BUZZ
ANALYSIS: So far complaints seem more muted than 8 years ago … for as one prof noted, the 25th shouldn’t be used ‘simply because [the president] makes an unpopular decision’
Progressives want to party like it’s 2019, yammering about invoking the 25th Amendment against President Trump. You can almost hear Prince singing “Two thousand two, six, party over, use the twenty-five.”
During Trump’s first term, one of the most outspoken voices questioning Trump’s fitness for command was former Yale shrink Bandy Lee, who in 2018 advocated Trump to be “contained” for an “emergency” evaluation of his mental faculties.
The following year, Lee and several peers held a virtual conference in which they discussed the president’s alleged unfitness for command.
NYU’s James Gilligan claimed Trump was “dangerous to an unprecedented degree in our history,” while Harvard Medical School’s Leonard Glass said “the president failed every criterion for rational and reality-based decision making capacity.”
Although Lee and company did not make overt proclamations about using the 25th Amendment (“the political process should be determined by members of Congress, Lee said), the psychiatrist noted “[T]his is very serious. In fact, worse than if [Trump] had a stroke and were unconscious because he can mislead the country in destructive or nefarious ways.”
Recently, a Newsweek article highlighted President Trump’s Easter social media post in which he wrote in part “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy b******s, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Naturally, there were the usual suspects, like far-left journalist John Harwood (identified merely as “a former White House correspondent for CNN”) who claimed “the 25th Amendment was written for precisely this situation” because Trump “cannot think clearly” nor “function effectively as president.”
The NAACP agreed (the first time in its 117-year history), with its CEO claiming “This president is unfit, unwell, and unhinged.”
In the academy, Adam Cochran (who appears to be misidentified as a Mesa State College adjunct professor) tweeted that “failing to invoke the 25th Amendment at this point, is a violation of their own oaths to this country.”
Cochran said “It should be seen as nothing short of criminal negligence, and they should be held fully liable for the death and destruction that stems from this.”
I’ll take it a step further.
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) April 5, 2026
Failing to invoke the 25th amendment at this point, is a violation of their own oaths to this country.
It should be seen as nothing short of criminal negligence, and they should be held fully liable for the death and destruction that stems from… https://t.co/WYLmppQR5c
(The College Fix emailed Cochran and Newsweek’s Peter Aitken to confirm the former’s collegiate affiliation, but they did not respond. The website which coincides with Cochran’s X account identifies him as a “professor, investor, marketing/strategy exec” who focuses on “fintech, artificial intelligence, biotech and behavioral economics” but especially “cryptocurrency.”)
Princeton University’s Shaun Marmon (pictured), a religion professor who researches “slavery, gender, and ideas of ‘race’ and ethnicity in Muslim societies,” wrote a letter to The New York Times in which she claimed the U.S./Israel “war of choice” against Iran is “without a plan, strategy or endgame.”
“President Trump’s rhetoric has become even more unhinged,” Marmon wrote. “He has declared that he will bomb Iran ‘back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,’ if its government does not surrender.
“It is now time to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Trump from office. He is clearly unfit and poses a danger both to this country and to the world.”
In a New Zealand article regarding use of the amendment, University of Otago Professor Robert Patman said he “just couldn’t believe it” when he saw Trump’s Easter post, adding he thought it was a parody account and “raise[s] doubts about his judgment.”
Patman previously had referred to Trump’s action in Venezuela as a “’direct challenge’ to New Zealand and other nations that believe ‘international relations should be based on rules, procedures and laws.’”
Still, some profs pointed out the problems of using the 25th in the current circumstances. Buffalo State University’s Peter Yacobucci said the amendment “has never been used to try to remove the power of a president against their will.”
Saint Louis University Professor of Law Emeritus Joel Goldstein was more straightforward: “The record makes clear that section four [of the amendment] was not intended as a means of removing the president simply because he or she makes an unpopular decision.”
MORE: University shrinks testify: Trump incites violence, his rallies akin to those of Hitler
