What to do about Trump
The craziness of the past two weeks — erratic even by the standards of the Donald Trump presidency — has intensified concerns about Trump’s fitness for office and what it would take to remove him from the White House. Trump’s saber rattling with North Korea’s equally insecure, impulsive leader and unhinged combativeness when challenged about his unwillingness to unequivocally condemn white supremacists has left a growing legion of critics to worry about his capacity to lead in a crisis.
None was more direct than Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, who suggested it was time to consider the 25th Amendment’s provisions that allow for a quick transfer of power from a president who is physically or mentally incapacitated.
“I don’t think we can allow this president to continue to spin out of control like this and ignore it,” Speier said by phone last week. “He’s been in office seven months, and the cringe factor has grown to the point where you’re afraid to even pick up your phone in the morning to see what’s happened overnight.”
It’s a tall order. Vice President Mike Pence would need to enlist a majority of Cabinet members (eight of 15) to invoke the 25th Amendment. It’s hard to imagine Pence turning against the man who elevated him to the national stage. If Trump resisted — is there any doubt? — a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate would be required to uphold his ouster.
So why would Speier bring up such a long shot? For one, she is worried that his intemperate ways and lack of seasoning and judgment could lead this nation into war or other disasters. As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, she has traveled abroad and heard firsthand the nervousness that Trump is inflicting on our allies. Beyond that is the practical angle: Silence equals complicity.
“You can’t invoke the 25th Amendment until you talk about it,” Speier said.
I had the chance to raise the subject with three other congressional Democrats from California last week, one by phone and two in hour-long editorial board meetings. While none went as far in raising the specter of the 25th Amendment, all echoed these themes:
Trump is proving himself unfit for office.
Impeachment is not likely to happen in a Republican Congress, almost no matter what Special Counsel Robert Mueller or the House and Senate investigations uncover.
Constituents are worried — and engaged — as never before.
“It takes a toll on people. I see it in my constituents: They’re embarrassed, they feel ashamed, they’re unsettled, they’re worried, they’re anxious, they’re angry,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto.
“It’s affecting how people sleep, it’s affecting how people eat, it’s affecting their well-being,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank. As ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff has an inside view of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, much of which he is not at liberty to discuss. He did say this: Americans need to be patient. It’s going to take time to sort it all out.
He also cautioned that even if evidence of impeachable offenses resulted, the trigger point for action will be political: namely, can Republican members go back to their districts and convince their constituents that this is not just an attempt to nullify an election. A move to impeach “would have far more credibility if the effort was led by a Republican Congress,” Schiff told our editorial board. And that would take evidence of malfeasance well beyond anything that has surfaced to date.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Dublin Democrat who also serves on the Intelligence Committee, said “every single day he shows us more and more of why he is unfit to be president” — but rarely more than in Trump’s session with reporters Tuesday, in which a rattled and recalcitrant president backtracked from his canned statement the day before about the white supremacists’ show of hate in Charlottesville, Va.
“This was the first major test of an event that came out of the blue,” Swalwell said. “It was a moment that clearly showed us he was not fit to be president. He showed us who he really was.”
Or, as Speier put it, “He was almost like an animal that has been put in a corner, throwing out his claws and lashing out at people. He makes you fear whether he has the capacity to make the appropriate decisions on whether or not to push that button.”
Swalwell shares Speier’s concerns about Trump’s capacity, but he recognized the futility, at least for now, of counting on a Republican vice president or Congress to intervene. He said the focus in Congress should be to assert its role as a co-equal branch of government and put “guardrails in place” to block Trump’s worst impulses that could result in war or other disastrous policies. Swalwell, for example, was encouraged by the overwhelming passage of legislation that included escalated sanctions against Russia that Trump opposed.
All four Democrats cited another cause for optimism: an unprecedented surge of citizen engagement since the Trump election. Town halls are drawing unusually large crowds. Emails and phone calls are flowing at unseen levels.
“I have to tell you that I draw a great deal of hope and sustenance from what’s taking place in civil society across our country,” Eshoo said.
Then again, there are limits to the influence of blue-state California, and the deeper-blue Bay Area, in what Eshoo predicted would be seen as “a dark time in the history of our country.” At least until the 2018 midterm elections, and perhaps beyond, the fate of Trump’s presidency rests with Republicans. For all his faults, Trump represents the first opportunity in eight years to sign GOP bills into law, and they won’t give that up lightly. They’re not likely to abandon the president en masse until they are convinced that his sinking numbers are pulling them under.
“I think at some point the ice will crack under their feet,” Eshoo said.
They’re not close to there yet. But the faint creaking is growing louder after Charlottesville.
“The president is acting in a manner that is erratic. He has shown an instability and a pugnaciousness that, when you add it all up, spells danger . ... We have got to start looking at this incapacity.” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough