Calling on Vice President Pence to Convene and Mobilize the Cabinet to Activate Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to Declare President Donald J. Trump Incapable of Executing the Duties of His Office
Floor Speech
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 38, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 21) calling on Vice President Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
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Mr. RASKIN. Res. 21.
Mr. Speaker, we have experienced the trauma of a violent attack on this House of Representatives, on this Chamber, and on all of the people who work here.
An armed, lawless, and enraged mob smashed windows, beat up and crushed Capitol Hill Police officers who cried out in agony; overcame and subdued law enforcement; killed or caused the deaths of at least five American citizens, including a heroic Capitol Hill Police officer, Brian Sicknick, and four other Americans; inflicted serious injuries on dozens of our police officers and other people, including 15 officers who had to be hospitalized.
Chanting ``stop the steal'' and ``hang Mike Pence,'' they threatened the lives and safety of the three individuals in the line of succession to the President of the United States. They built a gallows right outside the Capitol.
They screamed, ``Where is Nancy?'' They stormed the Speaker's office, and they occupied it. They stole government property. They trashed the place.
They terrorized officers, staff, and Members. They brandished the Confederate battle flag in the Capitol of the United States, something that didn't even happen during the Civil War.
They allowed hundreds or thousands of people to enter the Capitol without metal detectors or any kind of security screening at all, not only to desecrate the temple of democracy and to spit in the face of Congress but actually to interfere with the counting of electoral college votes in the 2020 Presidential election.
They may have been looking for Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi, but every person in this room could have died. As a shaken Senator Lindsey Graham said, ``The mob could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all.''
Mr. Speaker, whether or not you believe the President's course of conduct in encouraging, building, summoning, assembling, and inflaming the mob--lighting the flame, as Congresswoman Liz Cheney put it in a very powerful and cogent statement this evening--whether you believe that that was a high crime and misdemeanor, an offense against the Republic, that is a question for another time. And to put my cards on the table, I think it was a crime against the Republic.
But leaving that aside, I think every Member in this body should be able to agree that this President is not meeting the most minimal duties of office. He is not meeting the oath that he swore, to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He is not protecting and defending the democracy itself, the process of electing the President. He is not respecting the peaceful transfer of power. He is not taking care that the laws are faithfully executed. He is not protecting the Republic against mob insurrection, invasion, and hostility. He is not protecting the republican form of government for the people of the United States when he allowed this to happen.
Mr. Speaker, this resolution is simply asking Vice President Pence to exercise his powers under the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, section 4, to convene the Cabinet and to mobilize the Cabinet to state and articulate what is obvious to the American people--this President is not meeting the duties of office and is clearly not capable of it-- and to transfer the powers to the Vice President under the 25th Amendment.
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Mr. RASKIN. Pelosi).
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Mr. RASKIN. Lofgren).
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman reasonably poses the question: Why are we doing this?
We think that the President of the United States constitutes a clear and present danger to the Republic and to our people.
For example, on the white supremacist websites that helped to build the President's mob, they are now calling for a return engagement on the days of January 19 and 20. They are calling again for an attack on the Capitol, and they are calling again for the State legislatures, now in 50 States, to be surrounded.
What will the attitude be of the President of the United States? Will he give them aid and comfort? Will he wink at them? Will he send them positive tweets and messages, calling them patriots?
Also, on extreme rightwing websites, they are calling for the President to pardon the organizers of the armed violent insurrection that took place in this body not even a week ago. What if the President decides to pardon them?
We know this President is not living up to the most minimal duties of his office. That is why we are doing this, to protect the public.
By the way, we are not telling the Vice President what he must do. We have no authority to do that. We are telling him what we think he should do and that the Congress will be with him because we know that he has come under extreme rightwing pressure on everything from the counting of the electoral college votes to his positions on a whole range of things to go along with Donald Trump. So, we are trying to counterbalance that attack on him from the right to say the people want to see a peaceful way through this.
I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Accountability comes before healing, but healing should come.
If we look at the Constitution, we will clearly see that Mr. Raskin's resolution fits the language: an inability to be able to discharge your duties, to exercise the laws carefully.
Do you consider these words from the President of the United States to insurrectionists and terrorists to ``walk down to the Capitol,'' says the President, telling them: ``If you don't fight like hell, you are not going to have a country anymore.'' And that is the attack that the domestic terrorists made on this place.
All we are asking of the Vice President, through this resolution, is to reflect on that and to call upon the 25th Amendment to convene the Cabinet, to begin the healing, because the President of the United States is dangerous to the American people.
That is why we are on the floor today. We hope that he will have an opportunity to reflect because the Constitution says in many places that the actions of this President are dangerous.
People have died. We have lost two police officers. Others are in the hospital. And yes, it was an insurrection. It is time to pass H. Res. 21.
Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the Committees on the Judiciary and on Homeland Security, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 21, a resolution calling on Vice President Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President.
As a person who was in the House chamber, that day and witnessed the terror, mayhem, and horror unleashed by the President's incitement of insurrection and utter betrayal of his sacred oath, it is manifestly evident that the President is clearly incapable, and certainly unwilling, of exercising the duties of his office, which makes it essential for Vice-President Pence to convene the principal officers of the Executive Branch to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, the resolution recites a tale of abdication and dereliction of duty by a President of the United States unseen in the history of our country.
