Subterms
Anywhere but Washington
US elections 2020
The 24th district is a microcosm of political shifts in the state and a test of which vision of the suburbs is more accurate More
Opinion
US Senate
Lindsey Graham, reverse ferret: how John McCain’s spaniel became Trump’s poodle
Sidney Blumenthal
On Monday, the senator who praised Hillary and helped get the Steele dossier to the FBI will preside over a hearing for Amy Coney Barrett, a nominee to tilt the supreme court right for years to come. His is a quintessential Washington tale More
Opinion
Donald Trump
Trump said he could kill and win – Covid and cheating may prove it
Robert Reich
He said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose votes. Now 210,000 are dead and he’s scheming to keep power More
Politics books
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser are superb on the ‘Velvet Hammer’, who served Reagan and the Bushes but also reached across the aisle
GOP grandee will vote Trump ‘to get conservative judges’ More
Ted Cruz fears an election “bloodbath”. His fellow top Republican senator Thom Tillis is talking in terms of a Joe Biden presidency. And even Mitch McConnell, the fiercely loyal Senate majority leader, won’t go near the White House over Donald Trump’s handling of coronavirus protocols.Individually, they could arguably be seen as off-the-cuff comments from Trump’s allies attempting to rally support for the US president just days ahead of a general election that opinion polls increasingly show him losing.But collectively, along with pronouncements from several other Republicans appearing to distance themselves from Trump, his administration and its policies, it reflects growing concern inside the Republican party’s top tier that 3 November could be a blowout win for Joe Biden and the Democrats.“I think it could be a terrible election. I think we could lose the White House and both houses of Congress, that it could be a bloodbath of Watergate proportions,” Cruz, the junior senator for Texas and former vocal critic of Trump, said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday.“I am worried. It’s volatile, it’s highly volatile,” he added, although he did say he also saw the possibility of Trump re-elected “with a big margin”.Tillis, one of several Trump associates who contracted Covid-19 apparently at a super-spreader White House event two weeks ago, faces a tough fight for re-election as senator for North Carolina, and raised the prospect of a Trump defeat during a debate against Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham.“The best check on a Biden presidency is for Republicans to have a majority in the senate,” he said, inadvertently suggesting he thought a Democratic victory next month could be a done deal. “Checks and balances does resonate with North Carolina voters,” he added.Elsewhere, Republican displeasure at Trump is becoming increasingly evident, especially among candidates locked in tight election races of their own.Martha McSally, the Arizona senator trailing the former Nasa astronaut Mark Kelly by a significant margin, attacked Trump for his repeated attacks on her predecessor, John McCain. “Quite frankly, it pisses me off when he does it,” she said in a debate this week. The Texas senator John Cornyn slammed Trump this week for “creating confusion” over coronavirus and “letting his guard down” as the pandemic spread across the nation.McConnell’s comments, meanwhile, about why he has not been to the White House for at least two months could be seen in a different context, given he is 78 and in the same at-risk demographic as the already infected president.“My impression was that their approach to how to handle this is different from mine and what I suggested that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” he said.But dissent from the staunch Trump ally has been almost unheard of through the four years of the presidency. McConnell’s words seem to reflect the threat that a nationwide backlash to Trump’s pandemic handling poses to the Republican senate majority. More
US politics
Bipartisan commission would gauge president’s capability
Nancy Pelosi insists proposal is not about Trump
Play Video
2:10
Pelosi says Trump’s Covid medication has him ‘in an altered state’ – video
Democrats provoked an angry tirade from Donald Trump on Friday by proposing a congressional commission to assess whether US presidents are capable of performing their duties or should be removed from office.
The gambit came a week after Trump was flown to a military hospital for treatment for coronavirus and 25 days before an election. The president returned to the White House on Monday but has caused concern with erratic behaviour.
“This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of the voters but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents,” Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, told a press conference in which she also took a swipe at the British prime minister, Boris Johnson.
But the timing was impossible to ignore as Trump has continued to give rambling TV interviews, tweet false and contradictory statements and potentially endanger his own White House staff by defying public health guidance.
The president tweeted in response: “Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking at the 25th Amendment in order to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris. The Dems want that to happen fast because Sleepy Joe is out of it!!!”
The 25th amendment to the US constitution provides the procedure for the vice-president to take over the duties of president if he or she dies or resigns or it is determined that he or she cannot fulfill the functions of the office.
The Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, introducing the legislation on Friday, said: “The 25th amendment is all about the stability of the presidency and the continuity of the office.
“Now, it’s never been necessary, but the authors of the 25th amendment thought it essential in the nuclear age to have a safety valve option and, as they often said, we have 535 members of Congress but we only have one president.”
He added: “In the age of Covid-19, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans and now ravaged the White House staff, the wisdom of the 25th amendment is clear. What happens if a president – any president – ends up in a coma or on a ventilator and has made no provisions for the temporary transfer of power? This situation is what demands action.”
This panel would be known as the Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office. Raskin, a constitutional law professor, said it would be bipartisan and consist of 17 members, including medical personnel, and could only act in concert with the vice-president.
Asked about the timing of the bill, Raskin explained “this situation has focused everyone’s mind” on the 25th amendment.
Pelosi repeated her insistence that it did not apply to Trump: “Again, this isn’t about any judgment anybody has about somebody’s behaviour. It isn’t about any of us making a decision as to whether the 25th amendment should be invoked. That’s totally not the point. That’s not up to us.”
Invoking the 25th amendment would require the support of Vice-President Mike Pence and members of Trump’s cabinet. There has been no hint that this is imminent.
A reporter asked Pelosi if Johnson was an example of someone whose capacity to govern was reduced by coronavirus. She replied: “I have no idea. Nor do I have of President Trump.
“I just said clearly, he is under medication. Any of us who is under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state. He has bragged about the medication he has taken. And again, there are articles by medical professionals saying, as was said earlier, this could have an impact on judgment.”
She then made a surprise attack on the UK’s efforts to create a vaccine, describing the US Food and Drug Administration’s “very stringent” rules for clinical trials and approval. “My concern is that the UK’s system for that kind of judgment is not on a par with ours in the United States. So if Boris Johnson decides he’s going to approve a drug and this president embraces that, that’s the concern I have about any similarity between the two.”
The initiative on the 25th amendment was not without political risks for Democrats as Trump’s allies sought to portray it as a power grab ahead of the election. Josh Holmes, former chief of staff and campaign manager for Senate majority leader, the Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, tweeted: “Every time I think our goose is cooked, Nancy Pelosi grabs the microphone and I say to myself, we still have a shot.”
Trump was flown to a military hospital on 2 October after testing positive for Covid-19. He spent three nights there receiving a menu of treatments before his doctors said he was well enough to be discharged. He returned to the White House and immediately removed his face mask, provoking criticism.
Since then his conduct has raised concerns, even by the turbulent standards of the Trump presidency. He suddenly called off negotiations with Congress over an economic stimulus package, taking his Republican allies by surprise, but then performed an equally jarring U-turn. And boasted about being a “perfect physical specimen” and “extremely young” in another Fox phone interview.
Both Trump’s doctors and White House officials still refuse to say when the president received his last negative test, raising questions over who he might have infected.
Trump floated the idea that he might travel to a rally on Saturday in Florida, but the administration indicated on Friday morning that this was unlikely.
Topics
US politics
US Congress
House of Representatives
Nancy Pelosi
Donald Trump
Democrats
Republicans
news
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share via Email
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest
Share on WhatsApp
Share on Messenger
Reuse this content More
US elections 2020
The Democrats face a tough challenge to reclaim control of the Senate, up against the Republicans’ 53-47 majority. With 35 seats up for re-election it will probably come down to a five key races More
US politics
House speaker says Democrats will consider constitution’s 25th amendment as president faces ‘disassociation from reality’
Play Video
1:19
Nancy Pelosi suggests future discussion on Donald Trump’s fitness for office – video
Democrats in the US Congress have announced a plan to create a commission to review whether Donald Trump is capable of carrying out his presidential duties or should face removal from office.
The office of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced a Friday press conference about the bill after she expressed concern that Trump, who is under treatment for coronavirus at the White House, is suffering a “disassociation from reality”.
The president has unleashed a barrage of erratic and self-contradictory tweets and declarations in recent days that have left staff scrambling and raised concerns over his stability.
In a zigzagging interview on the Fox Business channel on Thursday, his first since being hospitalised, Trump, 74, boasted: “I’m back because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young. And so I’m lucky in that way.”
