In Which I Call for the Immediate Impeachment and Removal of Mike Pence from His Office as Vice President of the United States
Mike Pence needs to be immediately impeached and removed from his office as Vice President of the United States for failing to carry out his constitutional duty.
Which constitutional duty?
His duty under Amendment 25 to "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 latest two things to cross my screen:
Economist: It’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
Trump: It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll…you understand the expression “prime the pump”?
Economist: Yes.
Trump: We have to prime the pump.
Economist: It’s very Keynesian.
Trump: We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?
Economist: "Priming the pump?"
Trump: Yeah, have you heard it?
Economist: Yes.
Trump: Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just—I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.
Economist: It’s…
Trump: Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.
And:
Trump: You know the catapult [on future USS Ford-class carriers] is quite important. So I said: "What is this?"
"Sir, this is our digital catapult system", he said. "Well, we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern."
I said: "You don’t use steam anymore for catapult?"
"No sir."
I said: "Ah, how is it working?"
"Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air."
It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said–and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said: "What system are you going to be"
"Sir, we’re staying with digital."
I said: "No you’re not. You going to goddamned steam. The digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good."
The duties of the President of the United States are:
[to] be commander in chief... to grant reprieves and pardons... to make treaties... appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and... other officers of the United States... to fill up... vacancies... to... give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient... convene both Houses, or either of them... receive ambassadors and other public ministers... take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and... commission all the officers of the United States...
Is there any doubt that Donald J. Trump is unable to perform any of these duties, save possibly that of receiving ambassadors and other public ministers from other countries? What is Mike Pence waiting for? Why has he not already fulfilled his constitutional duty under Amendment 25?
As Jonathan Chait said about Trump's interview with the Economist:
Trump did not invent the phrase “prime the pump.”... Nor does it describe his plan.... Telling The Economist you invented the phrase “priming the pump,” to describe a plan that does not prime the pump, is a bit like sitting down with Car and Driver, pointing to the steering wheel on your car and asking if they have ever heard of a little word you just came up with called “hubcap.”
