Ideally he is the speaker of the upper house just like the indian vice president. And similarly he becomes the acting president just in case anything happens to donald trump.
Ambedkar in case of the indian president had commented that there are no similarities except than the names of their designation. However in case of vice president all aspects are same.
The president of the United States has essentially unconstrained authority to use nuclear weapons however he sees fit.
So what would happen if the president, in the judgment of those closest to him, were to … not be in his right mind?
In such a scenario, there is, in fact, something that could quickly and legally be done to avert global catastrophe. The answer lies in Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
The amendment states that if, for whatever reason, the vice president and a majority of sitting Cabinet secretaries decide that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” they can simply put that down in writing and send it to two people — the speaker of the House and the Senate’s president pro tem.
Then the vice president would immediately become “Acting President,” and take over all the president’s powers.
Let that sink in — one vice president and any eight Cabinet officers can, theoretically, decide to knock the president out of power at any time.
If the president wants to dispute this move, he can, but then it would be up to Congress to settle the matter with a vote. A two-thirds majority in both houses would be necessary to keep the vice president in charge. If that threshold isn’t reached, the president would regain his powers.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment has never been invoked in reality, though it’s a staple of thriller fiction. But there’s been a sudden surge of interest in it in recent months, as reports of Donald Trump’s bizarre behavior behind closed doors have been piling up, and there is increasingly unsubtle speculation in Washington about the health of the president’s mind.
Whatever the current circumstances, an enormous amount rests on any president of the United States’ physical and mental health. The 25th Amendment exists as a failsafe that can be used if any president truly does appear to be unwell — as long as the people involved have the courage to actually go through with it, and the competence to carry it out without causing an even greater disaster
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The framers of the Constitution were farsighted about many things, but presidential succession was not among them. The text was vague on several matters, including on whether the vice president fully becomes president if the sitting president dies or resigns (in practice, the answer was interpreted as “yes”), and on how to fill a vice presidential vacancy in the middle of a term (in practice, the answer was interpreted as “you can’t”).
Most interestingly for our purposes, the Constitution’s original text states that a president could be removed from office for “inability” but gives zero specifics about how this would actually be determined or carried out. So when President James Garfield was bedridden after being shot and President Woodrow Wilson was debilitated by a stroke, they simply lingered on in the presidency without doing very much for months, because no one knew what else could be done while they were still drawing breath.
These scenarios may not have been so bad in the United States of the 1790s, but by the mid-20th century the country had become a global superpower, and modern communication tools created omnipresent demands for presidential decisions and actions.
The chaos and instability that followed John F. Kennedy’s assassination finally spurred Congress to move toward solving these problems. For once, it moved quickly, passing what became the 25th Amendment to the Constitution in 1965 and winning its ratification in the states by 1967.
The new amendment cleared up that yes, if a president died or resigned or was convicted of impeachment crimes, the vice president would fully become president. It provided, finally, for a simple way to fill a vacant vice presidency — the president nominates someone, and both Houses of Congress take a vote. It allowed for a president laid low by surgery or injury to voluntarily transfer his powers to the vice president and then easily get them back with a written declaration that he was healthy again.
And then there’s Section 4 — which is about how the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet can deprive the president of his powers without his consent.
2) Wait, the VP and Cabinet can depose the president?
Sort of. There are three major parts to Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. The first part establishes how a president can be quickly stripped of his powers due to inability.
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