Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such 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.
The first paragraph of section 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution of the United States
There is a lot more to it than that of course. The rest of section 4 details what happens if the disabled President recovers enough to resume office. It also details what course Congress must take if there is a disagreement between the President and acting president over the removed President's fitness.
The amendment was written after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. It is there in large part because people in power realized that even if Kennedy had somehow miraculously survived, he'd be missing a large part of his brain. Everyone wanted a Constitutional plan which allowed a clear and orderly transfer of power if a sitting President ended up with the mental capacity of a cabbage.
All of which brings us to this past weekend. In the immediate aftermath of a cyber-attack on the water systems in Minnesota and other states the U.S. intel community claimed it was unclear who was behind it. On Friday, however, the President of the United States said he knew exactly who it was. "I just want to mention," he said, "that we've heard in Minnesota that there was a cyber-attack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I think, I blame it on Minnesota because they are so grossly incompetent There was a cyber-attack on 30 water plants and I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota. They like to say, 'oh, it's Iran,' Iran should be so lucky. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota."
Then Mr. Trump went further, because, hey, he always does. A reporter asked if the President could rule out Iran as the culprit. The response was, "No, I think Minnesota's behind it. I don't think there was an Iranian cyber-attack."
That's right, the American Commander in Chief started off the weekend by blaming the state of Minnesota and its governor for a cyber-attack on its own infrastructure and those of other states. And he did so while declaring the one place we are actually at war with is completely innocent.
That, however, was just the start of it. As actor/singer, Mac Davis once said in another context, "Then came the weird part."
Over the weekend, Donald J. Trump spent an inordinate amount of his time sending out AI generated images through his social media account. Instead of working to end the afore mentioned war, improving relations with allies, trying to curb the rising costs of practically everything, or even helping republican candidates running for Congress who are floundering everywhere, he was posting things like himself kissing a large golden crucifix in front of an American flag. He also posted an image of himself, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln seated at a table. All three were signing an upside-down map of the continental United States. Why? who knows, there wasn't an explanation, but since all the signatures were being written across the northern parts of the map, maybe they were agreeing on the annexation of Canada.
Speaking of expansion, there was another image that showed a map of Venezuela striped in red, white and blue with the caption, "51st State. Another depicted him as a giant head looming over mountains while gripping one, looking down at a village in Greenland. The caption read, "Hello Greenland." Not wanting to limit himself to this world there was a photo of Trump walking in a military base somewhere trailed by aides and advisors. Among them was a rather tall alien--no, not one from Central America--one from a Star Trek/Wars movie.
There were shots at his enemies. A split screen image of a flotilla a Iranian navy ships with the caption, "Obama/Biden." Next to it was an image of all those ships laying in ruins at the bottom of the ocean with the caption, "Trump." There was an image of a badly aged Bruce Springsteen with rotting teeth which read, "What happened to Bruce Springsteen?"
They just kept coming. Trump in a revolutionary war uniform with a raised sword leading cheering troops out of light and flames into battle. The right side of Washington's face and the left side of Trump's merged as one. An image of Trump today sitting at a table with a teen aged Trump in his military school's cadet uniform with the caption, "Same guy, even more energy now." Then there was my favorite, Trump as Elvis, showing plenty of man-cleavage thanks to his low-cut rhinestone encrusted, high collared, shirt.
There were more, but everyone should get the point by now. Donald Trump, to put it diplomatically, is not a well man. Well men don't spend their weekends posting shit like he did. It is unimaginable that any former president, even if AI had been available to them, would have. All of them, even that drunken felon, Richard Nixon thought too much of the office to debase it like Donald Trump just did.
In the past, Mr. Trump has bounced back and forth between periods of lucidity and outbursts of ego maniacal psychosis. It now appears those periods of sanity are shrinking while the manic episodes are growing more frequent. Perhaps it is his age, maybe the war he started and can't finish. It might be a combination of both. Overwhelming frustration with the war coupled with a genetic predisposition toward dementia.
In the end it doesn't matter. What does is that this weekend, Donald John Trump, the President of United States of America, proved himself, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be as mad as a hatter and the first real candidate for the 25th amendment.
Tragically for the republic, finding enough people who have the guts to invoke it will be like Trump's behavior over the weekend--unimaginable.
8-4-26
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