U.S. Sen. Rick Scott seems ready to go where Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to tread not long ago – and perhaps significantly further.
Pelosi raised eyebrows among the political class a month before the election when she trotted out a bill to create a special panel that would help the Cabinet and Congress determine if the 25th Amendment should be invoked.
The 25th Amendment allows Congress, by a two-thirds vote, to remove the president if a majority of the Cabinet or “such other body as Congress may by law provide” deems he is no longer fit for office.
Speculation on the right suggested Pelosi, despite her insistence to the contrary, was anticipating former President Donald Trump would win a second term. For example, House GOP Minority Whip Steve Scalise said at the time, “She’s now trying to overturn the results of next month’s election.”
But there was another angle to consider, one raised by Trump himself. “Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking at the 25th Amendment in order to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris,” he tweeted at the time.
Now, with the utter collapse of Afghanistan just another atop the pile of crises eroding public confidence in President Joe Biden, Sen. Scott is talking about the 25th Amendment.
“After the disastrous events in Afghanistan,” the Florida Republican tweeted on Monday, “we must confront a serious question: Is Joe Biden capable of discharging the duties of his office, or has the time come to exercise the provisions of the 25th Amendment?”
As the Taliban retook the nation that Biden a month ago said they could not overrun, the Democratic president had to be practically shamed into cutting a brief hole in his vacation on Monday in order to deliver public comments on the terrorists’ rout of the Afghan government of Kabul.
Scott, in a statement, also said it also was time for a joint House-Senate investigation of the U.S. withdrawal.
Scott posed a series of questions he believes must be answered.
For example, why did Biden move up the exodus timeline from Sept. 11?
What advice did the Pentagon give Biden? What steps were taken to plan the withdrawal? What intelligence did Biden receive to believe the Taliban would not take over the country and did that include any warnings about a possible collapse?
What advice, if any, did Biden turn down from the intel community, the Pentagon, or NATO partners, and who did he listen to before suddenly deciding it was time to go on Thursday?
“As the United States faces its most stunning, unforced and humiliating defeat in decades, President Biden’s abject failure to execute a strategic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan has placed it back in the hands of the same terrorist-coddling extremists who ruled it on September 11, 2001, and created a power vacuum ripe for manipulation by the world’s most dangerous actors,” Scott said in his comments.
Biden’s “carelessness has made the world a more dangerous place. His failures have endangered America and our allies.”
Scott also maintained Pelosi and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “must put partisan politics aside and demand accountability from the Biden administration.”
“This failure is unacceptable, especially following 20 years of war that has taken the lives of more than 2,300 American service members and wounded more than 20,000. The American people deserve answers” said Scott.
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