Without further elaboration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday indicated Democrats are considering using a provision of the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.
“Tomorrow. Come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment, but not to take attention away from the subject we have now,” she told reporters at her weekly press conference, the New York Post reported.
When a reporter asked whether she believes it is time to invoke the amendment on the heels of Trump’s treatment for COVID-19, she deflected.
“I’ll talk to you about that tomorrow,” Pelosi said.
“I’m not talking about it today, except to tell you, if you want to talk about that, we’ll see you tomorrow,” she continued. “But you take me back to my point: Mr. President, when was the last time you had a negative test before you tested positive? Why is the White House not telling the country that important fact?”
.@SpeakerPelosi: “Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow, come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment.”
Full video here: https://t.co/5q4HIglmaZ pic.twitter.com/8Jeim87yJM
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 8, 2020
The 25th Amendment says: “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
The amendment’s use allegedly was discussed early in the Trump administration by several senior officials.
Judicial Watch has sued the government to gain access to documentation regarding claims that then-Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a wire to record his conversations with the president.
He later said he was joking.
At the press conference, Pelosi mocked Trump’s declaration Thursday that he’s “a perfect physical specimen” and “extremely young.”
She charged that the president wants to direct coronavirus stimulus funds to his own businesses.
“The plan isn’t for the president to say that he’s a perfect physical specimen, did he say? Specimen, maybe I could agree with that. And young, he said he was young. His association from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly,” Pelosi said.
The Washington Examiner later reported that Pelosi was backing a plan for Congress to take the power to “determine whether the president is fit to remain in office by requiring him to undergo a medical exam.”
The report said Pelosi will hold a news conference Friday about “The Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office Act.”
The plan dates back to 2017 when Rep. Jamie Raskin suggested the idea. He wanted to assemble a commission appointed by Congress and given the authority “to determine whether the president is mentally or physically unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office.”
The ideal is that Congress or the commission would require the president to undergo a medical examination if ordered to do so.
The Examiner reported: “The text of the original legislation authored by Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, would first require both the House and Senate to vote in favor of ordering an exam of the president.
“It would then direct the commission to ‘conduct a medical examination to determine if the president is temporarily or permanently impaired by physical illness or disability, mental illness, mental deficiency, or alcohol or drug use to the extent that he or she lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to execute the powers and duties of the office of president and within 72 hours after completing the examination, shall report its findings and conclusions to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president pro tempore of the Senate.'”
Democrats in Congress, who never have fully accepted President Trump’s victory over Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, already have tried – and failed – in their attempt to impeach and remove the president.
