White House News (白宮消息) | Oct 9, 2020

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Nancy Pelosi vows to ‘talk about’ the 25th Amendment: Here’s what that is—again

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that Democrats would discuss the amendment, which provides for removing a medically unfit president, on Friday.

Oct. 8 - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a Thursday press conference that Democrats plan to discuss the 25th Amendment, the constitutional provision that deals with replacing a president, on Friday.

The amendment was added to the Constitution in the 1960s after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, in order to clarify the rules for replacing a deceased or incapacitated president. It allows for the vice president and members of the Cabinet to remove a president who is unable to carry out the duties of office, with provisions for handling a dispute between the president and other officials about whether the president is fit for office.

• Explainer: What is the 25th Amendment?

Pelosi didn’t specify exactly what Democrats plan to discuss about the amendment, but, as The Hill reports, the discussion arose as she critiqued President Trump for not revealing more about his coronavirus diagnosis and the outbreak involving the White House. Pelosi declined to say whether she felt the amendment should be invoked to suspend Trump from office, but she later suggested that he might be in an “altered state” because of the drugs he’s been prescribed for COVID-19.

It seems unlikely the amendment will be invoked without a further change in the president’s health, since it requires either the president or the vice president to declare the president medically unfit. Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have said Trump is in good health after his treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

It’s not the first time the topic has come up during Trump’s term in office. Two years ago, The New York Times reported that Rod Rosenstein—then the deputy U.S. attorney general—discussed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment. At the time, Rosenstein denied the report.   source

Nancy Pelosi suggests future discussion on Donald Trump's fitness for office 
Oct. 8, 2020
Nancy Pelosi teased a discussion about the 25th amendment, which pertains to the president’s removal from office if found unfit, which she said would be held tomorrow. The House speaker also spoke about Trump calling himself a 'perfect physical specimen'. She said the president owed it to the American people to share when he tested positive for Covid-19 after the White House refused to provide a timeline of the president’s testing before he was admitted to the hospital

WHAT DOES THE 25TH AMENDMENT SAY? CAN TRUMP'S CABINET REALLY TOPPLE HIM?

The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution deals with presidential authority in the event of death or removal from office, and was ratified in 1967, in the wake of John F Kennedy's assassination.

What does the 25th Amendment say?

It is in four sections, all dealing with the president leaving office during his or her elected term. 

The first section states that the vice president takes over the Oval Office if the president dies or resigns – or is removed – something which the original Constitution did not clearly state.

Presidents of course can be removed by impeachment, a feature of the constitution from the start. They can also be removed through the 25th Amendment - of which more below.

Section II states that if the vice president dies, or resigns – or is fired – both the House and Senate have to confirm a new vice president. Until 1967, presidents could change vice presidents mid-term on their own if they got the vice president to agree to resign - not something that actually happened, but which was possible in principle.

Section III makes clear that a president can temporarily delegate his powers to the vice president, and later reclaim them when he - or she - is capable of serving. This is most often invoked if a president is under the influence of surgical anesthetic for a short period of time. 

Section IV is the amendment's most controversial part: it describes how the president can be removed from office if he is incapacitated and does not leave on his own...     continue to read

PBS NewsHour full episode, Oct. 8, 2020
Oct. 9 2020
Thursday on the NewsHour, it’s unclear when President Trump and Joe Biden will face off again after Trump declines a virtual debate. Plus: The debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, Dr. Anthony Fauci on COVID-19 in the White House, a terror plot in Michigan, Afghan peace talks, fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a contentious Maine Senate race and taking the stage.

White House News (白宮消息) | Oct 8, 2020

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US President Donald Trump at a press conference in the East Room of the White House, October 2, 2019. 

Why Donald Trump is flying off the handle — even more than usual

Oct. 8 - Still suffering from an infection of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, President Donald Trump unleashed an extended and aggressive tirade on Twitter following a period of relative radio silence while he was hospitalized.

He seemed to have returned from Walter Reed Medical Center with a vengeance. His furious tweeting, often in all caps, targeted his favorite subjects, including the Russia investigation, the media, Hillary Clinton, and former Vice President Joe Biden.

He called for “arrests” out of the Justice Department’s review of the handling of the Russia investigation, based on dubious reporting of selectively declassified documents from his own administration that showed no evidence of any clear crimes:

Attorney General Bill Barr, who has previously denigrated the administration’s predecessors and whipped up hopes that the investigation would punish the president’s enemies, appears to be disappointing Trump as it is many of his fans. Barr has previously said that the president’s tweeting about ongoing investigations make it “impossible” for him to do his job, but that hasn’t deterred Trump.     continue to read

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OCTOBER 2, 2020 | PART OF MARK MEADOWS UPDATES REPORTERS ON PRESIDENT'S CONDITIONMark Meadows Speaks with Reporters
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows talked to reporters about President Trump and the First Lady’s testing positive for the coronavirus.

