White House officials routinely discuss a constitutional amendment that would allow Trump’s removal from office, writer Michael Wolff said.
Worry about President Trump’s fitness for office is so severe that White House officials routinely discuss a constitutional amendment that would allow his removal from office, the author of a bombshell new book said Sunday.
Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the “25th Amendment is a concept that is alive every day in the White House.”
“This is alarming in every way,” Wolff said.
The amendment says that if the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet decide the President is unable to discharge the duties of his office, they can transfer power to the VP.
Michael Wolff: Insiders described Trump as ‘like a child’
Wolff said earlier in Trump’s term, White House staffers would react to his erratic behavior with comments like, “we’re not at 25th Amendment level yet.” Later, some would remark, “OK, this is a little 25th Amendment.”
The new book has roiled Washington, prompting fierce denunciations from the White House and a series of tweets by Trump Saturday in which he declared himself a “very stable genius.”
Wolff defended his work on “Meet the Press,” saying he went in with an open mind and based his reporting on what he observed at the White House.
“I went into this with absolutely no agenda whatsoever. I have no particular politics when it comes to Donald Trump,” he said.
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Wolff said Trump approved of his book project — acknowledging he flattered his ego a bit in the process of gaining access — and insisted he never violated an agreement to keep anything off the record.
“I went into this, and a decent part of the country went into this, his entire staff went into this, thinking maybe this can work. It’s different, even peculiar, but who knows what could happen here,” he said.
“I would have been delighted to have written a contrarian account here — Donald Trump, this unexpected President, is actually going to succeed. OK, that’s not the story. He’s not going to succeed. This is worse than everybody thought.”
Wolff said he did not leave out material more favorable to Trump to paint his picture of an unstable presidency — in fact, it was quite the opposite.
“This book is not about my view of Donald Trump. It’s about the view of all of the people closest to him,” he said.
“If I left out anything, it’s probably stuff that was even more damning. It’s that bad.”
Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski slammed the book as a fabrication Sunday.
“The guy’s a liar, is what it comes down to,” Lewandowski said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The book says that the former campaign manager disdained Trump’s two sons and son in law. Lewandowski denied that and said he had not spoken to Wolff.
“This is a book of fiction. Not only is it not accurate, there are so many misrepresentations in this book that it shouldn’t be taken seriously,” he said. “This book is a complete fabrication.”
