WASHINGTON ERUPTS — EX-CIA HEAD JOHN BRENNAN DEMANDS 25TH AMENDMENT ACTION AGAINST TRUMP.
Former CIA Director John Brennan did call for President Donald Trump to be removed from power under the 25th Amendment.
But the most important fact comes before the constitutional argument.
The remark is not new.
Brennan made the statement on April 11, 2026, during an interview with MS NOW’s Ali Velshi, after Trump had issued extraordinary threats against Iran during an escalating war in the Middle East.
Five months later, with the U.S.-Iran conflict still unresolved and Trump again discussing the war as the midterm elections approach, Brennan’s comments are circulating again.
That makes the headline politically relevant.
It does not make the underlying statement “breaking” news in September.
What Brennan actually said was unusually direct.
He called Trump “unhinged” and said he believed the 25th Amendment had been written “with Donald Trump in mind.”
His concern centered on Trump’s conduct as commander in chief, including the president’s control of the U.S. military and nuclear arsenal.
Brennan was reacting to a period in which Trump had threatened devastating attacks on Iranian infrastructure and warned that “a whole civilization” could die if Tehran rejected his demands.
Those words triggered widespread condemnation.
They also triggered a constitutional debate.
Some Democrats said Trump’s rhetoric showed he was no longer fit to exercise presidential power.
Trump’s defenders said he was using extreme language as part of a coercive bargaining strategy against an adversary and that disagreement with his foreign policy did not amount to presidential incapacity.
That is still the real dispute.
The 25th Amendment was designed to address presidential inability.
It was not designed as an alternative impeachment process for removing a president simply because opponents believe his policies are dangerous.
But the constitutional text also does not say presidential inability must be limited to a coma, stroke or obvious physical disability.
That makes both simplistic versions of the argument incomplete.
The amendment was ratified in 1967 after years of concern over presidential succession and incapacity, especially following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Historical experience also shaped the debate.
President Woodrow Wilson had suffered a devastating stroke while in office, leaving the government without a clear constitutional mechanism for transferring presidential authority.
President Dwight Eisenhower experienced serious health episodes.
Kennedy’s assassination then underscored the broader need for clear rules governing presidential disability, succession and vice-presidential vacancies.
Section 4 of the amendment addresses the hardest situation: a president who is allegedly unable to perform the duties of the office but who does not voluntarily step aside.
The process begins with the vice president.
That point is essential.
The vice president and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments — commonly described as the Cabinet — must declare that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office.
Congress can create a different body to participate instead of the Cabinet.
But even then, the vice president remains indispensable.
A former CIA director cannot invoke the amendment.
A senator cannot invoke it.
The House cannot invoke it alone.
A group of doctors cannot invoke it.
And a congressional commission could not invoke it without the vice president.
If Vice President JD Vance does not agree that Trump is unable to serve, Section 4 cannot begin through the normal mechanism.
That makes Brennan’s call constitutionally dramatic but practically remote.
If the vice president and Cabinet did act, Vance would immediately assume presidential powers as acting president.
Trump could then declare that no inability exists.
At that point, the vice president and Cabinet — or other congressionally designated body — could reaffirm their position.
Congress would then decide.
To keep the vice president exercising presidential authority over the president’s objection, two-thirds of both the House and Senate would have to determine that the president remains unable to serve.
That is an extraordinarily high threshold.
It was designed that way.
The framers of the amendment were deeply concerned that Section 4 could otherwise become a political weapon for removing an elected president.
The legislative history shows they intentionally built multiple checks into the process.
The vice president must participate.
Executive officials close to the president normally must participate.
And if the president contests the finding, a supermajority of both chambers is required.
Section 4 has never been used.
That makes Brennan’s proposal not merely aggressive but historically unprecedented.
There is another important correction to claims that the amendment applies only to obvious medical emergencies.
Congressional records from the amendment’s drafting show that lawmakers deliberately declined to define the word “inability” too narrowly.
The Constitution Annotated published by Congress notes that the framers wanted future officials to retain flexibility for unforeseen circumstances.
The legislative history suggests that physical or mental inability, temporary or permanent, could qualify.
Some lawmakers even discussed circumstances unrelated to conventional illness, including capture, communications failure or other conditions preventing a president from performing the office.
That does not mean unpopular rhetoric qualifies.
It means the Constitution does not contain a medical checklist.
The key question is functional.
Is the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office?
That standard is broader than “in a coma.”
It is also much narrower than “making decisions I strongly oppose.”
This is where Brennan’s argument becomes controversial.
He was not simply saying Trump’s Iran policy was wrong.
He argued that Trump’s statements reflected something deeper about judgment and capacity.
Brennan accused Trump of narcissism, megalomania, dishonesty and instability.
He said the president’s control over nuclear weapons made that alleged instability especially dangerous.
Those are serious assertions.
They are also judgments by a political critic, not medical findings.
Brennan is a former intelligence official.
He is not Trump’s physician.