Pelosi, who is negotiating a Covid-19 economic stimulus plan, responded at her weekly press conference: “The plan isn’t for the president to say that he’s a perfect physical specimen. Specimen, maybe I can agree with that … And young, he said he was young.”
Trump “is, shall we say, in an altered state right now” and “the disassociation from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly,” the 80-year-old speaker added while wearing a mask.
Trump reacted angrily to Pelosi’s manoeuvre, tweeting: “Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation. They don’t call her Crazy for nothing!”
He also retweeted Republican allies, including the congressman Mark Green, who posted: “I wouldn’t put it past @SpeakerPelosi to stage a coup. She has already weaponized impeachment, what’s to keep her from weaponizing the 25th amendment? We need a new Speaker!”
In the surprise move on Thursday, Pelosi revealed that Democrats will meet to focus on the 25th amendment to the constitution, which contains a clause that allows a president to be removed from office against his will because of physical or mental incapacity.
Her office followed up with the announcement that Pelosi and the congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland will hold a press conference at 10.15am on Friday “to discuss the introduction of the Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office Act”.
The legislation will create the body and process called for in the 25th amendment to “enable Congress to help ensure effective and uninterrupted leadership in the highest office in the Executive Branch of government”, it added.
Although the 25th amendment enables Pelosi to create such a panel to review the president’s health and fitness for office, the House of Representatives would not be able to remove Trump from office without the agreement of the vice-president, Mike Pence, and members of the cabinet. They have given no hint that such a move is imminent.
The Democratic-led House impeached Trump last year on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he sought to pressure Ukraine for political favours. The Republican-controlled Senate did not convict him.
Trump tweeted last Friday morning that he had tested positive for coronavirus, and he was flown to a military hospital that evening. After a three-night stay, including a car ride to wave to his supporters, he flew back to the White House and caused outrage by removing his mask.
He has received various treatments including doses of remdesivir, an anti-viral drug, supplemental oxygen, a controversial experimental antibody treatment by the US biotech firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and dexamethasone, a steroid that some medical experts warn can cause insomnia and mood swings.
Pelosi said: ‘I’ve quoted others to say that there are those who say that when you’re on steroids and/or if you’ve had Covid-19 or both – that there may be some impairment of judgment. But, again, that’s for the doctors and scientists to determine, but it was very strange, really surprising.”
Trump has issued video messages and dozens of tweets that, even by the standards of his mercurial presidency, have spun in all directions and sown disarray.
This week he abruptly announced that he was calling off the talks with Pelosi over additional coronavirus economic relief legislation, catching Republicans by surprise, only to later partly reverse his position. On Thursday he also suddenly declared that he would not take part in next week’s debate with Joe Biden, after it was announced on Thursday morning that the event would be virtual, not in-person.
And the president has returned to the Oval Office despite isolation rules that should have kept him away and the White House itself becoming a virus hotspot. At least 20 people in or working around the executive mansion have tested positive for Covid-19 in recent days.
Play Video
0:45
Donald Trump says he will not participate in virtual debate with Joe Biden – video
In Trump’s hour-long interview with Fox Business on Thursday, observers found further cause for concern. He mused that he could have contracted the virus from a reception he held for military families at the White House. “They want to hug me and they want to kiss me,” he said. “And they do and, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up.”
He claimed that his hospitalisation was unnecessary. “I didn’t have to go in, frankly; I think it would have gone away by itself.” And he made the false assertion: “I don’t think I am contagious at all. Remember this: when you catch it you get better. And then you’re immune.”
This was after he emerged from hospital announcing that people should not fear Covid-19, despite the fact it has already killed 212,000 people in America and caused many others among the 7.6 million infected in the US to suffer serious and sometimes prolonged symptoms.
And reacting to Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate, he called the Democratic senator Kamala Harris of California a “communist” and “monster” who wants to “open up the borders to allow killers and murderers and rapists to pour into our country”.
Earlier on Wednesday, the president tweeted a video of himself describing his contraction of the virus as a “blessing from God”.
Under the 25th amendment, Pence would take over if Trump were deemed unfit to serve, with Pelosi next in line. Pence reported on Thursday that he had tested negative for coronavirus.
Topics
US politics
Nancy Pelosi
Donald Trump
Coronavirus outbreak
Mike Pence
Republicans
Democrats
news
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share via Email
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest
Share on WhatsApp
Share on Messenger
Reuse this content More