THAT WRAPS UP THIS CORONAVIRUS COMMITTEE HEARING WITH HEALTH SECRETARY ALEX A'S ARE HERE SEVERAL REPRESENTATIVES TALKED ABOUT PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ANNOUNCEMENT THAT HE AND FIRST LADY MELANIA TRUMP HAVE TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID. THIS COMES AFTER A SENIOR ADVISOR HOPE HICKS WAS DIAGNOSED WITH CORONAVIRUS AFTER A CAMPAIGN RALLY IN MINNESOTA. THE WHITE HOUSE REPORTING PRESIDENT TRUMP IS EXPENSING QUOTE MILD SYMPTOMS. THE FIRST COUPLE HAVE BEGUN A 14 DAY QUARANTINE YOUR VICE PRESIDENT PENCE WAS TESTED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE NEWS BROKE AND HIS OFFICE REPORTS THAT HE IS NOT INFECTED. IN ADDITION "THE ASSOCIATED PRESS" REPORTED SEVERAL OTHER MEMBERS OF THE PRESIDENT'S CABINET ARE UNDERGOING TESTING NOW. WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS COMMENTED ON THE PRESIDENT'S CONDITION THIS MORNING. HERE'S WHAT HE HAD TO SAY. [BACKGROUND SOUNDS]   source and more details

Henry Kissinger says US needs ‘new way of thinking,’ warns of blowup with China

Oct. 8 - Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said the US and China must establish rules of engagement for their increasingly tense competition or risk recreating the uncertainty that characterized global politics leading up to World War I.
“Our leaders and their leaders have to discuss the limits beyond which they will not push threats,” Kissinger, 97, said Wednesday in a virtual discussion hosted by the Economic Club of New York. “And then they have to find a way of conducting such a policy over an extended period of time.    more

【精華】台空軍燒41億攔截共機吃不消？台人過半支持與美復交、美軍駐台　
卻「不想繳保護費」不知免錢最貴？　覺青「願上戰場不願當兵」心態矛盾？
Oct. 8, 2020

Here’s What Could Happen If China Invaded Taiwan

Oct. 7 - (Bloomberg) -- Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party has threatened to invade Taiwan for more than seven decades. Now fears are growing among analysts, officials and investors that it might actually follow through over the next few years, potentially triggering a war with the U.S.

In September, People’s Liberation Army aircraft repeatedly breached the median line in the Taiwan Strait, eliminating a de facto buffer zone that has kept peace for decades. The party-run Global Times newspaper has given a picture of what could come, urging China’s air force to patrol the skies over Taiwan and “achieve reunification through military means” if it fires any shots. Taiwan announced it would only shoot if attacked.     more

White House News (白宮消息) | Oct 6, 2020

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GOP Sen. John Cornyn: Trump "let his guard down" on the coronavirus

Oct. 5 - Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told the Houston Chronicle that President Trump "let his guard down" when it came to the coronavirus and has created "confusion" by trying to downplay the severity of the pandemic.

Why it matters: Cornyn is a high-ranking Republican senator who is closely aligned with Trump and has rarely criticized the president. Cornyn is in a tighter-than-expected re-election race against Air Force pilot and Democrat MJ Hegar.

What he's saying: “I think he let his guard down, and I think in his desire to try to demonstrate that we are somehow coming out of this and that the danger is not still with us — I think he got out over his skis and frankly, I think it’s a lesson to all of us that we need to exercise self discipline,” Cornyn said.

“He tries to balance that with saying, ‘Well you know, we got this.’ And clearly we don’t have this.
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"I think the biggest mistake people make in public life is not telling the truth, particularly in something with as much public interest as here because you know the real story is going to come out”...       soureThe briefings on President Trump's health are a deliberate exercise in obfuscation, says physician and Post contributing columnist Leana S. Wen, viewed on Oct.6, 2020

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) asks questions during a Senate Judiciary 

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Committee hearing on Sept. 30

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• Will Republican senators defend Trump’s recklessness?
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• Oct. 6 - Even before President Trump left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with a deadly communicable disease on Monday, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.), who is on the ballot in November, issued a rare Republican rebuke of the president.
• “I think he let his guard down, and I think in his desire to try to demonstrate that we are somehow coming out of this and that the danger is not still with us — I think he got out over his skis and frankly, I think it’s a lesson to all of us that we need to exercise self-discipline,” Cornyn told the Houston Chronicle. He rejected Trump’s notion that we have this under control, insisting, “I think the biggest mistake people make in public life is not telling the truth, particularly in something with as much public interest as here because you know the real story is going to come out.” For good measure, the senator added: “It is not easy to try to get things done working with him or the White House.”

