Social media posts by President Trump about the war in Iran have sparked discussion, outrage and calls for him to be removed from office by using the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Section 4 of the Amendment allows for the involuntary removal of a president by declaring him “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Our analysts rated media coverage about Trump’s posts and calls to remove him from office in our Topic of the Week.

The most fact-based and balanced coverage from our content set came from articles by Spectrum News and Reuters. Analysts found both articles to be “a mix of fact reporting and analysis” with a “middle/balanced” bias. Spectrum News reports that Trump’s handling of the war in Iran has led members of Congress to discuss ousting him either by using the 25th Amendment or by filing articles of impeachment. The article quotes several Democratic lawmakers, a few conservative figures, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. The article summarizes Trump’s actions in Iran thus far. 

The Reuters article is an explainer about the 25th Amendment. The article uses historical facts and analysis to explain the Amendment, including what it is, whether it’s ever been invoked, and the political risks of doing so. The article refers to Trump’s “profanity-laced threats” against Iran, which sparked the debate about removing him from office, and notes that taking this action will “hold political peril for Democrats — who twice tried and failed to remove Trump from office by impeaching him during his first term.”

An article from Salon and a video from the CNN TV show “Smerconish” were categorized by our team as “analysis.” The Salon article features reaction to Trump’s social media post on Easter in which he said, in part, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” The article includes reaction from a Democratic lawmaker as well as from Republicans and former Trump allies who support removing Trump from office via the 25th Amendment. Analysts noted that a majority of the reaction included in the article was from Republicans (even though more Democrats have publicly objected to the posts) and Marjorie Taylor Green is featured in the headline — both decisions make the reporting appeal to those on the left. The article earned a bias rating of “skews left.”

In the clip from “Smerconish,” host Michael Smerconish begins by quoting comedian/political commentator Bill Maher as saying that “a crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person a lot on TV lives there.” Smerconish gives a lengthy background about U.S. actions in Iran, including evidence from a New York Times report that Trump’s decisions were “a deliberative process,” not impulse. He also interviews Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who says Trump makes decisions based more on “analysis than instinct.” Smerconish calls Trump’s Truth Social posts about Iran “​​offensive and intemperate” but then says, “You’d expect the guy that posts about a whole civilization dying would be simultaneously busting up the White House furniture. But there’s never been any reporting of Trump like that behind closed doors. In other words, it’s not that there’s a method to his madness. It’s that the madness is his method. The trouble for the president is that he may have played that role too often.” Analysts found the video to be a “sympathetic rationalization of Donald Trump’s behavior” and gave it a bias rating of “skews right.”

An article from The New American begins by saying that Trump’s “continuing deranged threats against Iran have inspired conservatives and leftists alike to call for his removal from office on 25th Amendment grounds.” The article says the president “seemed to have completely flipped his lid on Easter Sunday” when he called for the destruction of Iran’s electrical grid and his “mental train derailed” when he later posted about “a whole civilization” dying. The article includes images of several X posts criticizing Trump’s comments and calling for his removal from office, mostly from conservative voices. Analysts found the reporting to be right-on-right criticism of Trump, categorizing the article as “opinion” with a “strong right” bias.

The lowest-rated coverage from our content set came from a video from the MS NOW show “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” In the clip, the host says it was impossible for the crafters of the Constitution “to imagine a day with the President of the United States ranting like an unhinged madman until Donald Trump took the oath of office.” He says the 25th Amendment was written precisely for this type of situation. O’Donnell plays a clip from 2017 in which a psychiatrist describes Trump: “Lying in the way that he does it, repeated dangerous lying, makes him unfit and is a sign of serious mental disturbance… I don’t think he does know reality clearly. He doesn’t have a clear grasp of it, because he changes it. He makes up reality to suit his internal needs.” O’Donnell says: “This is evil. He has gone insane. Our president is not a Christian.” He then says that everyone in his administration “that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshiping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness.” Due to the repeated characterizations of Trump (i.e., summary conclusions and strongly descriptive adjectives), analysts found the video to be “opinion” with a “strong left” bias.

If you’d like to follow along on our weekly Topic of the Week exercise, you can do so by visiting our website. New Topics of the Week are posted each Monday. Read the articles and watch the videos yourself, then come back on Wednesday to compare your scores with those of our analysts. Learn more here.

Beth Heldebrandt is Director of Communications at Ad Fontes Media. She has more than 35 years of experience in the fields of journalism and public relations, and was an adjunct instructor of journalism for 17 years at Eastern Illinois University. Beth has a B.A. in journalism from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and an M.A. in English from Eastern Illinois University. She’s a mom and grandma, and enjoys traveling, puzzles and reading.