# Can the President fire the Vice President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052 "2017-08-08T02:26:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Goosie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@Goosie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goosie)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/1 "2017-08-08T02:26:28Z")
Can the President of the United States fire the Vice President of the United States (or otherwise compel the Vice President to resign?) ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/2 "2017-08-08T02:31:57Z")
Nope. He can ask, he can demand, he can threaten, but he has no power to remove the sitting Vice President. The only thing he could do is replace him on the ticket in 2020. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/3 "2017-08-08T02:33:52Z")
No. The Vice-President is an elected official, not a hired employee. The President could try to “encourage” the VP to resign through various nefarious schemes, (blackmail, etc.). However, the Vice President is subject to impeachment, the same as the President. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/4 "2017-08-08T02:35:03Z")
Unless there is some follow-up question that sparks a debate, this is more of a General Question than an Elections debate. Off it goes. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/5 "2017-08-08T03:00:13Z")
nope …FDR wanted to get rid of vp Barkley and couldn’t and it led to all sorts of undermining and other schemes and unpleasantness the like leading to barkleys isolation in fact its known as the “Roosevelt Barkley pattern” in political science …where the hopeful result is resignation or they choose not to run again … ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/6 "2017-08-08T03:05:29Z")
There isn’t even a 25th Amendment-type procedure to remove an incapacitated VP–though that mostly wouldn’t matter, except in the instance where say an insane President needed to be removed and the VP in a coma wasn’t able to be part of the removal proceedings. Or where a controversial law needed to pass the Senate and the VP was unavailable to cast the deciding vote. Actually, as I write that, I wonder how the calculus on the recent health care bills would have changed if Pence (and I wish him no harm) had had a stroke and was unavailable to cast a deciding vote if necessary. VP Cheney was famously so worried about this kind of possibility that he secretly wrote an undated letter of resignation for Bush to use if it became necessary. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/7 "2017-08-08T03:11:09Z")
Congress could choose to impeach and remove an incapacitated VP if they really wanted to. It would be an unusual use of the impeachment process, but perfectly legitimate. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/8 "2017-08-08T03:21:09Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > nope …FDR wanted to get rid of vp Barkley and couldn’t and it led to all sorts of undermining and other schemes and unpleasantness the like leading to barkleys isolation > > in fact its known as the “Roosevelt Barkley pattern” in political science …where the hopeful result is resignation or they choose not to run again … Alben Barkley was Truman’s VP, and back then no president gave his VP anything to do. Truman himself was horrified to learn of the existence of the atomic bomb only when he was sworn in as president. As the VP has no specified powers other than casting a tiebreaking vote in the Senate, Barkley can’t have been much of a bother to Truman. John Nance Gardner, one of FDR’s actual VPs, had famously remarked that the Vice Presidency was not worth “a bucket of warm piss.” The era of VPs having any power at all (as delegated by the president) dates only to Carter, who gave Mondale some policy issues to deal with as well as a West Wing office. LBJ was the first to have an office on the WH grounds, but not in the WH itself. Johnson rather notoriously drank away his VP days in his Senate office, which was what all that VPs got before Johnson, and was probably nicer than his offices in the Old Executive Office Building. TL;DR president can’t fire the VP, that mostly doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/9 "2017-08-08T03:35:59Z")
Right, even if the President can’t fire the VP, he can still just ignore him. Almost all of the power that the VP has, he only has because the President chooses to delegate it to him, and so the President could just choose not to delegate it to him, and possibly delegate that same power to some other individual instead if he wants to pretend that someone else is VP. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/10 "2017-08-08T03:38:45Z")
As has been mentioned the president cannot remove the vice president but the president can effectively sideline the VP so he has a low profile and is out of the loop. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/11 "2017-08-08T05:01:02Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > nope …FDR wanted to get rid of vp Barkley and couldn’t and it led to all sorts of undermining and other schemes and unpleasantness the like leading to barkleys isolation > > in fact its known as the “Roosevelt Barkley pattern” in political science …where the hopeful result is resignation or they choose not to run again … I really doubt there’s anything known as the Roosevelt Barkley pattern. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/12 "2017-08-08T10:38:02Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > in fact its known as the “Roosevelt Barkley pattern” in political science …where the hopeful result is resignation or they choose not to run again … I’m having problems with this, too. I looked up the term and got one hit-yours. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/13 "2017-08-08T10:53:31Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > As has been mentioned the president cannot remove the vice president but the president can effectively sideline the VP so he has a low profile and is out of the loop. Sue, did the president call? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/14 "2017-08-08T15:05:21Z")
I should note for completeness’ sake that, so far as I am aware, the answer to the question in the OP is undetermined. The probably answer is no, but since no President has actually tried doing it, and been told it didn’t work by the Supreme Court, we don’t know for certain. The Constitution of the United States itself is silent on the question. Like England, a lot of our actual constitution of government is based upon unwritten rules we follow. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/15 "2017-08-08T15:13:22Z")
If a president asked (told) a VP to resign, it would be an odd situation where the VP declined to do so. As noted, the president can make things miserable for the VP if he so chooses. Unless, of course, the president himself is in dire political trouble and is trying to get rid of the VP in order to save his own skin. But unless the VP had powerful allies, it would behoove him or her to “spend more time with the family”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/16 "2017-08-08T15:31:16Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > I should note for completeness’ sake that, so far as I am aware, the answer to the question in the OP is undetermined. The probably answer is no, but since no President has actually tried doing it, and been told it didn’t work by the Supreme Court, we don’t know for certain. The Constitution of the United States itself is silent on the question. Like England, a lot of our actual constitution of government is based upon unwritten rules we follow. It may be undetermined because no President has tried, but the Constitution already has a lot to say about it, with positive and negative evidence. Article II, Section 4: > [@](#): > > The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. That’s how a Vice President can be removed. Article I states that the House has the sole power of impeachment and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments. Absolutely nothing about a President removing a VP from office. Additionally, a Vice President is an independently elected position.The President cannot remove independently elected officials from office and have the Constitution retain any meaning, even if the issue is not directly addressed. Yes, lots of things that are the subjects of political dramas are undetermined and some of them are interesting because they could in theory happen without anyone being quite sure of the outcome, allowing the writer considerable leeway. This does not. A President who tried to fire a VP wouldn’t last long enough to be impeached. Article XXV, Section 4 would be instantly implemented. > [@](#): > > Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Or we could have chaos because the law has been abandoned. But I doubt anyone at the time would think the outcome is undetermined. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/17 "2017-08-08T16:44:48Z")
If the president were able to fire the vice president we would have found out pretty early, since John Adams would likely have kicked Thomas Jefferson to the curb (until the 12th amendment, each elector got two votes and the guy who came in second became vice president). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/18 "2017-08-08T17:12:31Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > If the president were able to fire the vice president we would have found out pretty early, since John Adams would likely have kicked Thomas Jefferson to the curb (until the 12th amendment, each elector got two votes and the guy who came in second became vice president). And Jefferson would have fired Aaron Burr, who had challenged him for the Presidency when the election went to the House. Burr wasn’t even fired after killing Alexander Hamilton in an illegal duel, but served out his term. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/19 "2017-08-08T17:31:42Z")
So for the current administration, we will remain in susPENCE (sic) until if/when it occurs. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052/20 "2017-08-08T18:22:03Z")
Can someone run for the office of Vice President independently of a presidential candidate? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-president-fire-the-vice-president/793052.md?page=2)