Sen. Elizabeth Warren called on White House officials Thursday to remove President Trump from office as unfit to handle the job.
The Massachusetts Democrat and progressive hero, often touted as a 2020 presidential hopeful, said Wednesday’s op-ed in The New York Times by an anonymous White House official justifies forcing out Mr. Trump under the constitutional provisions for an incapacitated president.
“If senior administration officials think the President of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment,” she told CNN in an interview.
Shortly after the interview, Ms. Warren sent out a fundraising letter, making the same case for removing Mr. Trump. The letter asks recipients to “chip in” for Ms. Warren’s 2018 Senate re-election campaign and to sign a petition titled “Tell the cabinet: If Trump is unfit, invoke the 25th.”
Later in the evening, Ms. Warren tripled down on her claim, sending out several tweets repeating the points and much of the language of the fundraising letter and the CNN interview.
“This isn’t about politics — this is about the safety of our children, the national security of our nation, and the future of our democracy. Tell the cabinet: if Trump is unfit, invoke the 25th,” she wrote in one of them.
In all three venues, Ms. Warren said that the anonymous sniping at Mr. Trump and some of the things the article described White House staffers as doing to keep Mr. Trump from his own worst instincts are not enough.
“The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the vice president and senior officials think the president can’t do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the president — take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds,” she explained to CNN. “Every one of these officials have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It’s time for them to do their job.”
She also dismissed concerns that using the 25th Amendment to remove a president from office would precipitate a constitutional crisis via a belief among Mr. Trump’s supporters that it would amount to a deep-state coup.
“Let’s be clear: We already have a constitutional crisis if the cabinet believes the President of the United States can’t do his job and then refuses to follow the rules that have been laid down in the United States Constitution. They can’t have it both ways,” she wrote in the letter.
Cabinet members “should stop hiding behind anonymous op-eds and leaking information to Bob Woodward boasting that they’re trying to save our country,” Ms. Warren continued, “and instead do what the Constitution demands they do.”
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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