"EX-CIA HEAD DEMANDS TRUMP BE OUSTED: Shockwaves Hit Washington!"
BRENNAN DID CALL FOR THE 25TH AMENDMENT AFTER TRUMP'S IRAN THREATS - BUT THE CONSTITUTIONAL STORY IS MORE COMPLICATED
Former CIA Director John Brennan really did say in April 2026 that President Donald Trump was "clearly unhinged" and that he thought the 25th Amendment was "written with Donald Trump in mind" after Trump threatened catastrophic consequences for Iran. The criticism was extraordinary, but several claims commonly made around it need correction. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment is not limited by its text to a diagnosed medical illness, although its framers did not intend it as a substitute for elections or impeachment whenever a president is unpopular, reckless or pursuing disputed policy. Brennan himself has no power to invoke it. Only the vice president acting with a majority of the Cabinet, or another body Congress creates by law, can initiate the process. And Section 4 transfers presidential powers to an Acting President; it does not itself remove the president from office.
Updated and fact-checked through Sept. 12, 2026.
Brennan's Remark Was Real - and It Was Made in April, Not as a New September Statement
On April 11, former CIA Director John Brennan appeared with Ali Velshi on MS NOW during an intense phase of the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Brennan described Trump's statements as dangerous and said the president was 'clearly unhinged.' He then said, 'I think the 25th Amendment was written with Donald Trump in mind,' pointing to Trump's control of U.S. military power and the nuclear arsenal.
News organizations including The Guardian, The Independent and Fox News reported the remarks at the time.
The quotation is authentic. A current article should make clear that Brennan said it in April 2026 rather than presenting it as a newly issued September demand.
Trump Had Issued an Extraordinary Threat Against Iran
Brennan's comments followed unusually extreme presidential rhetoric during the Iran war.
On April 7, Trump wrote that if an agreement was not reached, 'a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.' Days earlier, he had also threatened Iranian power plants, bridges and other infrastructure while demanding that the Strait of Hormuz be reopened.
The threats drew condemnation from Democratic lawmakers, foreign officials and some former Trump allies. Trump later agreed to a temporary ceasefire with Iran.
Brennan was responding to real and exceptionally severe presidential rhetoric, not inventing the underlying quotation attributed to Trump.
Brennan's Nuclear Interpretation Was an Inference, Not an Explicit Trump Nuclear Threat
In the MS NOW interview, Brennan said Trump's language about eliminating an entire civilization seemed to allude to the United States' nuclear capabilities.
That was Brennan's interpretation of the scale of Trump's threat. The quoted Trump post did not explicitly say the United States would use nuclear weapons.
Trump, as president and commander in chief, does have authority over the U.S. nuclear arsenal subject to the legal and military systems governing presidential orders. That makes nuclear-risk concerns politically serious even when the president has not expressly threatened a nuclear strike.
It is accurate to say Brennan feared Trump's rhetoric could imply nuclear escalation. It is too strong to report that Trump explicitly threatened nuclear use in the quoted statement.
The 25th Amendment Was Adopted to Solve Presidential Inability and Succession Problems
The 25th Amendment was proposed after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and ratified in 1967.
It addressed several longstanding constitutional problems: what happens when a president dies, resigns or is removed; how a vice-presidential vacancy is filled; and how presidential powers can be transferred when a president is unable to discharge the duties of the office.
Sections 3 and 4 deal specifically with presidential inability. Section 3 allows a president to declare an inability voluntarily. Section 4 provides a mechanism when the president does not make that declaration.
The amendment is fundamentally about succession, continuity and inability - not about giving political opponents a general method to overturn an election.
But 'Inability' Was Deliberately Left Undefined
One of the largest factual problems in the circulating argument is the claim that the 25th Amendment was designed only for a clear physical or medically diagnosed mental incapacity.
The amendment never defines 'unable' or 'inability.' Constitution Annotated explains that the framers deliberately left the terms flexible so future decision-makers could address unforeseen circumstances that prevent a president from carrying out constitutional responsibilities.
Legislative history shows that physical and mental incapacity were central examples, but Senator Birch Bayh also spoke broadly about any circumstance that could make a president unable to perform the powers and duties of the office.
Physical or mental disability is the clearest historical use case, but the Constitution does not require a particular medical diagnosis before Section 4 can legally be considered.
The Framers Also Rejected Using Section 4 Merely Against an Unpopular or Failed President
The flexibility of the word 'inability' does not mean anything critics dislike can qualify.
