Elizabeth Warren: If Trump is unfit, invoke 25th Amendment to remove him from office

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., (left) announced on Friday that she had sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission concerning what she said were Trump’s “reckless comments on market-moving economic data prior to their public release.”

In the aftermath of the controversial New York Times op-ed  written by an anonymous Trump administration official who claims to be a “resistance” working “from within,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., furthered the attack Thursday saying she thinks constitutional powers ought to be used to remove President Trump from office if he’s unfit to lead America.

“If senior administration officials think the President of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment,” Warren told CNN. “The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the vice president and senior officials think the president can’t do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the president — take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds. ... Every one of these officials have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It’s time for them to do their job.”

The Times’ opinion piece claimed some officials were acting as “adults in the room” and frustrating Trump from following through on his “worst inclinations.” The op-ed described a secret inside effort to protect the country from Trump’s “misguided impulses,” and claimed, “there were early whispers within the Cabinet of invoking the 25th amendment” to have the president removed from office.

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The 25th Amendment allows the vice president to take over if the commander in chief is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

Trump has called the editorial gutless and a disgrace, and said the Times should turn the writer over to the government.

The Times said publishing the essay anonymously was “the only way to deliver an important perspective” to its readers.

“What kind of a crisis do we have if senior officials believe that the president can’t do his job and then refuse to follow the rules that have been laid down in the Constitution?” Warren added to CNN. “They can’t have it both ways. Either they think that the president is not capable of doing his job in which case they follow the rules in the Constitution, or they feel that the president is capable of doing his job, in which case they follow what the president tells them to do.”

Since the interview, Warren, who has served in the Senate since 2013, tweeted her statements, and has urged her followers to sign up on her campaign website to tell the Trump cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment if Trump can’t fulfill his presidential duties.

Warren, who continues to position herself as a national leader in the Democratic Party, released 10 years’ worth of tax returns recently, laying the groundwork for a potential presidential run against Trump in 2020, as Fox News previously reported.

Warren, 69, hasn’t yet declared her intention to run, saying she’s wanted to focus on her reelection to the Senate in November first. But she has floated the possibility of pursuing the White House, saying in August she’s not afraid to be “the underdog.”

Trump repeatedly has unloaded on his prospective rival, repeatedly referring to Warren as “Pocahontas,” and saying she lied about having Native American roots to help her legal career and vowing to toss a heritage test at her during a presidential debate.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.