He has not publicly presented a clinical examination establishing that Trump is mentally or physically unable to perform presidential duties.
That distinction is central.
A former CIA director may have expertise in national security.
He can assess whether presidential decisions increase strategic risk.
He can criticize intelligence use.
He can warn about consequences for military planning.
But those credentials do not automatically establish presidential incapacity.
Brennan’s strongest argument is therefore not medical.
It is functional and national-security based.
He is saying Trump’s behavior is so erratic, in his view, that allowing him to control military and nuclear power is itself evidence that the constitutional incapacity mechanism should be considered.
Trump’s supporters reject that premise.
They see Brennan’s intervention as another example of former national-security officials using institutional prestige to attack a president they have opposed for years.
The Iran context explains why the dispute became so intense.
In early April, Trump issued a series of threats toward Tehran amid fighting over Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.
On April 7, he warned that a “whole civilization” could die if Iran did not make a deal.
He had also threatened Iranian power plants and bridges.
The language alarmed foreign governments, U.S. lawmakers and some people inside Republican politics.
Trump then abruptly changed course and accepted a temporary ceasefire framework.
His administration defended the hard-line rhetoric as coercive diplomacy that helped force Iran toward negotiations.
That sequence allows each side to tell a different story.
Trump’s supporters can say maximum pressure worked.
The president made extreme threats.
Iran faced overwhelming military and economic pressure.
A ceasefire followed.
From that perspective, the rhetoric was not evidence of incapacity.
It was bargaining.
Critics tell the opposite story.
They say threatening civilian infrastructure and speaking about the possible destruction of an entire civilization showed reckless judgment from a commander in chief with enormous military power.
From that perspective, the temporary de-escalation does not erase the danger.
Brennan placed himself firmly in the second camp.
He was not alone.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers called in April for either impeachment, invocation of the 25th Amendment or other action to restrain Trump.
Rep. Jamie Raskin introduced H.R. 8275 on April 14.
The bill would create a Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of the Office.
The proposed commission would serve as the “other body” Congress is permitted to establish under Section 4.
It would include medical and former senior executive officials and could participate in a declaration of presidential inability.
But again, it could not act alone.
Even Raskin’s proposed commission would require the vice president’s concurrence.
That bill remains only a proposal.
It has not become law.
And the political conditions necessary for Section 4 remain absent.
Vance has not joined calls to remove Trump.
Trump’s Cabinet has not declared him unable to serve.
Republicans control Congress.
There is no realistic path today to the two-thirds majorities that would be needed if Trump contested an incapacity declaration.
So the constitutional debate is real.
The immediate removal scenario is not.
That distinction matters because the 25th Amendment and impeachment address different problems.
Impeachment is designed for misconduct.
The Constitution allows the House to impeach and the Senate to try a president for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
The 25th Amendment addresses inability.
A president can be capable of performing the office while using that power unlawfully.
That is an impeachment problem.
A president can also be free of criminal wrongdoing but become unable to function because of severe illness.
That is an incapacity problem.
The hardest cases sit between those categories.
What happens when opponents argue that reckless decision-making itself demonstrates inability?
The Constitution does not provide a simple answer.
That ambiguity is one reason Section 4 was written with such high procedural barriers.
The officials closest to the executive branch are supposed to make the first judgment.
Congress becomes the ultimate referee only if the president disputes it.
Brennan’s critics are therefore correct about one principle.
The amendment should not become a substitute for elections every time opponents believe a president’s foreign policy is dangerous.
Doing that would convert an incapacity provision into a political no-confidence vote.
The United States does not have a parliamentary system.
Presidents are not removed merely because former officials, members of Congress or majorities in opinion polls lose confidence in them.
Brennan’s supporters have an answer.
They argue that refusing even to discuss Section 4 until a president is unconscious would make the amendment too weak for the very kinds of unforeseen crises its framers intentionally left open.
If presidential behavior reflected genuine mental incapacity, they argue, the government should not have to wait for a medical catastrophe before acting.
That argument is constitutionally plausible in the abstract.
Applying it to Trump requires evidence and judgment far beyond Brennan’s television comments.
The public debate is further complicated by Brennan’s own political and legal history.
He served as CIA director under President Barack Obama.
He later became one of Trump’s most prominent national-security critics.
Trump has repeatedly accused Brennan and other former intelligence officials of abusing government power during investigations related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Brennan has denied wrongdoing.
As of September 2026, he remains under scrutiny in a Justice Department investigation examining aspects of the intelligence community’s handling of the Trump-Russia investigation and related matters.
Reuters reported in May that FBI agents questioned current and former CIA officers as prosecutors examined Brennan’s role in the January 2017 intelligence assessment and whether he made false statements to Congress about the Steele dossier.
No criminal charge has been filed against Brennan.
That is essential.
An investigation is not a conviction.
And the existence of an investigation does not prove that Brennan’s criticism of Trump is false.
It does affect the political context.