Congressional Research Service analysis of the amendment's history notes that its authors rejected the idea that Section 4 should become a device for removing an unpopular or failed president. The procedure was designed with substantial checks precisely because of the danger of political misuse.
Poor judgment, ideological disagreement, controversial rhetoric or a disastrous policy do not automatically amount to constitutional inability.
Brennan could argue that Trump's conduct demonstrated inability, but merely disagreeing with Trump's Iran policy would not by itself satisfy the historical purpose of Section 4.
Section 4 Does Not Technically Remove the President From Office
Political coverage often describes Section 4 as a way to 'remove' or 'oust' a president. That shorthand can obscure what the text actually does.
If the required declaration is made, the vice president immediately assumes the powers and duties of the presidency as Acting President.
The president remains the president. Section 4 transfers the exercise of presidential power because of an asserted inability; it does not itself terminate the president's term.
Permanent removal from office is governed by other constitutional mechanisms, most notably impeachment and conviction, resignation, death or the expiration of the term.
The precise description is a transfer of presidential powers due to inability, not automatic removal from the office itself.
Brennan Cannot Invoke the Amendment
A former CIA director has no constitutional role in initiating Section 4.
The process begins only if the vice president and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments - commonly described as a majority of the Cabinet - transmit a written declaration that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office.
The Constitution also allows Congress to create another body by law that could act with the vice president instead of the Cabinet. Congress has never established such a permanent disability-review body.
Brennan's statement was political advocacy. The constitutional trigger belongs to the vice president and the Cabinet or another congressionally authorized body, not to former intelligence officials or members of Congress acting alone.
The Two-Thirds Vote Comes Only If the President Contests the Declaration
The process is more detailed than the common three-step summaries suggest.
After the initial declaration, the vice president becomes Acting President. The president may then transmit a declaration that no inability exists. If the vice president and Cabinet do not object again within four days, the president resumes the powers of office.
If they renew their declaration within four days, Congress must decide the issue. If Congress is not in session, it must assemble within 48 hours. Congress then has up to 21 days to determine whether the inability continues.
Two-thirds of both the House and Senate are required to keep the vice president exercising presidential powers. Otherwise, the president resumes them.
A two-thirds congressional vote is not required for the initial transfer of power; it becomes decisive only if the president disputes the inability and the vice president and Cabinet persist.
Section 4 Has Never Been Used
Presidents have voluntarily transferred authority under Section 3 during medical procedures, but Section 4 has never been implemented.
That history reflects both the extraordinary nature of the mechanism and the political difficulty of obtaining agreement from a vice president and a majority of a president's own Cabinet.
Section 4's framers expected the officials involved to act in good faith under exceptional circumstances.
Calls to invoke Section 4 can be constitutionally serious, but there is no precedent for actually using it against a president who contests his own ability to serve.
Brennan Was Far From the Only Person Calling for Action
Brennan's comments came after a much wider wave of calls for Trump's removal during the April Iran crisis.
By April 8, more than 70 Democratic lawmakers were publicly supporting use of the 25th Amendment, according to contemporaneous reporting. Axios later counted more than 85 House and Senate Democrats calling for either impeachment or removal through the 25th Amendment.
Former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, by then a sharp Trump critic, also called for the 25th Amendment after Trump's threat that an entire civilization could die.
The removal campaign was overwhelmingly driven by Trump's political opponents, but it was not literally confined to Democrats or to Brennan.
Congressional Calls Alone Could Not Make Section 4 Happen
Members of Congress can urge the Cabinet to act, hold hearings, create a disability-review body by law or pursue impeachment under Article I.
They cannot substitute themselves for the vice president at the starting point of Section 4.
In April, House Democrats also introduced legislation aimed at creating a commission related to 25th Amendment incapacity questions. With Republicans controlling Congress and Trump able to veto ordinary legislation, the proposal had little practical path to becoming law.
The amendment was never close to activation simply because dozens of lawmakers demanded it. Vice President JD Vance was indispensable to any Section 4 process.
Vance and the Cabinet Did Not Move Against Trump
At the height of the April controversy, there was no public indication that Vance or a majority of Cabinet officers supported declaring Trump unable to serve.
Vance publicly backed Trump's hard line toward Iran and said the administration still had additional tools it could use.
That political reality made Section 4 extremely unlikely regardless of how many members of Congress, commentators or former officials called for it.
The constitutional mechanism requires action from officials inside the president's own administration, and that support was not present.
