Pelosi’s 25th Amendment Bid Gets US Congress to Discuss Trump’s Removal

But the 25th Amendment 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 stunning admission, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he had stopped going to the White House two months ago because he disagreed with its coronavirus protocols. His last visit was August 6.

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“My impression was their approach to how to handle this was different from mine and what I insisted we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” McConnell said at a campaign stop in northern Kentucky for his own reelection.

On Friday, Nancy Pelosi along with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a constitutional law professor, plan to roll out the legislation that would create a commission as outlined under the 25th Amendment, which was passed by Congress and ratified in 1967 as a way to ensure a continuity of power in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

It says the vice president and a majority of principal officers of the executive departments “or of such other body as Congress” may by law provide a declaration to Congress that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”.

At that point, the vice president would immediately assume the powers of acting president.

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Trump abruptly halted talks this week on the new coronavirus aid package, sending the economy reeling, his GOP allies scrambling and leaving millions of Americans without additional support. Then he immediately reversed course and tried to kickstart talks.

It all came in a head-spinning series of tweets and comments days after he returned to the White House after his hospitalization with Covid-19.

First, President Donald Trump told the Republican leaders in Congress on Tuesday to quit negotiating on an aid package.

By Wednesday he was trying to bring everyone back to the table for his priority items — including $1,200 stimulus checks for almost all adult Americans.

Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Democrats are “still at the table" and her office resumed conversations with top negotiator Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Pelosi said she told Mnuchin she was willing to consider a measure to prop up the airline industry, which is facing widespread layoffs.

But that aid, she said, must go alongside broader legislation that includes the kind of Covid testing, tracing and health practices that Democrats say are needed as part of a national strategy to “crush the virus”.