Trump and Brennan are not neutral observers of one another.
They have been adversaries for years.
The investigation itself has also become controversial.
On September 10, prosecutor Joseph diGenova, who had been overseeing a broad Justice Department inquiry involving Trump’s political adversaries, resigned.
The investigation has not produced charges against Brennan.
Brennan denies wrongdoing and has taken legal steps to preserve records connected to the inquiry.
Supporters of Trump see the investigation as overdue accountability.
Critics see it as part of a politically driven campaign of retribution.
A neutral account cannot resolve that dispute by assuming either motive.
The relevant fact is that Brennan is under investigation, has not been charged and remains a fierce public critic of the president.
That makes his April call for the 25th Amendment politically combustible.
It does not make it constitutionally meaningless.
It also does not make it constitutionally decisive.
The current Iran conflict gives the old comments new relevance.
The war that triggered Brennan’s remarks has not simply disappeared.
As of September 10, the Trump administration was preparing another major sanctions action against an unnamed bank as part of its continuing pressure campaign on Tehran.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States intended to keep raising the economic cost of doing business with the Iranian regime.
Trump also said this week that the conflict was unlikely to conclude before the November midterm elections.
That is a very different backdrop from April’s sudden crisis.
The dispute has evolved from immediate threats and ceasefire diplomacy into a longer military and economic confrontation.
That makes questions about presidential war powers, strategy and judgment politically relevant again.
It does not retroactively turn Brennan’s April interview into a new statement.
The chronology should be clear.
Trump launched U.S. military action against Iran in late February.
His threats escalated sharply in early April.
Brennan made his 25th Amendment comments on April 11.
Raskin introduced presidential-capacity legislation on April 14.
The conflict continued through the summer.
In September, the Iran war remains unresolved.
Brennan’s comments are now resurfacing in that ongoing context.
That is the strongest defensible version of the story.
There is also a weakness in describing Trump’s strategy as simply “peace through strength.”
That phrase represents a political interpretation, not an objective conclusion.
Supporters see Trump’s willingness to threaten overwhelming force as deterrence.
They compare it to Cold War doctrines that sought peace through credible military power.
They argue that adversaries exploit weakness and that the United States must make threats believable.
Critics answer that deterrence depends on discipline as much as strength.
Threatening civilian infrastructure or an entire civilization can frighten adversaries, but it can also harden resistance, alienate allies, increase civilian casualties and create escalation risks.
Ronald Reagan’s Cold War strategy included military buildup and confrontational rhetoric.
It also included sustained diplomacy, arms-control negotiations and careful alliance management.
Historical analogy does not settle whether Trump’s Iran policy is prudent.
The same caution applies to claims that critics of Trump simply refuse to accept an election result.
Some clearly oppose Trump politically.
Some have called for removal under constitutional mechanisms.
But invoking a constitutional provision is not itself an attempt to suspend the Constitution.
Section 4 exists.
Impeachment exists.
Congressional war powers exist.
Courts exist.
The question is whether those mechanisms are being invoked for the purposes they were designed to serve.
That is where scrutiny belongs.
Brennan’s statement should be judged by the same standard.
He has every right to argue that Trump is unfit.
His former office makes the warning notable.
It does not give him power to remove a president.
Trump’s defenders have every right to argue that Brennan is partisan and wrong.
That does not erase the actual language of the 25th Amendment or the intentionally broad concept of presidential inability.
The Constitution does not permit Brennan to decide.
It does not permit Congress to decide first.
The vice president is the indispensable starting point.
That fact alone makes the present campaign for Section 4 more rhetorical than operational.
The most accurate conclusion is therefore neither that Brennan has exposed an obvious constitutional emergency nor that any discussion of the 25th Amendment is inherently illegitimate.
He made a real and extraordinary call.
He did so five months ago.
He based it on his judgment that Trump’s Iran rhetoric and behavior demonstrated incapacity dangerous enough to threaten national security.
No independent constitutional authority has adopted that conclusion.
Vance has not moved against Trump.
The Cabinet has not moved against Trump.
Congress has not created Raskin’s proposed commission.
Section 4 has not been invoked.
And no public clinical evidence establishes that Trump is unable to perform the duties of the presidency.
At the same time, the 25th Amendment is not limited by its text to coma, stroke or physical paralysis.
Its framers intentionally left “inability” flexible.
That means the constitutional argument cannot be dismissed merely by saying Trump is awake, active and making decisions.
The real question would be whether he is capable of discharging the office’s powers and duties.
Under the Constitution, Brennan does not answer that question.
Neither do cable-news hosts.
Neither do viral headlines.
The vice president and Cabinet would have to answer first.
If they do not, the constitutional mechanism goes nowhere.
That is where the story stands.
The Iran war is still active.
The political temperature is rising again.
Brennan remains one of Trump’s most aggressive former intelligence critics.
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But his removal call is not breaking news.
It is an unresolved constitutional argument from April that has become relevant again because the war that produced it never truly ended.
