Pelosi hatches plan to oust Trump — but it requires McConnell and Pence to play ball

‘The president is, shall we say, in an altered state right now,’ Speaker says

Less than four weeks before the 3 November elections, House Democrats are pursuing an obscure constitutional provision to boot Donald Trump from office over perceived concerns about his health and his “capacity to discharge the powers and duties” of his office.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland will introduce legislation on Friday to create a so-called “Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office”, the special committee and process called for in the 25th Amendment to remove a disabled president from office and replace him with the vice president.

In order to sanction and establish such a committee, both the House and the GOP-controlled Senate would have to pass the requisite legislation, an unrealistic outcome considering Mitch McConnell controls the levers of the upper chamber.

On top of that, Vice President Mike Pence would have to agree that the president is incapacitated in order to replace him.

It was not immediately clear whether Ms Pelosi even has the votes in her own chamber to pass such a bill.

The speaker has speculated that Mr Trump might be in an unhealthy mental state as a result of the medication he is receiving for his ongoing battle with Covid-19.

“The president is, shall we say, in an altered state right now,” Ms Pelosi said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday.

“I don’t know how to answer for that behavior,” she said.

“There are those who say when you are on steroids or have Covid-19, there may be some impairment of judgment,” she said, referring to the reported cocktail of medicine — including steroids — Mr Trump has been taking to combat the symptoms of Covid-19.

Mr Trump, who frequently refers to the speaker as “Crazy Nancy”, shot back that Ms Pelosi is the one who is deranged.

“Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation. They don’t call her Crazy for nothing!” he said.