Impeachment fever has the mainstream media dreaming about “President Nancy Pelosi.”
As President Donald Trump faces down the fourth presidential impeachment in American history, some in the liberal media have begun speculating about a scenario in which both Trump and vice president Mike Pence are impeached, paving the way for Pelosi’s ascent to the Oval Office. CNN legal analyst Paul Callan lays out the theory in a new column.
President Pelosi? Liberal media revenge fantasy takes root
For weeks, the mainstream media has been seeking to wish a self-fulfilling prophecy of Trump’s removal into reality, with ominous predictions about his demise. As the media tells it, support for Trump’s impeachment is steadily rising and Republican senators are starting to crack.
But despite the slim odds of removing Trump from office, some on the left are doubling down on an even more fantastical scenario. Callan speculates that Pence could also be implicated as a “co-conspirator” in Trump’s plot to have Ukraine investigate Joe Biden, creating a historically unprecedented situation in which the third in line, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would become commander-in-chief.
Pence has refused to co-operate with the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, following the White House’s lead in attacking the process as illegitimate and political. Democrats have questioned whether Pence knew about, or was involved in, efforts by Trump to pressure Ukraine by withholding military aid from the country.
Callan admits that if Pence were removed or resigned from office first, Trump could appoint a new VP under the 25th amendment. He compared the current situation to when Spiro Agnew resigned from the White House in 1973 over tax evasion, leaving Richard Nixon temporarily without a successor before Gerald Ford was tapped.
This is not the first time the “President Pelosi” theory has been considered, either. Michael Moore has publicly weighed the possibility as well, along with the Washington Post, which talked up the admittedly “far-fetched” scenario in an article last month.
Mainstream media tries to will impeachment into reality
It’s not at all a given that enough Republican senators will betray Trump to side with the Democrats, especially after House Republicans voted in a party-line vote against a Thursday resolution “authorizing” the inquiry and laying down rules for the process. Despite talk of a Senate GOP revolt, the more likely scenario is that Trump will be impeached in the House, then acquitted in the Senate.
His removal would be a historical anomaly, as Presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were both acquitted, while Richard Nixon resigned. Seeing as the words “Trump” and “resign” would never go together in an English sentence, the “President Pelosi” scenario rests on two historically unprecedented outcomes — the removal of a sitting president by Senate conviction, and the removal of his vice president happening in tandem.
For what it’s worth, Trump’s efforts to have Ukraine investigate his rivals were apparently unsuccessful. Tim Morrison, a former member of Trump’s National Security Council who listened to the phone call, told the House Thursday that he did not think “anything illegal was discussed.”
It’s hard to imagine how a quid pro quo that went nowhere could fall under “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and it seems unlikely that Mike Pence’s still unknown, but probably marginal role rises to that threshold either. And none of this matters anyway, unless Senate Republicans are foolish enough to enrage the majority of Republican voters who are against the impeachment by voting to convict Trump.
Impossible? No, but it’s basically a media revenge fantasy.
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