President Trump’s warning to a conservative gathering that before this election is resolved the person who could next emerge as President is Nancy Pelosi, well, it’s a startling point. It’s not entirely idle, though. The Constitution, and legislation it grants the Congress the power to pass, both envision a situation where the Speaker could automatically become president at 12:01 p.m. o’clock on January 20.

Neither Mr. Trump, as we understand him, nor we are saying such an event is likely. Just possible. Were it to come to pass, though, it would be completely — to the degree that there is such a constitutional concept — kosher. That’s because of the 20th Amendment. It says that the “terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January,” no ifs, ands, or buts.

It also says that the terms of the Senators and Congressmen end at noon on January 3. That means the 116th Congress ends and the 117th begins 17 days before Mr. Trump’s term is up. That gives the Representatives House time to choose its Speaker. It’s likely — not certain, we suppose — to be Mrs. Pelosi, making her next in line for the presidency after Vice President Pence.

The 20th Amendment also particularizes what happens if certain complications arise. If either the President or President-elect shall have died, say, the Vice President elect “shall become President.” Then it says what happens “if a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify.”

In such a situation, “the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified.” The 20th Amendment empowers Congress to “by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified.” Congress gets to declare who shall then “act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected.”

That is one of the powers, as we read the parchment, on which Congress relied when, in 1947, it passed the Presidential Succession Act. It ordains that if, because of a failure to qualify, “there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President,” then the House Speaker “shall, upon his resignation” as Speaker and a representative, “act as President.”

Note the word “act.” It is clearly an acting position. Mark, though, that an “individual acting as President” shall continue to act until the expiration of the then current Presidential term — except “if his discharge of the powers and duties of the office is founded in whole or in part on the failure of both the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect to qualify.”

In that case, the Presidential Succession Act ordains, “he” — or she, in the case of Mrs. Pelosi — “shall act only until a President or Vice President qualifies.” That, too, as we read the parchment, would be automatic. At which point, President Pelosi could, if she’s done with Washington, transit back to California. What a way, in our view, to end her long and remarkable career.

Which brings us back to Mr. Trump’s warning. Here’s the word salad he used, according to the New York Post: “You know, there’s a theory that if you don’t have it by the end of the year, Crazy Nancy Pelosi would become president. I don’t know if it’s a theory or a fact. But I said, ‘That’s not good,’ I think it goes into effect either on the 20th or the first and put that in the hopper, add that to everything else. It’s a disgrace, they know it’s filthy dirty.”

Mr. Trump suggested, at the event he spoke at today in Virginia, that he was worried about the mass mailings of paper ballots. He seems worried that they could result in a false count that could delay certification of the vote, either in the Electoral College, or, if neither Mr. Trump of Vice President Biden gets a majority of the vote, the House. If Mr. Trump’s fears do come to pass, President Pelosi is possible.

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Drawing by Elliott Banfield, courtesy of the artist.