The 25th Amendment Coup Accusation
Cabinet officers move to declare the President unfit during a live national security emergency, splitting the executive branch in real time.
During a rapidly escalating international crisis, the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet deliver a written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of office. The President immediately denounces it as a coup and refuses to vacate the command chain.
You are the White House Chief of Staff
The Situation Room
>Military aides are asking whose nuclear briefing book is now legally valid.
>The Vice President is preparing to take the oath in the Cabinet Room within the hour.
>Half the Cabinet insists the President is psychologically compromised; the other half says the signatories panicked and are staging a constitutional ambush.
Internal Briefing Notes
• The 25th Amendment provides a formal mechanism, but its practical legitimacy depends on immediate recognition by the bureaucracy, military, and Congress.
• Competing claims to executive authority create instant command-chain confusion in every crisis-sensitive agency.
• Congress ultimately decides contested disability claims, but not on the timescale of a live emergency.
Escalation Window
Reveal each phase to see how the situation deteriorates.
The machinery of state is splitting in half. What do you do first?
Choose your response. There are no good options.
You may preserve presidential authority, but risk being seen as obstructing a lawful constitutional transfer.
You create a cleaner chain of command, but could help execute what history later judges an internal coup.
You buy legitimacy, but leave the executive branch dangerously paralyzed during an active emergency.
Related Entities
Explore the institutions, countries, and actors involved in this scenario.
United States
Federal presidential republic and the world's largest economy, with power divided among the presidency, Congress, the states, and the federal courts. U.S. politics is highly polarized, two-party dominated, and globally consequential because decisions made in Washington shape finance, trade, security alliances, technology regulation, and military power far beyond U.S. borders.
President of the United States
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