Members of the trump cabinet watching i described how the 25th Amendment can be used to remove the president and make the Vice President what the 25th Amendment call it is acting president. Under the 25th Amendment, the Vice President and the majority of the cabinet can decide to invoke the 25th Amendment. That is entirely up to the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet. They dont need donald trump to become medically unable to do the job. They dont need a written opinion from a psychiatrist that donald trump is insane. If the president objects to such an action taken by the Vice President and the majority of the cabinet, then the amendment provides that, quote, Congress Shall decide the issue. And that will be determined by a twothirds vote of both houses of congress. When those votes are counted, mike pence could become acting president. Using the 25th Amendment is not, in fact, a complex process, as the op ed described it today. But that section could simply mean that the members of the cabinet who were whispering about invoking the 25th Amendment early on realized that they probably could not win that twothirds vote in the house and the senate after donald trump would object to their use of the 25th Amendment. And thats why they decided not to try it. Todays op ed piece is the first recorded instance in the history of the 25th Amendment of that amendment being discussed in a white house where the president is physically healthy and fully conscious. The cabinet was whispering about the 25th Amendment early on because of Donald Trumps amorality. And so according to todays New York Times op ed piece, as the resistance was marching in the streets against the president of
the United States, some Sleeper Cells of the resistance were beginning to take up positions inside the Trump Administration. And tonight the president of the United States will try to go to sleep without knowing who those members of the resistance are in his own white house and in his own administration. And so Donald Trumps circle of trust has reportedly been reduced to a point that seemed easily predictable at the outset. The Washington Post is reporting tonight trump already felt that he had a Dwindling Circle of people who he could trust. He fretted after wednesdays op ed that he could only trust his children. Leading off our discussion now, an Msnbc National Security analyst and former Chief Of Staff at the cia and the former Chief Of Staff to joe biden and
al gore. And former undersecretary of astate and an msnbc Global Affairs chairman, author of the new book not for the faint of heart. And wendy sherman, donald trump needs a lesson in what your book teaches, but he seems completely oblivious to everything that all of you on this first panel know about government and how it works and it is the reason you are all here, is because this is a story about the internal workings of the white house. You have all been here and we all know and the world knows we have never seen anything like what we saw in the New York Times today. And i just want to get your reaction to any part of that op ed piece as you have read it. There has been a lot of discussion about the process, who it is, which you will get to later this evening. Why he did it. Why he didnt have the courage that john mccains funeral spoke to us about. But the real point here is the president s behavior. We have a president who members of his own team believe is unfit to be president. Thats a constitutional crisis. There is a Corruption Crisis here, too, because the author of this piece says, hey, we left him in place because we like tax cut, Military Spending and deregulation. If the Republican Party is complicit in an amoral and unfit president because they are getting goodies for their donors, that is just corruption. And there is a chaos crisis. You have people in the president S Administration running around undoing his decisions, not following his orders, ignoring what he says. Thats chaotic. Donald trump tweeted treason. The answer is no. We have not had a treason case in america since world war ii because, as ive said before in this program, the United StatesSupreme Court has interpreted
the constitutions reference to treason as being as requiring a Declaration Of War and requiring cooperation with the country who is who we have declared war with in order to get to the standard of treason. And thats why we have not had a treason case since our last Declaration Of War, which is world war ii. Pardon that longer parentheses than i intended but sometimes the president is watching and he might learn something. Where do you see this going . What happens tomorrow in the Trump Administration . I think in some ways this anonymous piece may give rise to other pieces to come out, to speak out and to say, yes, indeed. We have a twotrack presidency. I think this is mostly relevant in the area of National Security, which is where i suspect this person works. But also it is the focus of the piece. The twotrack presidency where in essence we have foreign
policy decisionmaking thats been carried out by the career staff, the professionals as well as the senior appointees who know how to manage Foreign Policy issues. They are trying to keep things on an even keel, trying to work with allies and be tough on adversaries. Then the president is going off in a completely different direction. I think it is one thing if it happened in invested policy. Wendy sherman, this op ed piece creates either more confusion in the world or perhaps more clarity in the world because our partners in the world, our adversaries in the world, other countries have been wondering how you deal with this Trump White House and how you deal with donald trump. This op ed piece is saying you have to find the real person. If you really want to deal with the Trump Administration on x, whatever that is, find the real person who is in control of that because its not the president. Its the person who controls the paper involving x, and that person might or might not put that piece of paper or remove that piece of paper from the president s desk. So dealing with this presidency, it seems, becomes probably even more complex for foreign countries. I think a lot of National Security leaders around the world have gone and found those people that they can relate to and talk to, but in the end it doesnt matter because the keeps pulling the rug out from the people who are doing the work. Hell say, ill meet with the president any time, any place without conditions and then we have secretary mike pompeo coming forward and saying, no, not really. We want these conditions and these conditions and these conditions. At the end of the day, no one can be sure who is trying to keep our state, our country safe and protected on the right course. Theyre never sure whether the rug is going to be pulled out from under them. In the past, great patriots have left our government over issues of morality. They were Foreign Service officers. They could not stay. And i have said to many Foreign Service officers. Im sure jeremy and ron are saying, stay up until the point where it is ethically and morally not possible for you to do so. And then have the courage to speak out and speak your convictions. I wish this person had not spoken anonymously. Perhaps there is reason why the person did what they did. But what really matters here is changing the president of the United States, changing our politics, finding the courage, the persistence to get the job done for us. And when we think of the principles resignations, the threshold has been so much lower in the past, there was actually one that i can think of in the clinton administration, which was an Assistant Secretary in health and Human Services about Welfare Policy because bill clinton compromised too much with the republicans and he in principal resigned over that. I want to read you something that bob corker said today because it is shocking and completely obvious and was somewhere in the back of your head and in your set of assumptions already. Bob corker having read the New York Times op ed piece said i didnt think that anything was relayed in that op ed that was new. I mean, i think this is what all of us have understood to be the situation from day one. And so again it is not very it didnt reveal much to me. I understand this is the case. Yeah. And it points to another group that is responsible for the situation this op ed lays out. Thats the Republican Leadership in congress, which has failed to do their job of holding the president accountable. Even the ones that tweet and sometimes speak against him on capitol hill, you know, issue these mild rebukes rhetorically and then go and vote with the
