How to Get Rid of a President: History's Guide to Removing Unpopular, Unable, or Unfit Chief Executives

by David Priess

Overview

A vivid political history of the schemes, plots, maneuvers, and conspiracies that have attempted — successfully and not — to remove unwanted presidents

To limit executive power, the founding fathers created fixed presidential terms of four years, giving voters regular opportunities to remove their leaders. Even so, Americans have often resorted to more dramatic paths to disempower the chief executive. The American presidency has seen it all, from rejecting a sitting president's renomination bid and undermining their authority in office to the more drastic methods of impeachment, and, most brutal of all, assassination.

How to Get Rid of a President showcases the political dark arts in action: a stew of election dramas, national tragedies, and presidential departures mixed with party intrigue, personal betrayal, and backroom shenanigans. This briskly paced, darkly humorous voyage proves that while the pomp and circumstance of presidential elections might draw more attention, the way that presidents are removed teaches us much more about our political order.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541788220
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	11/12/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	9.70(w) x 11.50(h) x 8.70(d)

About the Author

David Priess is author of the The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents. He has a PhD in Political Science from Duke University and served at the CIA during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as an intelligence officer, manager, and daily intelligence briefer and at the State Department. Priess writes, speaks, and appears often on broadcast media about the presidency and national security.

Table of Contents

Introduction: President-Eject 1

Chapter 1 Rejected by the Party 7

Chapter 2 Undermined by Opponents or Subordinates 31

Chapter 3 Dismissed Preemptively 55

Chapter 4 Displaced by Death 83

Chapter 5 Taken Out by Force 103

Chapter 6 Declared Unable to Serve 143

Chapter 7 Impeached and Removed 179

Chapter 8 Shoved Aside at the Polls 209

Chapter 9 Presidents, Processes, and the People 219

Acknowledgments 229

Notes 231

Index 287

Editorial Reviews

Getting rid of presidents was never as entertaining as it is in David Priess's hands. He barnstorms through more than two centuries of American history, showing all the ways-from impeachment to death-that presidents have either left office prematurely or just barely avoided doing so. Dramatic and instructive, his narrative has clear resonance for the present day as calls grow for President Trump's impeachment.—MaxBoot, Washington Post columnist and author of The Corrosion of Conservatism

The temptation to impeach a president can run high in a polarized political environment but is fraught with peril as David Priess meticulously demonstrates in this timely book that romps through American history to answer all the questions about removing an unfit president by non-electoral means that you were afraid to ask.—AmandaCarpenter, CNN contributor and author of GaslightingAmerica

With the objective eye of a former intelligence officer and an uncanny instinct for deep truths, David Priess paints a genuinely non-partisan portrait of presidential removals. The stories here are eerily relevant to today's headlines, but also disarmingly fun to read.—MichaelHayden, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and author of The Assault on Intelligence

Legal scholars, political scientists, and pundits have dissected various means of undermining and removing leaders, ranging from voting them out of office to impeaching them. Now, with How To Get Rid of a President, David Priess finally racks and stacks all of the methods, fair and foul, in an entertaining and approachable sweep of history.—BenjaminWittes, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution andeditor in chief of the Lawfare blog

"A companionable history of U.S. presidents in crisis... Priess excels at making presidents look tragically human... Anyone distressed or appalled by today's rancorous clashes over presidential prerogative and power may take comfort from learning that the nation has weathered it all before."—Booklist, Starred Review

"Piquant studies of presidential woe.... A collection of colorful, slightly morbid vignettes that connoisseurs of political picaresque will relish."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

10/29/2018
Former CIA officer Priess (The President’s Book of Secrets) capitalizes on today’s keen interest in truncated terms of office in these piquant studies of presidential woe. He covers all the most dramatic ways a presidency can end, including impeachment; resignation before looming impeachment; assassination, which was an easier proposition in the 19th century, when the lack of security details, he notes, made it easy to saunter up to a president with a gun; and death by sudden infection, which felled William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor early in their respective terms. Priess also digs into less spectacular but perhaps more poignant presidential failures: John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and Chester A. Arthur were all not renominated by their parties for a second term; Samuel Tilden was denied the office by a corrupt backroom deal; Woodrow Wilson was secretly replaced by his wife after a stroke incapacitated him; Calvin Coolidge silently wilted from depression. A litany of others were denied reelection by voters. Unlike the many impeachment primers now being published, Priess’s tome doesn’t offer much assessment of prospects for removal; instead he gives readers a collection of colorful, slightly morbid vignettes that connoisseurs of political picaresque will relish. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

2018-10-02

A timely anecdotal narrative about how every incumbent U.S. president has left office, focusing on departures or near departures under duress.

In each chapter, former CIA officer Priess (The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents, 2016) discusses a discrete path toward departure: rejected by one's own political party (Presidents Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, Arthur, and Lyndon Johnson); undermined by opponents and/or subordinates (Nixon); sunk due to general unpopularity (Taft); death by natural causes (Harrison, Taylor, Harding, Franklin Roosevelt); assassination (Lincoln, McKinley, Garfield, Kennedy); temporarily unable to serve due to a traumatic occurrence (Wilson, Eisenhower, Reagan); and impeachment (Andrew Johnson, Clinton). Throughout the book, Priess delves into the provisions of the U.S. Constitution, explaining debates among the Founding Fathers about how much stability to offer a chief executive. Nobody desired an executive with powers so weak as to be ineffective, but at the same time, nobody wanted to be ruled by a monarchy similar to the one from which the country had just won independence. The author makes the historical context relevant through his skilled storytelling, and at the end of the book, he concedes that his research focuses on the "how" of the removal processes without addressing the question of "when." Although Priess rarely mentions Donald Trump by name, he clearly has the sitting president in mind as he explores the idea of an incumbent president being clearly unfit for office. Of course, he writes, it is inevitable that a centuries-old Constitution cannot be expected to anticipate every permutation of unfitness. As a result, he suggests, without offering specifics, that contemporary policymakers consider amending the Constitution to adapt to current circumstances. Harking back to Abraham Lincoln, Priess writes that government of the people, by the people, and for the people must encompass fair but contemporary means of removing presidents if necessary.

A mostly dispassionate discussion of an issue that must be addressed.

Kirkus Reviews