This man is ignorant of the law, but he wants to be president.
For those of us outside the MAGA orbit, Donald Trump has quite a few shortcomings for someone who wants to be president. No. 1 on the list might be this: He is ignorant of the Constitution, and the law in general, according to an article at the widely read Above the Law (ATL) legal website. Considering that presidents probably have to deal with quite a few law-related issues, that's a pretty serious deficiency. On top of that, Trump's recent statements indicate he has no interest in the law -- and no intention of following the law, as it currently exists. On top of that, it appears Trump is not even interested in governing -- he is running, it seems, mainly to help him stay out of prison -- and that puts him in line with many other prominent Republicans.
Under the headline "Trump Demands That GOP Invoke 25th Amendment To Get Rid Of Biden. Because Trump Is Deeply Ignorant Of The Constitution," ATL's Liz Dye writes:
BREAKING: Donald Trump endorses Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Or maybe that weirdo is just screaming bullshit into the ether, as usual.
From @realDonadTrump at Truth Social:
Liz Dye continues:
Trump and his minions subject us daily to a twin barrage of nonsense. First they insist that President Biden is simultaneously leading an international crime syndicate with his son and a senile old man drooling into his oatmeal. At the same time, [Biden's] predecessor, who is under four criminal indictments, vomits out an endless stream of gibberish exposing his own deteriorating mental health and ignorance of basic American law.
“WHY HASN’T THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BEGUN THE PROCESS OF INVOKING THE 25th AMENDMENT AGAINST THE WORST & MOST INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, CROOKED JOE BIDEN?” he shrieks. “With these facts, they would have done it to us long ago!”
In 1965, after Kennedy’s assassination, Congress decided that Americans could do with a more clear succession plan for their chief executive. Proposed by Senator Birch Bayh, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment provides that the vice president shall become president upon the death or resignation of the executive. It is unequivocal that, in the event President Biden were actually removed, he would be replaced by Vice President Harris.
But that’s not the weirdest part of Trump’s post. Because here on Planet Earth, Republicans in Congress have zero power to invoke the 25th Amendment, since the plain language of the Amendment locates that power in the vice president and the cabinet.
Dye even quotes from the 25th Amendment:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
If that's not clear enough, Dye adds context:
With these fact, Democrats would not have done it long ago, because shut up, that is not a thing. And even if it were to come to pass that VP Harris and the cabinet turned on Biden, it would take a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress to override Biden’s refusal to leave office. This probably accounts for the failure of Trump’s own cabinet to invoke the Amendment, even after Trump incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Obviously, there are not enough hours in the day to debunk all of Trump’s lies. But at the same time, we can’t just allow it to wash over us like a warm bath of acid rain, even as every Biden stutter is treated as a sign of serious neurological impairment.
Is Trump clueless about all of this? Probably so. Does Trump care? Probably not? Does he assume his MAGA followers are blissfully clueless about matters of law? You probably can take that to the bank. Does Trump hold mostly contempt and disrespect for his own followers? You also can deposit that at the bank.
Dye concludes by cutting to the chase, and sounding an alarm, with bluntness that is refreshing -- at least to me:
Trump is deeply ignorant of the law, not to mention basic American civics, and he counts on his followers to be the same. And since we’re not going to be saved from this looming disaster by the Fourteenth Amendment, we had better exercise the First while we still have it.
