US has potential to oust Trump, says Shapps, as he criticises president

The US has the “checks and balances” in place to potentially oust President Donald Trump early over his encouragement of the assault on the Capitol, a UK Cabinet minister has said.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps declined to give his backing to calls to remove the Republican by invoking t he 25th Amendment over concerns about his fitness to remain in office.

But he described as "despicable" the scenes after Mr

Trump encouraged the mob of supporters to march to Congress in Washington DC with his baseless allegations of electoral fraud.

"What happened completely dishonours democracy and it was despicable to see those people encouraged to go to the Capitol building and ransack it like that, and there's people's lives that have been lost as well," Mr Shapps told Sky News.

"But leave it to the Americans to resolve. America's a great democracy, they've got all the institutions in place, the checks and balances are there, and to see something like that happen in the United States is really quite extraordinary and I know there will be quite some reflection on that."

UK ministers have in the past been at pains not to criticise Mr Trump, with Mr Shapps once saying: “I'll defer to medi cal expertise” when questioned about the president's dangerous suggestion that disinfectant could be injected into the body to treat Covid- 19.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned Mr Trump's incitement of supporters to descend on t he Capitol as "completely wrong".