Invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Donald Trump from office.
As of this writing, shots have broken out in the U.S. Capitol as protesters forced their way in to disrupt the Electoral College count to certify the election of President-elect Joe Biden. Members of Congress have been whisked to secure locations and Vice President Mike Pence has been evacuated.
Guns were drawn to protect the rule of law. This is President Donald Trump’s making. Is it a coup or just a petty despot who cannot foresee the consequences of his actions? Regardless, it is time for Trump to be removed from office.
We don’t state this lightly. We have never supported the president, his policies have long rankled moderates who want calm, orderly and fair government from Washington. Even moderate Republicans like Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford are calling for Trump’s removal.
But Wednesday’s events in Washington indicate the time for waiting out the tweetstorms and tantrums of a man ill-suited for leadership is at an end.
The only way to ensure the peaceful transition of power resumes quickly is for Pence and other members of the Trump administration to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare that the president is unable or unwilling to carry out the duties of his office.
He lost the right to the presidency the moment he stepped out before the horde in Washington, made up of Proud Boy racists and QANON conspiracist nuts, and encouraged violence in an hour-long speech. He did it by continuing to spread lies that motivated outrage from the crowd gathered in the streets of the nation’s capital:
“You don’t concede when there’s theft involved,” Trump said. “Our country has had enough and we will not take it anymore.”
This was fantasy and is the same delusion that Trump has been trying to foist on the American people since Joe Biden beat him in both the popular vote and in the Electoral College. Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. Biden won by 7 million votes nationwide. Pence has no authority under the constitution to send the results back to the state. There was no massive election fraud. State after state, recount after recount, court after court have declared this to be true.
So the president’s recourse to hang on to power was to subvert the U.S. Constitution. He fomented violent civil disobedience. He fueled an insurrection.
Whether he anticipated the results or not, Trump is responsible for what happened Wednesday. He must be removed from office. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment addresses an incapacitated president who is unable or unwilling to uphold his duty. It is the amendment’s only section that has never been invoked.
It allows the vice president, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” to declare the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” in a written declaration. The transfer of authority to the vice president is immediate, and the vice president becomes acting president — not president — while the president remains in office without power.
The president is incapacitated by his greed for power. He failed to uphold and defend the Constitution by refusing to acknowledge the results of the election. He did it by inciting a riot that disrupted the process of certifying Biden as president. Today, the president must resign or be removed. That is the only way to ensure the safety of the nation and the inauguration of the legally elected president on Jan. 20.
Vice President Mike Pence, it is up to you. Donald Trump must go.