Democrats to Consider 25th Amendment

Speaker complains about lack of information on Trump's health
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 8, 2020 6:06 PM CDT
Democrats to Consider 25th Amendment
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., listens to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday at the Capitol.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she didn't want to shift the focus from the coronavirus stimulus package under negotiation. But it happened anyway when the House speaker said Democrats plan to meet Friday to discuss the 25th Amendment, which spells out presidential succession and the process for removing an unfit president from office. "If you want to talk about that," Pelosi told a reporter who asked about the amendment, "we’ll see you tomorrow." She then expressed irritation over the lack of transparency concerning Trump's health, the Hill reports. "Mr. President, when was the last time you had a negative test before you tested positive?" Pelosi said. "Why is the White House not telling the country that important fact about how this made a hotspot of the White House?”

Pelosi later said in an interview that treatments, including steroids, that Trump has received to combat COVID-19 could be imparing his judgment, per NBC. "The president is, shall we say, in an altered state right now," she told Bloomberg TV. Trump answered in a tweet that "Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation." In 2017, a Democratic House member offered legislation to create a commission that would decide whether a sitting president is fit for office, in line with the Constitution's wording. Rep. Jamie Raskin said he's going to update his plan. "I've got my 25th Amendment legislation from the last Congress, HR 1987, which I'm going to be dusting off and reintroducing," he said. (A book said that if the Cabinet had invoked the 25th Amendment earlier, Mike Pence wouldn't have objected.)

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