees are going to investigate even though those-i -the know (e.g., Former DNI Head) already debunked that claim, when do such claims by the POTUS venture into “high crimes and misdemeanors?” He seems to be creeping in that direction.
Lady, I think you’re just jealous because you never got laid before. You should try it sometime, dearie.
This week reveals more about the investigations of Russian interference in the election that brought him to power move forward. His chances of impeachment may be increasing. (My two cents.)
I found this article highly informative, and enjoyed reading each potential scenario. Actually I was salivating at No. 4, but alas, he is more likely to double down than quit. However, he is a Gemini birth sign, and Geminis get very bored very quickly and need constant stimulation. If something get too mundane for them, they quickly move to the next attraction. Governing takes patience, a trait he does not possess. We shall see……thanks for writing this so perfectly.
Good article sir.