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Nancy Pelosi suggests future discussion on Donald Trump’s fitness for office – video
Nancy Pelosi, the US House speaker, has warned that Donald Trump is suffering from “disassociation from reality” and said Congress will on Friday discuss the constitutional potential to remove him from office.
The president, under treatment for coronavirus at the White House, has unleashed a barrage of erratic and self-contradictory tweets and declarations in recent days that have left staff scrambling and raised concerns over his stability.
In a zigzagging interview on the Fox Business channel on Thursday, his first since being hospitalised, Trump, 74, boasted: “I’m back because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young. And so I’m lucky in that way.”
Pelosi, who is negotiating a Covid-19 economic stimulus plan, responded at her weekly press conference: “The plan isn’t for the president to say that he’s a perfect physical specimen. Specimen, maybe I can agree with that … And young, he said he was young.”
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Trump “is, shall we say, in an altered state right now” and “the disassociation from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly,” the 80-year-old speaker added while wearing a mask.
In a surprise move, Pelosi revealed that Democrats will meet on Friday to discuss the 25th amendment to the constitution, which contains a clause that allows a president to be removed from office against his will because of physical or mental incapacity.
“Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow, come here tomorrow,” she told reporters. “We’re going to be talking about the 25th amendment. But not to take attention away from the subject we have now.”
Pelosi refused to offer more details but implied that the issue was connected to the White House’s unwillingness to provide a timeline or say when Trump is believed to have been infected.
“I’m not talking about it today except to tell you, if you want to talk about that, we’ll see you tomorrow,” she added. “But you take me back to my point, Mr President, when was the last time you had a negative test before you tested positive? Why is the White House not telling the country that important fact about how this made a hotspot of the White House?”
The 25th amendment would enable Pelosi to create a panel to evaluate the president’s ability to perform his duties. But the House would not be able to remove Trump from office without the agreement of Vice-President Mike Pence and members of the cabinet, who have given no hint that such a move is imminent.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives impeached Trump last year on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he sought to pressure Ukraine for political favours. The Republican-controlled Senate did not convict him.
Trump tweeted last Friday morning that he had tested positive for coronavirus, and he was flown to a military hospital that evening. After a three-night stay, including a car ride to wave to his supporters, he flew back to the White House and caused outrage by removing his mask.
He has received various treatments including doses of remdesivir, an anti-viral drug, supplemental oxygen, a controversial experimental antibody treatment by the US biotech firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and dexamethasone, a steroid that some medical experts warn can cause insomnia and mood swings.
Pelosi said: ‘I’ve quoted others to say that there are those who say that when you’re on steroids and/or if you’ve had Covid-19 or both – that there may be some impairment of judgment. But, again, that’s for the doctors and scientists to determine, but it was very strange, really surprising.”
Trump has issued video messages and dozens of tweets that, even by the standards of his mercurial presidency, have spun in all directions and sown disarray.
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This week he abruptly announced that he was calling off the talks with Pelosi over additional coronavirus economic relief legislation, catching Republicans by surprise, only to later partly reverse his position. On Thursday he also suddenly declared that he would not take part in next week’s debate with Joe Biden, after it was announced on Thursday morning that the event would be virtual, not in-person.
And the president has returned to the Oval Office despite isolation rules that should have kept him away and the White House itself becoming a virus hotspot. At least 20 people in or working around the executive mansion have tested positive for Covid-19 in recent days.
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Donald Trump says he will not participate in virtual debate with Joe Biden – video
In Trump’s hour-long interview with Fox Business on Thursday, observers found further cause for concern. He mused that he could have contracted the virus from a reception he held for military families at the White House. “They want to hug me and they want to kiss me,” he said. “And they do and, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up.”
He claimed that his hospitalisation was unnecessary. “I didn’t have to go in, frankly; I think it would have gone away by itself.” And he made the false assertion: “I don’t think I am contagious at all. Remember this: when you catch it you get better. And then you’re immune.” This was after he emerged from hospital announcing that people should not fear Covid-19, despite the fact it has already killed 212,000 people in America and caused many others among the 7.6 million infected in the US to suffer serious and sometimes prolonged symptoms.
And reacting to Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate, he called the Democratic senator Kamala Harris of California a “communist” and “monster” who wants to “open up the borders to allow killers and murderers and rapists to pour into our country”.
Earlier on Wednesday, the president tweeted a video of himself describing his contraction of the virus as a “blessing from God”.
Under the 25th amendment, Pence would take over if Trump were deemed unfit to serve, with Pelosi next in line. Pence reported on Thursday that he had tested negative for coronavirus.
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