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WASHINGTON: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled legislation on Friday (October 9) that would allow Congress to intervene under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove the president, insisting that it is not about of President Donald Trump, but inspired by the need for greater congressional oversight of his targets. House.
Pelosi has been raising questions about Trump’s mental fitness since his COVID-19 diagnosis and demanding more transparency about his health. The bill would establish a commission to assess the president’s ability to lead the country and ensure the continuity of the government. It comes a year after the House of Pelosi began impeachment proceedings against Trump.
“This is not about President Donald Trump, he will face the judgment of the voters,” Pelosi said at a news conference on Capitol Hill.
Just weeks before the Nov. 3 election, with no hope of the bill becoming law, Trump’s team and his top allies were quick to dismiss the launch as a gimmick.
“It’s an absurd proposition,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox.
“Absolutely absurd,” Senate Majority Leader McConnell said during an appearance in Shepherdsville, Kentucky.
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The president’s opponents have debated invoking the 25th Amendment for some time, but are raising it now, so close to Election Day, as the campaigns are rapidly turning into a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic of coronavirus.
Pelosi said Trump needs to reveal more about his health after his COVID-19 diagnosis and when, exactly, he first contracted COVID. More than 210,000 Americans have died and millions more have tested positive for the virus, which shows no signs of abating in the face of what public health experts warn will be a difficult flu season and winter.
Legislation that would create a commission as outlined in Amendment 25, which was passed by Congress and ratified in 1967 as a way to ensure continuity of power after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
It says that the vice president and most senior officials of executive departments “or any other body such as Congress” can, by law, provide a statement to Congress that the president “cannot fulfill the powers and duties of his position”. At that time, the vice president would immediately assume the powers of interim president.
“Let Congress exercise the power that the Constitution gave us,” Pelosi said Friday while standing before an amendment poster.
Pelosi was joined by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, a constitutional scholar, who has proposed similar bills in the past.
“In times of chaos we must hold fast to our Constitution,” he said Friday.
Raskin said the commission would be launched “only for the most extreme situations.”
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As Congress demonstrated in indicting and acquitting the president over the past year, the legislature is determined to exercise control over the executive branch at times.
“Congress has a role to play,” Raskin said.
Trump says he “feels great” after being hospitalized and is back at work in the White House. But her doctors have given mixed signals about her diagnosis and treatment. Trump plans to resume the campaign soon.
Congress is not in legislative session, so the measure is unlikely to be seriously considered, much less votes in the House or Senate. But the bill serves as a political tool to stoke questions about Trump’s health, as his own White House is hit by an outbreak infecting top aides, staff and visitors, including senators.
In a surprising admission, McConnell said Thursday that he had stopped going to the White House two months ago because he did not agree with its coronavirus protocols. His last visit was on August 6.
“My impression was that his approach to how to handle this was different than mine and what I insisted we do in the Senate, which is wear a mask and practice social distancing,” McConnell said at a campaign stop in northern Kentucky. for his own re-election. .
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