president up and down the line. As you mentioned at the outset, someone who wanted to invoke the 25th Amendment would have to believe they had twothirds of the congress behind them for it to stick. With these republicans on capitol hill bowing to President Trump, thats what empowers the situation we face as a country right now. And jeremy bash, we dont know what twothirds of either body is going to look like after this upcoming election. But here you have as much chaos as we have ever seen in the Trump White House as donald trump has been attempting to lead the republicans in their reelection campaigns. Thats right, lawrence. I think the unavailability of the 25th Amendment is because, first, you have to have the Vice President on board. Second you have to have the majority of the cabinet and third you have to have twothirds of both chambers. What is a professional working on National Security or Security Matters to do. They will put their head down,
do their job and not do what the president says and carry out this quiet resistance. I just want to say, i dont think it is mysterious. It is not deep state or improper. I think it is patriotic, the right thing to do. It is what many of our neighbors, colleagues, friends here In Washington are sadly doing each and every day. All right. Were now going to be joined in our conversation by the democrat ek congressman who tweeted there is so much wrong about whats described in the New York Times op ed about donald trump. But blame falls squarely at the feet of the gop. Congresss absolute failure to check the president. They wont check him. So cowardly aids wont speak up publically and have gone rogue. You have made a point now that ron brought us to here, but you are making it today that this
should be looked at in terms of the fuller and wider Support System that donald trump has In Washington that really resides in congress. Good evening, lawrence. Thats absolutely right. This is directly the result of a Republican Congress that has been unwilling to do its job and to check the president. And they do that because they would rather get the tax cuts for the wealthiest and Gut Health Care protections. They figure hes worth the trouble. Look what it has caused. It caused aids in the white house to go rogue. I dont see these aids as patriotic. I see them as covering up very disturbing conduct. And the best thing they could do is to bring that conduct to light publically, name themselves, resign and allow democracy to do its job. If they do this and toil away in the dark, we dont truly know. It allows congress to get off the hook. We began the day without this op ed piece, without this voice
from inside the Trump Administration, Senior Administration official. We now have this voice. We now have this picture, which is a flawless reproduction of the picture were getting from Bob Woodwards book, the excerpts anyway, at this point. We dont have the name of the person. I have heard so much dissatisfaction today from people who dont yet have the name of the person. But dont we have something valuable . We have consistent evidence where all the arrows continue to point in the same direction, lawrence, whether its the Woodward Book, whether it was fire and fury, you have a reckless, corrupted, amoral president and they are doing everything they can to cover up for him, these aids. But you have a Republican Congress that just looks the other way. The author said that its cold comfort, but that they are
seeking to stop the president s worst instincts. There is nothing comforting about that. This person should come out publically and the republicans should be ashamed they have allowed this to happen. But democracy does not leave us helpless, lawrence. We can solve this this november and do the job these aids are doing and hold the president accountable. If democrats get control of the House Of Representatives, lets say we have that tomorrow, what would be the reaction of those chairs of those committees in the house to reading this op ed piece . Would they then be speaking the testimony from administration officials, high officials, Cabinet Officials asking them directly if they are the source of this article . I think the person people can count on us to do the investigations the republicans will not do, especially as it comes to National Security and particularly on the question of what was said in helsinki between the president and putin. We need the congress to speak up and hold this president accountable. Congressman, thank you very much. To turn back to our panel here, wendy, you worked on the democratic senate. What would you expect this op ed piece to provoke by way of possible Senator Investigation . I think the senate would go even further, i think. I think they would haul people in from the administration. I think they would look to see whether, in fact, it was time to invoke the 25th Amendment. You know, we count on the senate because they have sixyear terms and dont have to worry every two years about whether they will get reelected to have a longer view. We have to have a longer view that takes us to the 2020 election and really changes the leadership of this country. You asked about people around the world. They dont know what to do with us. They look at this corruption. It gives autocrats and dictators notice because they see a corrupt government. We cannot lead effectively under these circumstances. Jeremy bash, i have to believe there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Government Service workers in the departments, in the permanent staff in places like the State Department, places like the cia, the nsa, justice department, all over the administration who have read this Op Ed Piece Today and felt i am not alone. They might not know who joins them in that feeling in the next office or the next cubicle, but i have to believe that there are hundreds and hundreds of people working in the administration at the level that really gets the job done and really keeps the government moving who read thatOp Ed Piece Today and saw in it a reason for them to continue. Youre right, lawrence. This op ed is no minority report. I think it is the consensus view, the vast majority of people who work around the white house, the senior levels of the administration, have arrived at the same view of this. There are the people i talk to, the people that ron, wendy, eric talk to, you talk to, lawrence. I literally have not talked to a senior person who said, actually, everything is fine. The president is perfect. Hes making great decisions. Were all standing in line. That just doesnt happen. This bursts into the open whats been whit perred about In Washington for two years. Ron, there