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Does the vice-president serve at the discretion of the president, such that he or she can be removed from office at the president's will?

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    Are you only interested in whether the president can unilaterally remove the vice president from office or are you wondering if there other options, such as through an act of congress?
    – Thunderforge
    Feb 8, 2017 at 1:58
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    Only implied with the word 'fired', but as elaborated in the body of the question, I was looking for the former.
    – Glenn Slayden
    Feb 8, 2017 at 21:15
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    It's not in the spirit of the question, but technically a president can "displace" the vice-president from that office, by the president resigning.
    – DrSheldon
    May 8, 2019 at 19:12
  • @DrSheldon: heh, clever you.
    – Glenn Slayden
    Sep 22, 2021 at 22:13

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No. The President can not fire the Vice President.

Unlike the cabinet (e.g., Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, etc.), and the White House Staff (e.g., Chief-of-Staff, Press Secretary, etc.) the office of the Vice President, his term and the requirements for his removal from office are all established explicitly in Article II of the Constitution.

Office, Term—United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows [emphasis added]

Removal—United States Constitution, 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.

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    Note that because the President and the Vice President are chosen for a term, the President has the option to choose a different Vice President for a re-election term. This happened with Andrew Jackson, who didn't get along with John C. Calhoun in his first term and chose Martin Van Buren as his running mate for his second term.
    – Thunderforge
    Feb 8, 2017 at 2:38
  • Is there an overlap? Is a cabinet member, for example, not also a civil officer who can be impeached?
    – Peter - Reinstate Monica
    Jun 4, 2022 at 6:50
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Only Congress can forcibly remove a Vice President from office

The US Constitution only allows the Vice President to be forcibly removed from office via impeachment due to a high crime or misdemeanor (just like the President).

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. (Article 2, Section 4)

Impeachment is solely the responsibility of Congress, so the President cannot unilaterally impeach the Vice President, or any other elected official in the federal government.

The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. (Article 1, Section 2)

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. (Article 1, Section 3)

In other words, the House of Representatives has the power to start impeachment proceedings and the Senate has the power to perform the impeachment trial. If the Senate rules to convict the elected official, they are removed from office.

Note that the Vice President is also the President of the Senate (Article 1, Section 3). The Vice President presides in this role for any impeachment case (e.g. for a senator), except for that of the President because the constitution says that the Chief Justice presides in that trial.

Technically, that means that a Vice President undergoing impeachment would preside over their own trial. This might have happened with Spiro Agnew, Nixon's first Vice President, who was charged with extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy. But rather than undergoing impeachment, he resigned in August 1973 (this was about a year before Nixon himself was involved with the Watergate scandal).

Also, the Vice President always has the option to voluntarily resign. This has happened twice: Spiro Agnew as described above, and John C. Calhoun in 1832. Calhoun was Vice President under John Quincy Adams and later Andrew Jackson in his first term. Jackson and Calhoun disagreed sharply on a number of matters, but as shown above, Jackson wouldn't have had the option to fire him if he wanted to. Instead, Jackson chose Martin Van Buren as his running mate for his second term (and the two were successfully elected). Calhoun resigned a few months before his term as Vice President was up to become a Senator for South Carolina.

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    It's well established that members of congress are not subject to impeachment, so a senator would never be impeached. Each house can expel its own members without needing to get the other house involved.
    – phoog
    Aug 3, 2017 at 1:53
  • The article you link to concludes that a vice president could not in fact preside at his own trial (see alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/…): "The textual argument is accordingly hardly persuasive. This frailty is fatal to the Vice-President-Presides thesis, for the textual argument is its only support."
    – phoog
    Sep 14, 2017 at 23:02
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The president cannot fire the vice president; the vice president is elected by the electoral college, not appointed by the president.

The only mechanism for removing the vice president from office is impeachment by the House of Representatives followed by conviction by the Senate.

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    Interesting, ever since 1967, the VP's job seems more secure than the president's, what with the 25th Amendment being adopted in that year.
    – Glenn Slayden
    Feb 13, 2018 at 19:42

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