(OPINION) ETH – There are only 13 days left in President Trump’s term, however, many Republican officials are reportedly considering drastic measures to stop him including censure, impeachment, or even invoking the 25th Amendment which means Vice President Pence would step in if Trump were found to be unable to perform his duties.
According to Axios, these extreme measures are coming from current and former White House and GOP Hill aides, and Republican lobbyists and political consultants — all of whom have either embraced him or quietly tolerated him until now but these are not alone as Senior State Department officials are also encouraging the 25th Amendment along with other officials at the White House and other departments.
This comes as many Republicans are left furious with the president for what they see as an attack on American democracy, disgracing their party and invading the sanctity of their chambers on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. One administration official told the Washington Post: “He kept saying:
‘The vast majority of them are peaceful. What about the riots this summer? What about the other side? No one cared when they were rioting. My people are peaceful. My people aren’t thugs,’ ” the unnamed official said, referencing the unrest this summer tied to the Black Lives Matter movement. “He didn’t want to condemn his people.” “He was a total monster today,” this official added, saying it was a worse day than when Trump defended the people who took part in the 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who was the president’s first secretary of defense, directly blamed Trump as being responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters. “Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump,” Mattis said in a statement. “His use of the presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”
