Just days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pledged to create a committee to study removing a president from office and invoked the 25th Amendment, President Trump on Sunday said the California Democrat couldn’t pass “basic aptitude tests.”
During an appearance on Fox News, the president was asked about Pelosi, who, as speaker, is third in the line of succession.
“I don’t think she could pass basic aptitude tests, personally. I really don’t. I don’t believe it,” he said.
Trump also said he thinks Pelosi is mulling the formation of the committee because of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, not him.
“Well, I think she’s talking about Joe Biden, because to be honest with you, he’s the one that’s got the problem and … it’s obvious to anybody that watches him speak,” Trump said.
In her weekly press conference on Thursday, Pelosi floated a mysterious hint about the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says the president can be removed from office if “he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
“Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow—come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment,” she told reporters.
Section 4 of the Amendment states: “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
On Friday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) introduced a bill to form a commission that would rule on the president’s fitness for office in order to “enable Congress to help ensure effective and uninterrupted leadership” in the presidency.
The panel, called the Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office, would be “the body and process called for in the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Pelosi and Raskin’s offices said in a statement.
“This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of voters. But he shows the need to create a process for future presidents,” Pelosi said.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany later that day blasted Pelosi. “That’s an absurd proposition from Nancy Pelosi. The only one who needs to be looking at the 25th Amendment is Nancy Pelosi herself,” McEnany said.
The president also responded on Twitter Friday, claiming “Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking at the 25th Amendment in order to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris. The Dems want that to happen fast because Sleepy Joe is out of it!!!”
In an appearance on “The View” on Wednesday, Pelosi said the White House staff needs to hold an “intervention.”
“The president has always had [erratic] behavior. Right now it’s very, very dangerous because he knows the danger of the virus, but he’s in denial, as he was right from the start,” Pelosi said on the show. “Denial, delay, distortion, and look what has happened to our country.”
“There are enablers around the president who really should know better. The Republicans in Congress have enabled so much of this to happen,” she said. “That’s why I think that there has to be an intervention in terms of people around him.”