Elizabeth Warren: Time to use 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office
Source: CNN.com
(CNN)Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, seizing on an explosive op-ed from an anonymous administration official, said Thursday that it's time to use constitutional powers to remove President Donald Trump office if top officials don't think he can do the job.
"If senior administration officials think the President of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment," Warren told CNN. "The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the Vice President and senior officials think the President can't do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the President -- take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds ... Everyone of these officials have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It's time for them to do their job."
The hard-charging comments by the potential 2020 presidential candidate come in the wake of the stunning New York Times piece where an anonymous official raises deep concerns about the President and contends there were some initial conversations to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the President from office. The White House has aggressively pushed back on the piece, calling the author a traitor and a coward.
The remarks are bound to spark a debate within the potential 2020 field about how hard to go after Trump, with some advocating impeachment and invoking the 25th Amendment and others acting more cautious.
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Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/politics/elizabeth-warren-25th-amendment/index.html
The 25th Amendment remedy needs to go mainstream now!
Power 2 the People
(2,437 posts)She's a fighter. Love her.
sandensea
(21,672 posts)Hell, they won't even allow any real investigations to go forward or witnesses to testify, as long as they can help it.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Since there are, you know, actual fuckin' CRIMES involved...
Ditching him on the grounds of incompetence/mental health is not only damn near impossible to prove, but it is the 'easy way out' for Donnie...
diva77
(7,659 posts)elmac
(4,642 posts)and Pres Pence would blanket pardon tRump.
Fritz Walter
(4,292 posts)Not so much with state attorneys general prosecutions. Specifically, New York.
My guess is that he'd vamoose to Russia, where he'd be sheltered by his buddy, Putin. At least until he wears out his usefulness there. At that point, it's anyone's guess what happens to him.
Me? I don't really care. Do You?
Response to Dennis Donovan (Original post)
yuiyoshida This message was self-deleted by its author.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)It would kill them politically to do anything that Elizabeth Warren publicly says to do. So they can't, now.
This will have to be up to the Democrats, if there's a Blue Wave. Which it looks like may happen. If we also pick up a few seats in the Senate, maybe there's a chance. But just a chance.
jalan48
(13,887 posts)Mc Mike
(9,115 posts)Mme. Defarge
(8,044 posts)a diminished capacity defense if the Mueller probe were to bring charges against him?
marble falls
(57,246 posts)popular vote claim diminished capacity, particularly a stable genius with world class words?
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)"But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trumps more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
The root of the problem is the presidents amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making."
Anonymous senior official
Amorality is "an absence of, indifference towards, or disregard for morality"...wow.
marble falls
(57,246 posts)we're at right now, I've read. Wish I could DU rec your post. A cynic surrounded by blind true believers. And a handful of ethical RW's are the thin line between us and disaster. Who'da thunk.
BigmanPigman
(51,630 posts)The day after he was inaugurated. We all knew he was insane at that time.
George II
(67,782 posts)BlueWI
(1,736 posts)Way to go, Senator Warren! In this ongoing political crises, no legal strategy should be off the table.
PatrickforO
(14,592 posts)The president is unfit for office. Period. It's time to invoke the 25th. There shouldn't be any debate because this isn't about politics. This is about the man occupying the most powerful office in the world being imbalanced and unfit to occupy that office.
If the right wingers don't like it, then f--- them. Bottom line, we have to invoke the rule of law or else we'll disintegrate as a society.
PSPS
(13,615 posts)That's the problem. To the "top officials" and the KGOP in congress, his only "job" is to sign every bill that comes before him and to siphon as much money as possible out of the treasury.
You may have noticed the same caveat in the infamous "anonymous op-ed." The author confessed that they still supported the "trump agenda" but was afraid only because trump himself might do something to interfere with achieving that "agenda" (see above.) That's why the author didn't reveal and resign. They are just as heinous as the rest of them. If putin himself wrote an op-ed, it could have said the very same thing.
diva77
(7,659 posts)cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)means they need to grow a spine and do their job as defined under the Constitution and remove him from office if they think he is unfit for the job.
onenote
(42,768 posts)"We" don't get to invoke it. It is the VP and the cabinet that invokes it in the first instance. And there is no evidence that anyone in the cabinet, let alone the required majority, has any interest in going down that road, which would create a deep constitutional crisis because, like it or not, the 25th was never intended to apply where a president is able to carry out the duties of the office, but does so in a way that alarms many (even a majority) of people.
Trump is able to perform the duties of the office. We just hate the way he does so. But he signs legislation, he nominates people to fill vacancies, etc. Do you really think the cabinet members who he appointed are going to take the position that he wasn't able to do so or that their appointments were the act of an irrational person? Not. Going. To. Happen.
It's easier to impeach him -- and more appropriate -- than to dream about the 25th amendment being invoked to prevent Trump from acting as president against his will (and against the will of a sizable contingent of republicans in congress).
dansolo
(5,376 posts)The 25th amendment is meant for when the president is incapacitated. If he can contest it, then it takes a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress. It would be easier to impeach him.
truthisfreedom
(23,155 posts)Spartacus101
(93 posts)Section 4 is the spaghetti ping-pong maze:
"Section 4. 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.
"Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days 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. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office."
Gad.
Meadowoak
(5,560 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)If for no other reason than it's an additional mechanism of advertising trump's half-witted buffoonery. It casts doubt on his state-of-mind by those who might not otherwise care.
Rhiannon12866
(206,072 posts)Keep speaking out, Senator Warren! We need your voice now more than ever!
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)Yea or nay, we got them down on record...
Nitram
(22,890 posts)than by impeachment. First the president gets to contest the charge and secondly, it takes a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress to override the president if he does contest it.
eallen
(2,955 posts)It does not provide for permanent removal of the president by the cabinet. I wish it did. If the cabinet says he is unable to perform his duties, he can turn around and tell Congress "I'm able again," and resume active office. If there is a conflict between him and the cabinet on that, Congress settles it.
It takes two-thirds of both houses to remove him.
Impeachment and conviction is the easier route.