'Use Your Position,' Conservative Leader Pushes JD Vance to Invoke 25th Amendment Against Trump

It was an unusually blunt intervention, even by the standards of America's increasingly combustible political discourse. On a quiet Sunday, with Washington still parsing the aftershocks of US strikes on Iran, a conservative commentator took to social media with a suggestion that felt less like analysis and more like a dare.

'My advice to Vance: announce your support of 25th amendment transition,' wrote Scott McConnell, founding editor of The American Conservative. The post did not hedge. It did not soften its edges. It went further—naming a potential Democratic vice-president, Senator Chris Murphy, and urging JD Vance to declare he would not run in 2028.

In another era, such a proposal might have been dismissed as fringe provocation. Today, it lingers awkwardly in the air, partly because it exposes something that cannot easily be ignored: the growing willingness, even within ideological camps, to contemplate extraordinary constitutional measures.

Why Vance Finds Himself At The Centre Of An Unlikely Proposal

McConnell's appeal rests on a stark premise—that Vice President JD Vance should use his position not to defend the sitting president, but to facilitate a transfer of power under the 25th Amendment. 'Use your position, access to the media, to explain why this is necessary. Don't resign,' he added, with a tone that felt less advisory than insistent.

The 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967 in the wake of John F Kennedy's assassination, was designed as a constitutional safety net. It outlines the process for replacing a president who is unable to discharge the duties of the office, whether through death, resignation, or incapacity. Section Four—the most contentious part—allows the vice president, together with a majority of the Cabinet, to declare a president unfit to serve.

It is, by design, a measure of last resort. And yet it has increasingly crept into mainstream political rhetoric, invoked not only in moments of genuine crisis but as a shorthand for deeper anxieties about leadership.

Vance, for his part, has not played along with the theatre. If anything, he has been careful—perhaps conspicuously so. Asked recently about discussions surrounding Iran, he declined to elaborate. 'I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not going to show up here and, in front of God and everybody else, tell you exactly what I said in that classified room,' he told reporters on 13 March, referring to the White House Situation Room. The line landed with a hint of irritation—and a clear refusal to be drawn into public second-guessing.

The Political Weight Of Calling On Vance To Act

What makes McConnell's intervention striking is not its feasibility but what it reveals about the current mood. The United States is once again circling familiar questions about presidential fitness—questions that have trailed Donald Trump throughout both his first term and his return to power.

Polling offers a fragmented picture. According to a recent POLITICO survey conducted between 13 and 18 March, 81 per cent of self-identified MAGA voters supported last month's strikes on Iran. Among non-MAGA Trump supporters, the figure drops to 61 per cent. Across the broader electorate, approval falls further, to 43 per cent.

That divergence matters. It suggests a coalition that is holding—for now—but not without strain.

Meanwhile, Democrats have not been shy about revisiting the 25th Amendment themselves. Calls for its invocation have surfaced repeatedly over the past year, often in response to specific decisions. California Representative Maxine Waters argued in August that Trump's removal of Federal Reserve official Lisa Cook risked destabilising the economy, warning that 'it is time to call for Article [Amendment] 25... to determine his unfitness'.

Others have been even more direct. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker described Trump's deployment of troops to US cities as 'inane', adding: 'There is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th Amendment ought to be invoked.' In January, Representative Yassamin Ansari went further still, writing that the president was 'extremely mentally ill' and calling for immediate action.

Republicans, by contrast, have largely dismissed such claims as partisan overreach. Which brings us back, somewhat uncomfortably, to McConnell—a conservative voice urging something that many in his own camp would reject outright.

It is tempting to treat his comments as an outlier. Perhaps they are. But they also underscore a broader unease, one that cuts across party lines in quieter, less declarative ways.

For Vance, the calculation is brutally simple. Any move towards invoking the 25th Amendment would not only define his vice presidency—it would almost certainly end his political future as he currently imagines it. McConnell's suggestion that he renounce a 2028 bid hints at that reality.