Michael Wolff, author of the disputed new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, said Sunday that even White House staff brought up the 25th Amendment when discussing President Donald Trump. You know, the part of the Constitution where the cabinet and Congress agree that POTUS should be removed for inability to do his job.
That detail popped up in an interview on Meet the Press.
“This is 25th Amendment kind of stuff,” Wolff said regarding Trump’s public response to his book. Host Chuck Todd pressed him on whether White House staff said that kind of thing to him. He said yes, “all the time.”
“Actually, they would say, in the mid-period, ‘We’re not at a 25th Amendment level yet,'” later adding, “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.”
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment lets the Vice President and majority of the cabinet remove the president if they tell congressional leaders that POTUS “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It has never been invoked. The president can push back on this with his own written declaration, but if the VP and cabinet insist, then both houses of Congress must vote. The Vice President will continue to serve as Acting President if lawmakers take his side by a two-thirds majority.
The 25th Amendment is a running theme among Trump’s most vocal critics, but his supporters won’t acknowledge the possibility, at least in on-the-record conversations. As far as Wolff’s book, the White House has engaged in regular attacks on its veracity after copies were made available to the press.
That pattern continued Sunday morning.
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018
[Screengrab via NBC]