Trump's 2026 Medical Report Said He Was Fully Fit - but That Does Not Legally End the Debate
In May, after a physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, White House physician Sean Barbabella said Trump remained in excellent health and was 'fully fit to carry out all duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State.'
The report described strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function.
That is relevant evidence against claims of an obvious diagnosed incapacity. But Section 4 does not assign the presidential physician the sole constitutional authority to decide inability, and a medical report cannot conclusively resolve every possible question about judgment or capacity under every circumstance.
There is no public medical finding that Trump is incapacitated. There is also no constitutional rule requiring a medical diagnosis before the vice president and Cabinet could ever consider Section 4.
'Peace Through Strength' Is a Foreign-Policy Argument, Not a Fitness Test
Trump supporters defend his Iran posture as deterrence: threaten overwhelming costs in order to force an adversary to change course and avoid a larger conflict.
Critics argue the same rhetoric risks escalation, civilian harm, miscalculation and damage to U.S. alliances and international law.
Historical comparisons to Ronald Reagan can illuminate a political philosophy, but they do not prove that a particular 2026 threat was strategically effective or constitutionally sound.
The merits of Trump's Iran strategy should be evaluated on evidence about deterrence, military outcomes, civilian effects and national interests. Calling it 'peace through strength' does not by itself answer the separate constitutional question of presidential ability.
An Election Mandate Does Not Make the 25th Amendment Illegitimate - and the Amendment Does Not Cancel Elections
The argument that calls for Section 4 necessarily represent refusal to accept an election is too categorical.
The 25th Amendment is itself part of the Constitution and was ratified precisely to govern circumstances that can arise after a president has lawfully been elected.
If a president truly becomes unable to discharge the duties of office, using the amendment would carry out the constitutional order rather than overturn it.
At the same time, using inability as a pretext for ordinary political disagreement would be an abuse of that constitutional design.
Electoral legitimacy and the 25th Amendment are not contradictory. The real question is whether genuine inability exists, not whether the president won an election.
Brennan Is Under Justice Department Scrutiny - but No Criminal Case Has Been Proved Against Him
Brennan's own legal and political position is relevant context because the Trump Justice Department has been investigating allegations that former intelligence and law-enforcement officials improperly targeted Trump.
The current Florida-based inquiry has examined the 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian election interference and has scrutinized Brennan's past testimony and conduct. Brennan denies wrongdoing.
On Sept. 10, the Trump-allied prosecutor overseeing the wider investigation, Joseph diGenova, resigned. Reuters reported that the inquiry had not produced criminal charges.
Brennan is a politically interested critic who is also under federal scrutiny. That is a reason to attribute his claims carefully, not evidence that his constitutional argument is automatically false or that he has been proved guilty of misconduct.
Intelligence-Agency Politicization Is a Legitimate Concern - but It Requires Evidence
Watergate, the Church Committee and later intelligence controversies established why Americans should scrutinize political misuse of surveillance and national-security institutions.
That concern applies regardless of which party controls the government.
But a general warning about intelligence politicization should not be converted into an unproved assertion that Brennan personally weaponized the CIA against Trump. Current investigations remain investigations unless and until evidence produces charges and findings.
Institutional skepticism is healthy when it is tied to evidence. It becomes partisan presumption when investigation itself is treated as proof of guilt.
The Strongest Defensible Conclusion
John Brennan really did call Trump 'clearly unhinged' and say he thought the 25th Amendment was written with Trump in mind after the president threatened catastrophic destruction in Iran.
Brennan's language was political and highly charged, but the constitutional response should be equally precise. Section 4 was created for presidential inability, and its framers deliberately declined to confine that concept to a rigid medical definition. They also rejected the idea that it should become a shortcut for removing a merely unpopular, unsuccessful or controversial president.
The process cannot be triggered by Brennan, congressional Democrats or media commentators. It requires Vice President JD Vance and a majority of the Cabinet, or another body created by Congress, and any sustained dispute with the president would ultimately require two-thirds votes in both chambers.
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Trump's physician said in May that he was fully fit to perform his duties, and no public Section 4 declaration has been made. Brennan, meanwhile, remains under federal investigative scrutiny but has not been charged with a crime.
The strongest verified conclusion is that Brennan's demand was real and constitutionally possible to advocate, but it was never a unilateral mechanism available to him and it was never legally limited to a doctor's diagnosis. Whether Trump's Iran rhetoric demonstrated presidential 'inability' was a judgment for the constitutional actors named in Section 4 - not something established merely by calling the policy reckless, or disproved merely by calling it 'peace through strength.'
