My dear neighbor says she’s burning to throw a sponge cake in Donald Trump’s face. I warn her against doing so. She makes the best sponge cakes imaginable, with loads of cream and fresh strawberries on top. And he doesn’t deserve that. Give the cake to me instead!
Earlier I wrote about the possibility of sending Trump to where the pepper grows. But do we really wish India and Indonesia such harm? Surely we can show at least a little mercy, even in difficult times.
So what options do we have—or more precisely, what options do Americans have—to remove Trump?
“If I don’t win the midterms, I’ll be impeached,” he warned at a rally yesterday—and the midterms take place in November.
At that time, all 435 members of the House of Representatives are elected, as well as one third of the Senate (34 of 100 senators). In addition, a long list of governors, state legislatures, and local power positions are up for election, but Congress is, of course, the national center of gravity.
Midterm elections matter because they function as a referendum on the sitting president. Historically, the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress in the first midterm. It happened to Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden, and this political law of gravity also applies to Donald Trump.
If the Republicans retain majorities in both chambers, it will be interpreted as a strong endorsement from the voters. Trump will then be able to govern with considerable freedom of action, push through laws and budgets, get judges confirmed—and Congress’s oversight function will remain weak.
But if the opposition wins one or both chambers, everything changes. The U.S. then gets what is called a divided government. The president remains in office, but Congress becomes a brake. Legislation stalls, budgets become battlegrounds, hearings return, and the threat of impeachment comes back. In short: the presidential election decides who governs; the midterms decide whether they are allowed to do so.
No one knows what will happen this fall. So far, it can be stated that impeachment has been a rather ineffective tool in the United States. President Andrew Johnson survived by a margin of one vote in 1868, and Bill Clinton kept his office after impeachment in 1998. Donald Trump was impeached twice in his first term—without being convicted. No American president has ever been formally removed from office.
Some of us remember Richard Nixon, who in 1974 faced the risk of impeachment because of the Watergate scandal. Fortunately, he had the sense to resign in time. “I have never been a quitter,” he said in his televised address on August 8. “But as president, I must put the interests of the American people first.”
The next day he said farewell to his staff on the lawn outside the White House, where he turned to the press and made the V sign. The image of him with his arms raised, before the helicopter lifted off, became an iconic moment in American political history.
An impeachment of Nixon would, under the Constitution of 1787, have required a simple majority in the House of Representatives. The case would then have gone to the Senate, which could have removed him by a two-thirds majority. This rule still applies if the president is found guilty of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Donald Trump is the 47th president of the United States. Most presidents have served out their terms, but four presidents have been killed while in office. Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865, just days after the end of the Civil War, in what is still regarded as one of the most traumatic moments in American history.
James A. Garfield was shot in 1881 and died weeks later from infections, largely due to the primitive medical treatment of the time. In 1901, William McKinley was killed by an anarchist at a public event. And in 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, in an assassination that still casts long shadows over the United States.
I remember the event well. The foreign affairs correspondent Halfdan Hegtun guided us through long special broadcasts on NRK’s old “steam radio.” The next day our teacher stood stiff and solemn behind the lectern and said we must not rule out a third world war.
In addition, four presidents have died in office from illness or natural causes. The most famous—and the shortest-serving—is William Henry Harrison, who died after only 31 days in 1841. He was followed by Zachary Taylor in 1850 and Warren G. Harding in 1923. During World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt also died, after leading the country through twelve years of crisis, war, and global upheaval.
Woodrow Wilson should also be mentioned, who came close to dying in office. In the fall of 1919, in the middle of an exhausting tour, he collapsed. He had long been weakened by high blood pressure and minor strokes, but on October 2 that year he suffered a massive stroke. The left side of his body was paralyzed, his eyesight was damaged, and his mental capacity was severely reduced. In practice, he was unable to govern.
At the time, the United States had no clear mechanism for declaring a president temporarily or permanently unfit, and the 25th Amendment lay decades in the future. Instead, a power vacuum arose that was quickly filled by the president’s wife, Edith Wilson. She decided who was allowed to see him, which documents were presented, and which matters reached his sickbed in the White House.
Meanwhile, Americans were told that the president was “exhausted,” but recovering. In reality, he remained severely impaired for the rest of his term.
Edith Wilson later described her role as “stewardship”—administration, not governance. She claimed she never made political decisions herself, only sorted matters and passed them on when she believed the president was able to decide. Critics have been less charitable. Several historians have described the period as an unofficial and undeclared “regency,” in which the First Lady functioned as a kind of shadow president.
The 25th Amendment was adopted by Congress in 1965 and was meant to fill an obvious gap in the Constitution. It consists of four main parts and is, in practice, America’s emergency plan for the presidency.
First, it states, without room for interpretation, that the vice president becomes president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed. This may sound obvious today, but it was previously legally unclear.
Second, the amendment establishes a procedure for filling a vacant vice presidency. The president may nominate a new vice president, who must be approved by both chambers of Congress.
The third part allows the president to transfer power voluntarily on a temporary basis, for example in connection with surgery or serious illness. The vice president then serves as acting president until the president declares himself fit for duty again.
The fourth part is the most controversial and most discussed. It gives the vice president and a majority of the cabinet the power to declare the president unfit against his will. In that case, the vice president becomes acting president. If the president objects, the matter goes to Congress, which must decide the question by a qualified majority.
This provision is intended as an emergency solution, not a political weapon. It is written for situations where the president is clearly unable to function—for example after a stroke, in a coma, with severe dementia, or a mental breakdown—but refuses to give up power. It is not about whether he is unpopular, or whether he is seen as politically unfit.
There is no shortage of psychiatrists in today’s United States who claim that Trump is mentally ill. But as long as the president’s closest circle supports him, it is irrelevant how many psychiatrists shake their heads. Without a break in loyalty in Trump’s inner circle, nothing happens.
That’s it.
And now I suddenly feel like a cup of coffee—and a piece of sponge cake with strawberries on top.
