Turley on Dems’ Attempt to Declare Trump Unfit: ‘They Tend to Do Things with Not Much Foresight’
RUSH EXCERPT:
CARLSON: "Why wait for an election? A Shapiro professor of interest law at George Washington school of law, and he joins us now. Professor, thank you for coming on. The 25th amendment, I think most people are not aware it exists. Explain this and whether it has been used before?"
TURLEY: "It has been used. It has various parts to it. One is a temporary transfer of authority. We have had presidents who have gone through situations where they have handed over presidents to the vice president pending the outcome of their operation. What hasn’t been used in section four, the nuclear option, it is when a vice president goes to the cabinet and says, I think this president is not capable of discharging the powers of his office. There is also a provision for Congress to do that. That is what this bill is all about. But this is, in my view, wildly premature, and I can’t imagine it could get much support, even in these rather zany times.
CARLSON: "So would it require the vice president’s complicity? What do you have to go to the cabinet or the Congress with his concerns for this to work?"
TURLEY: "Pence would have a key role in whatever avenue they took. First of all, he would have to be a key player in taking the first approach, which is to go to the cabinet and get them maturity vote of the cabinet. But he also has the ability to derail the second fold. The biggest problem is that the 25th amendment really foresaw physical disability, that is what most people were thinking of, they were specifically thinking of Eisenhower. Eisenhower had a heart attack and then a stroke that affected his speech. Then, of course, we lost John Kennedy in an assassination, and that sealed the deal. The 25th amendment was fashioned at that time, and it was ratified. It does extend to mental disability. But a lot of people don’t realize that a lot of our presidents had mental disabilities. You know, Lincoln was thought to suffer from depression. Kennedy, Nixon, pierce, Coolidge, they all had conditions that people had raised. But it is a dangerous thing once you get into the mental disability area, because that is when you can really get a lot of political mischief. You know, when a member of Congress said, just Google narcissism, if you do that, it would apply to probably two-thirds of the members of Congress, you know."
CARLSON: "I don’t think that’s true. I think it would apply to every single one. I don’t know any of the 435 who would fall outside that description. I guess the point is, everywhere you go in lefty news world, you are hearing about the 25th amendment. But it is not as simple as a couple of left-wing congressmen getting together and deciding, I don’t like the president. Were moving him. We are in paneling and 11-dr. Panel, or whatever. This is a process that is very unlikely to happen because it would be hard to pull off. Am I right?"
TURLEY: "Would be very hard to pull off. In fact, in that second option, you need a two-thirds vote of both houses. But even if it were possible, what people have to keep in mind, this is a dangerous game to play. It wasn’t long ago that I was critical of the Democrats for frittering away their legislative authority under the Obama Administration. They tend to do things with not much foresight. This would be a very dangerous game indeed. If you succeeded in actually removing a president because you think that he is narcissistic or, as one member said, he is not doing the right thing for the right reasons, that is an awfully dangerous standard. The framers didn’t want that. That’s why the 25th amendment was passed as late as it was. The framers created a very simple and short and, frankly, and adequate process, and the reason they didn’t go further, I think they were uncomfortable with the thought of letting the legislature remove a sitting president."
CARLSON: "Right, because we have these elections, or used to have these elections to decide the outcome. I thought that was the whole point. Jonathan Turley, thank you for joining us."
