President Donald Trump announced Friday he will skip Joe Biden’s
inauguration in a final, unrepentant act of division as his
presidency imploded amid demands that he step aside for the last 12
days in office.
![image](/2020/10/lawreport.jpg")
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the
Inauguration on January 20th,” the US leader said on Twitter.
![image](/2020/10/NWLRland.jpg")
The statement, while not a surprise from the most divisive
president in decades, drew a line through any idea that Trump might
seek to spend his remaining moments in the White House helping his
Democratic successor calm tensions.
Not since 1869 has an outgoing US president missed the
inauguration of the incoming leader, a ceremony symbolizing the
peaceful transfer of power.
Two days after Trump incited followers to storm Congress, his
presidency is in freefall, with allies walking away and opponents
calling for his removal.
Democrats in the House of Representatives, who already impeached
Trump in a traumatic, partisan vote in 2019, said an unprecedented
second impeachment of the Republican could be ready for a vote next
week.
“We can act very quickly when we want to,” Representative
Katherine Clark told CNN.
Whether Republican leaders of the Senate would then agree to
hold a lightning fast impeachment trial before the January 20
transition is another matter.
However, with calls also swirling for cabinet members to invoke
the 25th Amendment and declare Trump unfit for office, it’s clear
that the billionaire real estate tycoon is out of friends.
Too little, too late
Senator Ben Sasse, one Republican who says he will “definitely
consider” impeachment, recommended that Trump at minimum step back
and let his vice president run the show in the dying days.
“I think the less the president does over the next 12 days the
better,” he told NPR radio.
Trump, whose incitement of crowds assaulting Congress on
Wednesday capped relentless efforts to overturn Biden’s November 3
election win, finally conceded defeat on Thursday and appealed for
calm.
“A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. My
focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless
transition of power,” Trump said in a short video.
However, the evidently reluctant concession, in which Trump
failed to congratulate Biden or directly admit defeat, was too
little, too late to calm outrage over his role in the Capitol
invasion.
Five people died in the mayhem, including one woman who was shot
dead and a Capitol Police officer who was pronounced dead from his
injuries on Thursday. Flags over the Capitol were lowered to
half-mast on Friday.
Government exit
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos became the second cabinet member to
quit the government, telling Trump in a letter on Thursday that
such “behavior was unconscionable for our country.”
Earlier, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, one of Trump’s
longest serving cabinet members, announced she was departing over
the “entirely avoidable” violence. A string of lower level
officials have also left.
According to US media reports, the only reason the trickle
hasn’t turned into a flood is the decision by senior figures to try
and maintain stability during the transition to Biden.
Trump, however, appears to have lost the grip he once exercised
on both the Republican party and his own staff as he rampaged
through four years of one of the most turbulent presidencies in US
history.
Speaking to CNN, retired Marine Corps general John Kelly, who
served as Trump’s chief of staff for 18 months, said the cabinet
should consider the 25th Amendment but believed the president had
already been put into a box.
“He can give all the orders he wants but no one is going to
break the law,” Kelly said.
Trump has even lost Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, which
published an editorial telling him “to take personal responsibility
and resign.”
“It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away
quietly.”
“Leave town,” advised former secretary of Homeland Security Jeh
Johnson, suggesting Trump exile himself to his Florida golf
club.
“Get on Air Force One, go to Mar-a-Lago and stay there for the
indefinite future,” Johnson said on NPR.
Biden faces grim inauguration
Biden, who won seven million votes more than Trump, as well as a
decisive majority in the vital state-by-state Electoral College,
will be sworn in on the Capitol Steps under huge security.
Between drastic Covid-19 crowd restrictions, the absence of
Trump, and a new “unscalable” fence thrown up around the
congressional complex, there will be little of the ordinary
inauguration vibe.
And Biden will immediately face extraordinary challenges,
starting with his core campaign promise that he can “heal” the
nation.
So far, the Democratic leader has carefully avoided weighing in
on demands for Trump’s removal.
Impeachment of the president could present the incoming Democrat
with an even more polarized landscape, further complicating the
task of reuniting the country.
At the same time, the crisis has sparked such revulsion in
Congress on both sides of the aisle that Biden may come into office
with an unexpectedly bipartisan tailwind.
On Thursday, he accused Trump of mounting an “all-out assault on
the institutions of our democracy” and called the assault on
Congress “one of the darkest days in the history of our
nation.”
