If the president can no longer serve, who becomes president?

Why this is the answer

If the President dies, resigns or is removed from office, the Vice President becomes President, and if the President cannot carry out the job, the Vice President takes over its duties. USCIS accepts one answer, the Vice President, with "of the United States" optional. The rule is in the original Constitution. Article II says that in those cases the powers and duties of the office pass to the Vice President, and it lets Congress decide by law who acts if both offices are empty. The 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, put it in the plainest terms: on the President's removal, death or resignation, the Vice President becomes President. The same amendment covers a temporary inability. A President can declare in writing that he or she cannot perform the duties of the office, and the Vice President then serves as Acting President until the President declares the inability over. The Vice President and a majority of the heads of the executive departments can also make that declaration, with Congress deciding the issue if the President disputes it. The 2008 civics lessons count nine times that a Vice President became President: after the deaths in office of William Henry Harrison in 1841, Zachary Taylor in 1850, Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901, Warren Harding in 1923, Franklin Roosevelt in 1945 and John F. Kennedy in 1963, and after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974. No one other than a Vice President has ever succeeded to the presidency. If both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve, the Speaker of the House is next. A tempting wrong answer is to skip a step and say "the Speaker of the House," which answers a different question. Others say the Chief Justice, whose role is to preside when a President is tried on impeachment, not to take over the office. Keep the order in mind: President, Vice President, Speaker.