Official White House Photo (Public Domain)

I have been a frequent critic of President Donald Trump (I’ve also praised policies and decisions I agreed with). I criticized his response to the Capitol riot that left five people dead. I think his refusal to concede until yesterday was nonsensical. I also believe that his efforts to persuade Congress to reject several state’s electors were harmful to our federalist system and unconstitutional.

Calls for Vice President Mike Pence and the president’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and talk about removing him through impeachment are wrongheaded and will only further divide us.

We are already severely divided as a nation, and members of Congress should seek to cool rather than turn up the temperature.

The president has less than two weeks left in his term. Also, President Trump has finally conceded the election and committed to a peaceful transition. Yes, I would have liked for him to do that much, much earlier. If he had, we perhaps would not have seen the shameful breach of our nation’s Capitol building.

The president’s cabinet should only invoke the 25th Amendment if the president cannot fulfill his duty. As a last resort, this is meant to remove a president who is no longer able to function due to a medical or mental health issue. It’s not meant to be used solely because one disagrees with the decisions the president makes.

No, a mean tweet about Vice President Pence and withdrawing the nomination to appoint Chad Wolf as Secretary of Homeland Security permanently does not qualify as a danger to national security. That nomination is worthless anyway, considering Wolf will be out of a job in a couple of weeks.

If President Trump starts talking about launching a war or initiating a nuclear attack, then let’s talk.

Also, talk of impeachment is nothing more than fodder for the Democratic base. It’s not going to happen, especially not with Trump’s term ending on January 20.

Just knock it off and ride the next two weeks out. Let’s not add fuel to the fire and make an embarrassing chapter in our history worse.

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