AFP
President Donald Trump announced Friday he will skip Joe Biden’s
inauguration in a final, unrepentant act of division as his
presidency imploded amid demands that he step aside for the last 12
days in office.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the
Inauguration on January 20th,” the US leader said on Twitter.
The statement, while not a surprise from the most divisive
president in decades, drew a line through any idea that Trump might
seek to spend his remaining moments in the White House helping his
Democratic successor calm tensions.
Not since 1869 has an outgoing US president missed the
inauguration of the incoming leader, a ceremony symbolizing the
peaceful transfer of power.
Two days after Trump incited followers to storm Congress, his
presidency is in freefall, with allies walking away and opponents
calling for his removal.
Democrats in the House of Representatives, who already impeached
Trump in a traumatic, partisan vote in 2019, said an unprecedented
second impeachment of the Republican could be ready for a vote next
week.
“We can act very quickly when we want to,” Representative
Katherine Clark told CNN.
Whether Republican leaders of the Senate would then agree to
hold a lightning fast impeachment trial before the January 20
transition is another matter.
However, with calls also swirling for cabinet members to invoke
the 25th Amendment and declare Trump unfit for office, it’s clear
that the billionaire real estate tycoon is out of friends.
Too little, too late
Senator Ben Sasse, one Republican who says he will “definitely
consider” impeachment, recommended that Trump at minimum step back
and let his vice president run the show in the dying days.
“I think the less the president does over the next 12 days the
better,” he told NPR radio.
Trump, whose incitement of crowds assaulting Congress on
Wednesday capped relentless efforts to overturn Biden’s November 3
election win, finally conceded defeat on Thursday and appealed for
calm.
“A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. My
focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless
transition of power,” Trump said in a short video.
However, the evidently reluctant concession, in which Trump
failed to congratulate Biden or directly admit defeat, was too
little, too late to calm outrage over his role in the Capitol
invasion.
Five people died in the mayhem, including one woman who was shot
dead and a Capitol Police officer who was pronounced dead from his
injuries on Thursday. Flags over the Capitol were lowered to
half-mast on Friday.
Government exit
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos became the second cabinet member to
quit the government, telling Trump in a letter on Thursday that
such “behavior was unconscionable for our country.”
Earlier, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, one of Trump’s
longest serving cabinet members, announced she was departing over
the “entirely avoidable” violence. A string of lower level
officials have also left.
According to US media reports, the only reason the trickle
hasn’t turned into a flood is the decision by senior figures to try
and maintain stability during the transition to Biden.
Trump, however, appears to have lost the grip he once exercised
on both the Republican party and his own staff as he rampaged
through four years of one of the most turbulent presidencies in US
history.
Speaking to CNN, retired Marine Corps general John Kelly, who
served as Trump’s chief of staff for 18 months, said the cabinet
should consider the 25th Amendment but believed the president had
already been put into a box.
“He can give all the orders he wants but no one is going to
break the law,” Kelly said.
Trump has even lost Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, which
published an editorial telling him “to take personal responsibility
and resign.”
“It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away
quietly.”
“Leave town,” advised former secretary of Homeland Security Jeh
Johnson, suggesting Trump exile himself to his Florida golf
club.
“Get on Air Force One, go to Mar-a-Lago and stay there for the
indefinite future,” Johnson said on NPR.
Biden faces grim inauguration
Biden, who won seven million votes more than Trump, as well as a
decisive majority in the vital state-by-state Electoral College,
will be sworn in on the Capitol Steps under huge security.
Between drastic Covid-19 crowd restrictions, the absence of
Trump, and a new “unscalable” fence thrown up around the
congressional complex, there will be little of the ordinary
inauguration vibe.
And Biden will immediately face extraordinary challenges,
starting with his core campaign promise that he can “heal” the
nation.
So far, the Democratic leader has carefully avoided weighing in
on demands for Trump’s removal.
Impeachment of the president could present the incoming Democrat
with an even more polarized landscape, further complicating the
task of reuniting the country.
At the same time, the crisis has sparked such revulsion in
Congress on both sides of the aisle that Biden may come into office
with an unexpectedly bipartisan tailwind.
On Thursday, he accused Trump of mounting an “all-out assault on
the institutions of our democracy” and called the assault on
Congress “one of the darkest days in the history of our
nation.”
AFP