On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the day prescribed by section 15 of title 3, United States Code, for the counting of electoral votes, Congress experienced a massive, violent invasion of the United States Capitol and its complex by a dangerous insurrectionary mob, which smashed windows and used violent, physical force and weapons to overpower and outmaneuver the United States Capitol Police and facilitated the illegal entry into the Capitol of hundreds, if not thousands, of unauthorized persons (all of whom entered the Capitol complex without going through metal detectors and other security screening devices).
This insurrectionary mob threatened the safety and lives of the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the first three individuals in the line of succession to the presidency, as the rioters were recorded chanting ``Hang Mike Pence'' and ``Where's Nancy'' when President Donald J. Trump tweeted to his supporters that ``Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country.'
The marauders attacked law enforcement officers, unleashed chaos and terror among Members and staffers and their families, occupied the Senate Chamber and Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office along with other leadership offices, vandalized and pilfered government property, and succeeded in causing the unprecedented disruption of the Electoral College count process for a 4-hour period in both the House and the Senate, a dangerous and destabilizing impairment of the peaceful transfer of power that these insurrectionary riots were explicitly designed to cause.
At least five Americans have died as a result of injuries or traumas suffered during this violent attack on Congress, including Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, and more than 50 police officers were seriously injured, including 15 officers who had to be hospitalized by these violent assaults.
There could easily have been hundreds more wounded and killed, a sentiment captured by Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the President's fiercest enablers, who observed that ``the mob could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all.''
Mr. Speaker, these insurrectionary protests were widely advertised and broadly encouraged by the current President, who repeatedly disgraced his high office by exhorting his millions of followers on Twitter and other social media outlets to come to Washington on January 6 to ``Stop the Steal'' of the 2020 Presidential election, promising that the protest on the Electoral College counting day would be ``wild.''
Although President-elect Joseph R. Biden decisively won the 2020 Presidential election with more than 81 million votes and defeated President Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College, a margin pronounced to be a ``landslide' by the current President Trump when he won by the same Electoral College numbers in 2016, the current and temporary occupant of the White House never accepted these election results as legitimate and waged a protracted campaign of propaganda and coercive pressure in the Federal and State courts, in the state legislatures, with Secretaries of State, and in Congress to nullify and overturn these results and replace them with imaginary and fabricated numbers to maintain his continuance in office.
This culminated in the current President taking the stage at the insurrection rally he held on the Ellipse Grounds on January 6, 2021 to exhort the rioters and insurrectionists to ``walk down to the Capitol,'' telling them ``if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.'
The President's putative lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who possesses the uncanny knack of surfacing to make things worse whenever the President is acting to undermine American democracy, warned the mob to expect ``trial by combat.''
While domestic terrorists occupied parts of the Capitol, the person currently occupying the office of President of the United States, ignored or rejected repeated real-time entreaties from the Speaker of the House and the Democratic Leader of the U.S. Senate to appeal to his followers to exit the Capitol.
Mr. Speaker, photographs, cell phone videos, social media posts, and on-the-ground reporting show that numerous violent insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol were armed, carrying police grade flex cuffs to detain and handcuff people, used mace, pepper spray, and bear spray against United States Capitol Police officers, erected gallows on Capitol grounds to hang ``traitors,'' vehemently chanted ``Hang Mike Pence'' while roaming the Capitol, emphasizing that storming the Capitol was ``a revolution,'' and committed the unspeakable offense of brandishing the Confederate battle flag inside the Capitol.
In all of this, Donald John Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, continuously, and spectacularly his absolute inability to discharge the most basic and fundamental powers and duties of his office, including most recently the duty to respect the legitimate results of the Presidential election and the duty to respect the peaceful transfer of democratic power under the Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, Donald John Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
For the safety and security of the people of the United States and the survival of our democracy, he must be removed from office.
For these reasons, I urge all Members to join me in voting for H. Res. 21, calling upon the Vice-President to convene the Cabinet and to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Katko).
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Mr. RASKIN. Garcia).
Very quickly, the gentlewoman, whom I have not had the pleasure to meet yet, confuses disability and incapacity. Franklin D. Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. He had a disability, and he was one of our greatest Presidents. President Lincoln, according to historians, suffered from depression, but he was one of our greatest Presidents.
Incapacity is different. Incapacity is demonstrated by President Trump's complete, total inability to conform his conduct to the rule of law and the Constitution.
I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath).
I heard one of our colleagues say it was the fault of the mob, not Donald Trump. But who summoned the mob? Who created the mob? Who assembled it?
You don't have to trust us if you don't like what you call ``Democrat Members.'' We do prefer Democratic Members for the new ones, but how about this? Listen to the chair of your own conference.
The chair of the Republican Conference, Liz Cheney, said, ``The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President.''
So you can hate the Democrat Members all you want. That is the chair of the Republican Conference.
Maloney).
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, like all of us in this Chamber, the Vice President and the Cabinet swore in their oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic.
Now they must fulfill that oath by invoking the 25th Amendment. Donald Trump's reckless actions on and leading to January 6 underscore that he is a clear and present danger to our democratic traditions. He repeatedly and blatantly lied, spouting baseless claims of a stolen election and fraud.
He called on his supporters to come to D.C. on January 6, a day which he said ``will be wild,'' and willfully incited an armed and deadly insurrection against another branch of our government.
President Trump must be held accountable, and we must return to the peaceful transfer of power. I urge a ``yes'' vote.
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Mr. RASKIN. Waters).
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time both sides have remaining?
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the cancel culture of violent white supremacy tried to cancel out all of our lives last Wednesday.
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Mr. RASKIN. Velazquez).
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Mr. RASKIN.
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