Stephen A. Smith pushed back on calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution against President Donald Trump on Wednesday, arguing critics are pursuing something that is not realistic.
“The 25th Amendment will not be executed,” Smith said on his “Straight Shooter” podcast, telling Trump critics to “stop it.”
He made the remarks while responding to several of the president’s detractors — including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Gov. JB Pritzker, and Sen. Ed Markey — who all raised the possibility of removing Trump from office following some of the president’s rhetoric during the Iran conflict.
Smith acknowledged broader concerns surrounding foreign policy decisions but emphasized that understanding the context behind U.S. actions does not change the constitutional reality critics face.
“We get why Trump may have acted,” Smith said. “We certainly get an insistence on opening up the Strait of Hormuz because, guess what, 20% of the world’s oil goes through there. You can’t have them dictating everything because oil prices are going to raise.”
Smith turned directly to the feasibility of removing a sitting president through constitutional means, outlining the institutional barriers involved.
“To invoke the 25th Amendment, you’re going to have to get the vice president to sign off, the Republicans in the House to sign off, cabinet members to sign off, basically declaring him unfit,” Smith said.
Smith also dismissed renewed calls for impeachment, pointing to prior efforts against Trump that did not ultimately prevent him from returning to office.
“You impeached him not once but twice,” Smith said. “You got him as a convicted felon, you had the insurrection on January 6, but you forgot to address the fact that the Constitution allows a convicted felon to run for the presidency,” he said.
Smith argued that political opponents are focusing on mechanisms that have already failed to produce their intended outcome.
“You got to beat them, and you didn’t do it,” Smith said.
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Smith said he believes criticism of Trump has weakened critics’ credibility in the eyes of the public.
“You can’t do anything to him … once that didn’t stop him from regaining his seat in the White House, you lost all credibility. Shut up.”
