Fifty House Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) have sponsored a bill that would form a commission to assess President Donald Trump's mental fitness for office, pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
I was about to complain yet again “that’s not how it works”, but then I looked up the text again and this is explicitly allowed. Congress can set up a commission that basically takes the place of the Cabinet for 25th Amendment purposes. So now all this talk of the 25th amendment makes a bit more sense to me.
They still need a 2/3 margin in both houses even after the commission makes their determination, because the idiot is guaranteed to contest it. But maybe there is some truth to the idea that Republicans won’t vote to impeach but would vote to declare him incompetent, based on his dumb tweets
I think the chances that republicans will admit their guy is incompetent is close to 0. They will rather lock him up in the white house basement for 2 years.
I think they’ve been puppeteering him since he first took the oath in 2017. They just guide him to the decisions that they want. There may be a few original ideas, but I doubt many of them are.
As soon as he’s no longer useful he’ll be discarded. Right now they can push through an agenda, blame it all on him and he’ll just lap it up. Any attention to him is a good thing. He’s an idiot but he’s managed to attract some vile, politically savvy people to his cabinet. They know what they’re doing.
No, the optics here are very important. If they get rid of a sitting president during the next elections democrats will say “the last guy they nominated was so bad they had to get rid of him, you can’t trust them”. This damages the brand and they don’t want that. They always have to project confidence and never admit mistakes. It was the same with Biden. People around him new for a very long time that he was unfit for office but were hiding it for as long as they could. Republicans will do the same but Trump doesn’t have to do any debates. He just has to wave at people from a distance and sign papers.
Impeachment is a claim of malfeasance. 25th is a claim of simple incompetence. The standards of evidence in an impeachment are effectively similar to that of a criminal trial: guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The standards of evidence in a 25th amendment action are “reasonable belief”.
To impeach him for, say, threatening nuclear annihilation, prosecutors would have to prove that threat was illegally beyond his authority to issue that threat. Which would be difficult, because the president does, indeed, have the power to use nuclear weapons. Congress is free to refuse to act, or to drag their feet for months before acting.
To invoke the 25th amendment, Vance merely has to say that the president is not acting reasonably.
I was about to complain yet again “that’s not how it works”, but then I looked up the text again and this is explicitly allowed. Congress can set up a commission that basically takes the place of the Cabinet for 25th Amendment purposes. So now all this talk of the 25th amendment makes a bit more sense to me.
They still need a 2/3 margin in both houses even after the commission makes their determination, because the idiot is guaranteed to contest it. But maybe there is some truth to the idea that Republicans won’t vote to impeach but would vote to declare him incompetent, based on his dumb tweets
I think the chances that republicans will admit their guy is incompetent is close to 0. They will rather lock him up in the white house basement for 2 years.
I think they’ve been puppeteering him since he first took the oath in 2017. They just guide him to the decisions that they want. There may be a few original ideas, but I doubt many of them are.
Remember his father was made to think he was working https://people.com/fred-trump-family-history-dementia-donald-behavior-exclusive-8738427
As soon as he’s no longer useful he’ll be discarded. Right now they can push through an agenda, blame it all on him and he’ll just lap it up. Any attention to him is a good thing. He’s an idiot but he’s managed to attract some vile, politically savvy people to his cabinet. They know what they’re doing.
No, the optics here are very important. If they get rid of a sitting president during the next elections democrats will say “the last guy they nominated was so bad they had to get rid of him, you can’t trust them”. This damages the brand and they don’t want that. They always have to project confidence and never admit mistakes. It was the same with Biden. People around him new for a very long time that he was unfit for office but were hiding it for as long as they could. Republicans will do the same but Trump doesn’t have to do any debates. He just has to wave at people from a distance and sign papers.
If I were a Republican I’d be arguing that there’s no way Americans didn’t already know he was incompetent when voting for him.
Yea, no backsies!
Maybe the dementia will progress far enough that he’ll forget he needs to send in a letter
Stephen miller has to be too incompetent to use one of the auto Sharpies to forge the letter too don’t forget.
That’s the issue when you have a Republican controlled Congress. They’ll never turn on the party so you’re asking them to hold themselves accountable.
This seems like more copium and wishful thinking but it is probably more likely, but still not likely.
Yeah far easier to impeach, which requires a simple majority in the House and 2/3rds of the Senate.
The 25th Amendment is a higher bar, since it requires 2/3rds of both the House and the Senate.
Impeachment is a claim of malfeasance. 25th is a claim of simple incompetence. The standards of evidence in an impeachment are effectively similar to that of a criminal trial: guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The standards of evidence in a 25th amendment action are “reasonable belief”.
To impeach him for, say, threatening nuclear annihilation, prosecutors would have to prove that threat was illegally beyond his authority to issue that threat. Which would be difficult, because the president does, indeed, have the power to use nuclear weapons. Congress is free to refuse to act, or to drag their feet for months before acting.
To invoke the 25th amendment, Vance merely has to say that the president is not acting reasonably.