Is White House staff thinking of removing Trump under 25th Amendment?
According to author Michael Wolff, the White House is weighing its constitutional options
According to author Michael Wolff, the White House is weighing its constitutional options
According to the author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, White House staff have considered invoking the 25th Amendment to get Donald Trump out of office.
On Sunday, Michael Wolff appeared on Meet the Press, and said that Trump’s response to the book’s publication was “25th Amendment kind of stuff.”
When Chuck Todd asked him if he had heard that kind of thing from White House staff, Wolff said that he heard it “all the time.”
“Actually, they would say, in the mid-period, ‘We’re not at a 25th Amendment level yet,’” he explained.
–-Ouch! Author Michael Wolff slams Trump over book criticism–
He then added, “And this went on, ‘Okay, this is a little 25th Amendment.’ So 25th Amendment is a concept that is alive every day in the White House.”
The 25th Amendment deals with the order of succession for the presidency. It allows for the Vice President and members of the Cabinet to remove the president from office if they tell Congress that he “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
If the president were to dispute that in a written declaration, Congress would then have to vote on the removal if the Vice President and Cabinet still insisted that he was unfit for office. If Congress voted by a two-thirds majority, the Vice President would serve as Acting President.
Reaction to the book
The White House has continued to vehemently deny the claims in Fire and Fury. In a series of tweets, Trump denied he granted access to Wolff and accused him of muckraking.
Most recently, Trump tweeted on Sunday, “I’ve had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!”
Still, despite (or perhaps because of) Trump’s protestations, the book reached #1 on Amazon after its release.
