Founders Hall Auditorium
George Mason University
3351 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA
January 24, 2019 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

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.

The Michael V. Hayden Center and the National Security Institute invited you to join our first on-campus event of 2019, with author, former CIA officer, and NSI Visiting Fellow David Priess for a discussion on his new book, How to Get Rid of a President: History’s Guide to Removing Unpopular, Unable, or Unfit Chief Executives.  Susan Glasser, renowned journalist and Staff Writer at The New Yorker, moderated the discussion. Priess and Glasser explored a vivid political history of the schemes, plots, maneuvers, and conspiracies that have attempted—successfully and not—to remove unwanted presidents. Hear about the various ways that presidents are removed and how such stories are so relevant to today’s headlines.