White House News (白宮消息) | Oct 6, 2020

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A Sick Donald Trump Takes His Own Medicine. How Will That Go?

The president's national play-it-down approach is now his personal treatme

Oct. 6 - Like any normal person admitted to a hospital who can still talk and walk, President Donald Trump wanted out of there. According to CNN, he demanded his release on Sunday because, in part, he thought hospitalization made him look weak, but he settled for a quick lap outside the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in a Secret Service Suburban to demonstrate his vitality.

But now, he’s won his discharge, even though his doctor concedes he “isn’t out of the woods yet.” None of us—journalists, politicians, infectious disease experts, news consumers—can judge the wisdom of sending him home—because there is so much we don’t know about his health status. Instead of giving us the straight truth, Trump, his doctors, and his aides have buttered and sugared his condition to make it sound like he’s the healthiest man in sickbay. “I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” Trump exclaimed in his tweet.

Buttering and sugar-coating the ugly has been a hallmark of the Trump administration policy approach since day one, so it’s no surprise that he’s applying the same technique to his own infection. He has consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic, claiming that it will just disappear, that we must go back to work and back to school. He has directly discouraged reporters from wearing masks at press briefings and exaggerated the progress of a vaccine. First, he foisted the management of the pandemic on Vice President Mike Pence, then commandeered it so he could keynote the daily briefing, then abandoned the televised sessions because he’d made such a public relations botch of them only to pick them up again to spin the coming vaccine and therapeutics. In Trump’s mind, the best way to handle the pandemic on both the personal and policy levels has been to pretend it doesn’t exist, and that if it does, it’s not that important.

PBS NewsHour full episode, Oct. 5, 2020
Oct. 6, 2020
Monday on the NewsHour, President Trump prepares to depart Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, as confusion about his health persists. Plus: The expanding White House coronavirus outbreak, a former Pence adviser speaks out, two medical experts weigh in, how the president’s diagnosis is affecting both presidential campaigns and Politics Monday with Amy Walter and Domenico Montanaro.

White House News (白宮消息) | Oct 5, 2020

 

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Vice President Mike Pence gives a thumbs up at the end of an event in Carter Lake, Iowa, on Oct. 1, 2020. Pence will travel to Utah on Monday as he plays the Trump campaign’s lead act for the foreseeable future.

President Pelosi? Pence prepares to risk it all for Trump

The vice president is under pressure from some Republicans to secure himself in Washington. Trump’s campaign has other plans.

Oct. 5 - He’s the GOP’s one line of defense between a hospitalized commander-in-chief and a President Nancy Pelosi, and he’s about to depart Washington on a four-day campaign swing in the middle of his boss’s health crisis.

Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Utah on Monday as he plays the Trump campaign’s lead act for the foreseeable future — the highest-profile surrogate for the president’s reelection at a time when both men can least afford another setback following Donald Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis.     more details

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Donald Trump Is ‘Very Sick’ & ‘Not Physically Or Mentally’ Fit For His Job, Former White House Official Says

Oct. 5 - Former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci appeared on MSNBC on Sunday claimed that Donald Trump is “very sick” and should drop out of the presidential race due to his damaged mental and physical fitness, PoliticusUSA reported.

“He still may be forced to drop out due to his health,” Scaramucci said. “We have no idea what’s going on with the brain fog or the lung damage as a result of COVID-19.”

According to Scaramucci, Trump would exit the race if he truly loved the United States.
“He’s not physically or mentally capable of being the president anymore, and he would do that. But if he’s not going to do that and if he gets some level of recovery in his mid-70s suffering from COVID-19 with all the comorbidities, I hope the people give a landslide election to Joe Biden and we can get rid of him overall as president.”

Although Scaramucci wished the president well, he urged Americans to remember that Trump has purportedly made America weaker, sicker, and poorer due to his decision to ignore the advice of scientists and epidemiologists throughout his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The result of this refusal, the former Trump official said, is that he could not prevent his family or staff members from contracting the disease.    more

PBS NewsHour Weekend Full Episode October 4, 2020
Oct. 5, 2020
On this edition for Sunday, October 4, mixed messages over President Trump’s health as he remains hospitalized after being diagnosed with COVID-19. And in our ongoing series “Roads to Election 2020” we stop by California where the future of the gig workers for ride-share companies in the state is on the ballot. Hari Sreenivasan anchors from New York.