Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is resigning, per two officials. Cites yesterday’s events as reason in email to DOT colleagues, per draft. First Cabinet secretary to resign. Chao is married to Mitch McConnell.

“Our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the President stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed. As I'm sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.” —Chao says.

Resignation effective next Monday.

https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/...138614789?s=19

You could walk to shore on top of the Rats now abadonoing the sinking ship.

And it doesn't make them any less than rats. They've spent four years enabling and now they want to save their reputations. Too late for that!

Handy way to duck out of a vote on to use the 25th amendment or not.

Are we sure that they waited until now just to confirm that Biden won?

Which means they are losing their jobs anyway in two weeks.

How many have given 2 weeks notice?

And Chao is leaving so she can avoid having to sign off on the 25th amendment removal

If she had principles, she'd stay and lead the charge

My first thought as well.

I don't understand why people think the 25th is suddenly applicable just now; Trump's health and mental state are unchanged.

I was calling for it on Nov 6. I said the VP needs to act now because there is no telling how much damage could be done.

Got more than 500 likes. One of my most popular tweets ever.

I knew something ugly was coming. The options of what it would actually be was too great, but it was clear he was unhinged and had to be taken out of the loop.

Indeed, you are quite correct.

However, in politics, appearances often define reality and the current appearance is that is extremely obvious just what a stupid, disgusting, dangerous, POS Trump actually is.

I think that he treid to stage a Coup yesterday has a lot to do with it.

I wonder if she made it Monday instead of immediately so that she could still get in on some 25th action, just in case.

Section 4 doesn't say anything about why he is considered unable to discharge the duties of office. And it's clearly written in a way that anticipates the President is capable of objecting to being removed.

If so, a risky calculation.

If Trump denies he's incapacitated, the VP and the cabinet have 4 days to confirm his incapacitation. Then it goes to Congress, they can sit it out for 21 days. By then it's moot.

If Chao is the swing vote in the cabinet, she's still needed in the cabinet to respond to Trump's response. If Trump waits until Tuesday to respond, and there's no majority in the cabinet against him, he regains the full power of the presidency.

I'll note in this thread too, that the bar is set higher for removal under the 25th than it is for impeachment. Both houses have to have 2/3 majorities to confirm the removal.

Maybe, but that might not necessarily matter.

After all, if a cabinet member gets involved with invoking the 25th amendment, I don't think they will be subject to any sort of criminal prosecution if it is decided either that "Trump was always insane and you just ignored it", or "Trump is sane, and you invoked the 25th, but he gave you reasons to believe he had gone nuts".

I think the goal is to get Trump out of office before he can cause more havoc... nobody will complain about "is he really nuts?" if they manage to achieve that goal.

Not sure if that will matter much.

In another thread, someone pointed out that while Trump can challenge the 25th, and he may have the support to block the confirmation, the process can be delayed. All they would need to do is slow things down enough so that any vote on his competency wouldn't occur until after Biden was inaugurated, at which point the 25th amendment becomes moot.

ETA: My mistake... it was actually a poster in this thread, a few posts above mine.

what changed is there may be enough political will to remove him from office

That's impeachable, to be sure, but it's unclear what is has to do w/ the wording of the 25th.

it’s really up to congress what qualifies as him being incapacitated

Nope.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

I’m almost convinced, tell me more.

edit: the majority of the cabinet sends a letter to congress declaring him unfit, and they vote on it. there’s no set definition of what qualifies as unfit. So it’s up to them

A delay is only likely to happen if they want him out of office without a vote. That basically would require McConnell to go rogue. Not impossible. It was his wife that resigned today.

Also, the 25th amendment doesn't say "incapacitated". It says "incapable" of discharging the duties of POTUS.

The duties of POTUS include upholding the Constitution. So yes, it's up to his cabinet and to Congress to define it.

that’s correct thank you

What makes you think Trump is either physically or mentally incapable of doing this, as opposed to merely disinclined?

Is your mental capacity only one sentence deep? Read the sentence he typed directly ahead of the one you quoted.

What makes you think Trump is either physically or mentally incapable of upholding the constitution, as opposed to merely disinclined to do so?

