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Vice President Mike Pence is not ruling out the option of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
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Pence and his team are reportedly worried that by invoking the amendment or starting an impeachment process, Trump will be triggered into action and put the nation at risk.
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The vice president is said to be disappointed and saddened by Trump after he privately and publicly attacked him for refusing to halt the Electoral College count.
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Vice President Mike Pence has not completely rejected the option of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, reserving it if Trump becomes more unstable, according to a CNN report.
Pence and his aides have been trying to ensure an orderly transition of power. They are worried that by invoking the amendment or starting an impeachment process, Trump will be triggered into action and put the nation at risk, a source close to Pence told CNN.
But the sources indicated that the 25th Amendment option would remain an option depending on Trump’s conduct in the waning days of his presidency.
The vice president has come under pressure to invoke the 25th Amendment as a growing number of Democratic leaders – and some Republicans – call for Trump’s presidential powers to be removed immediately after his supporters violently stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday.
The 25th Amendment would allow the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare President Trump unable to perform his duties.
The president would respond by disputing their move with a letter to Congress, who would then have to vote on the matter.
The report comes despite sources close to Pence telling Insider earlier this week that it was unlikely that the vice president would attempt to invoke the 25th Amendment. The same sources have since reiterated that Pence has not changed his mind on the matter.
Read more: Trump’s incitement of the deadly US Capitol riot adds to an already massive tsunami of legal peril he’s facing upon leaving the White House. Here’s what awaits him.
Trump and the vice president have not spoken with each other since Wednesday’s events, according to CNN.
The president is furious with his second-in-command, criticizing him privately and publicly for refusing to halt the Electoral College count.
According to a close source, Trump asked the vice president during lunch on Wednesday to overturn the election results, telling him: “I don’t want to be your friend – I want you to be the vice president.”
In a speech to his followers before they stormed the Capitol, which ultimately resulted in five people’s deaths, the president also attacked Pence for not having the “courage” to overturn the election.
The vice president’s aides were also said to be outraged that Trump did not check in on the vice president as he and his family were fleeing from the mob storming the Capitol, which chanted “Hang Pence!”
“While the vice president and his family were in a bunker in the Capitol, the president did not reach out to check on his safety nor did he condemn those who said the VP should be executed,” said sources familiar with the matter, according to NBC News.
Pence himself is said to be disappointed and saddened by Trump, with one source telling CNN that he has finally “gotten a glimpse of POTUS’s vindictiveness.”
The vice president has also decided he will be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, a move that will most likely anger Trump further after the president announced he wouldn’t be going himself.
While Biden said it was a “good thing” that Trump will not be attending, the president-elect welcomed Pence, telling reporters on Friday the “vice president is welcome to come and we’d be honored to have him there,” according to the New York Post.
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