I think he was on January 20th 2017. And the fact is he hasn't, EVER.

The proof is in the pudding.

This has been explained in baby talk multiple times now. And you're illiterate if you think I said anything like what you're implying.

I suppose Trump could contend that he send the protesters in intentionally as his choice. I doubt that would help his situation.

I'm holding to the idea that unable and unwilling are two distinct concepts. We have the 25th for the former, impeachment for the latter.

Vos just quit.
One of the biggest rats left leaves the ship.

He gave the speech in public, so yeah.

someone unwilling to uphold the constitution is unable to, due to a lack of will

of course no explanation is needed. if the they invoke the 25th whatever reasoning the choose to apply is irrelevant if it’s enough to get the votes

That's your interpretation and I get it.

But I agree with Wick's post below. Unwilling is incapable.

Have any U.S. appeals courts ever gone for the broader interpretation? Any legal scholars of note?

I'm sure others will answer in various flavors, but we're not talking about one policy or another here, but the basic idea of upholding the constitution, and I would suggest that if a person's disinclination to uphold the constitution is so firmly held that he cannot do it, then he is incapable of doing it, even if at some level he is able to say he just doesn't want to.

Of course in this case, I would agree with many that that incapability has been present for a long time, and there's plenty of evidence that he doesn't actually even understand the Constitution, but there's no law as far as I know that says everyone must be on board at some particular time, or miss the boat forever.

The 25th Amendment was drafted to cover a specific set of physical or mental incapacities. It is folly to pretend it's intended to function as a backdoor impeachment/removal mechanism as well.

You mean DeVos, sister of the boss of the murders trump pardoned?

Things I don't get: Why do any of these Trumpsters think quitting now is going to somehow save their reps?

Of course, it saves her from having to participate in the 25th amendment stuff.

Plus, given the fact that Trump seemed to have torpedoed the Republican's chances in Georgia, and has attacked Moscow Mitch in the past couple of months, I don't think McConnell would feel much loyalty to Trump.

And that's assuming he's still senate Majority leader if the 25th amendment reaches congress. Its possible that the 2 new Democratic senators from georgia might be seated by then, and the Democrats will be in control.

No.

Section 4 of the 25th has never been invoked. It probably should have been when Hinckley attempted to assassinate Reagan and he had to undergo surgery. It was considered by his cabinet when symptoms of Reagan's Alzheimer's started to appear during his second term.

My guess is SCOTUS would stay out of it. Not the kind of thing they want to rule on.

I think it’s reasonably arguable he’s not mentally able to fulfill his duties, he appears to be having some kind of delusional mental breakdown

In any case, there’s a specific section of the amendment detailing how to resolve a situation in which the president refutes his inability to fulfill his duties. if he feels he should still be president, he’s free to argue his case to congress and they decide

Her yachts needed a supervisor to oversee the brass polishing crew?

No, they likely wouldn't be. The State of Georgia has until January 22nd to certify the election.

Whatever the original intent of the 25th amendment, the actual text gives no such "specific set" of incapacities.

:thumbsup:

Precisely.

Should be noted that Pence has said he won't invoke the 25th. So the question is moot.

Just wondering if only confirmed members of the cabinet count. Because about half of them are "acting".

It's one of those cases where if you have the votes, then they have the votes, and indeed no explanation is needed, either for impeachment or for 25th amendment. However, if you don't have the votes, it's awfully hard to get them if you are working against the spirit of the law.

The amendment was meant for people who were physically or mentally disabled and could not execute the duties of the President. It won't be easy to convince people to make the declaration of "unable" in some different circumstance. It's not impossible, but it's a tough sell. Basically, unless they think he's dangerous, they won't do it.

And, you don't have to convince me that he's dangerous. You have to convince people like Ben Carson and Betsy DeVoss.

I wondered the same thing. I think the definitive answer would have to come from the Supreme Court. My guess is that they would rule that "acting" should be included. After all, they are the current head of that department, doing everything the regular Secretary would do. That includes voting on the 25th amendment, but it would be a court fight.

I read that Pence has signaled he won't support it, so the question is moot.

It's impeachment, or another two weeks of Trump.