1,000 signatures reached
To: Vice President Pence and the cabinet
Time to invoke the 25th Amendment
President Trump has already endangered the American people through his negligent response at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic. When he should have been planning strong public health measures and ensuring the mass production and stockpiling of testing kits, masks, ventilators, and protective gowns for medical workers, he instead assured the American people that the virus would go away.
Now the virus is upon us, multiplying exponentially. (See https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). Our medical workers lack the masks and gowns they need to keep them safe, and doctors have warned repeatedly that they do not have enough ventilators and hospital beds for everyone who will need them.
The social distancing measures adopted by governors, and belatedly endorsed by President Trump, are our main hope for reducing the number of friends, family, neighbors and fellow citizens who will die. And now President Trump has said that he plans to ignore the example of most other developed countries and end these measures soon. This will benefit his hotels, but it will unleash chaos on our hospitals and cause the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens.
The 25th Amendment to the U.S. constitution says: "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."
If President Trump moves to relax social distancing measures in the absence of mass testing and against the advice of leading scientific experts, we call upon the cabinet to apply the 25th amendment and remove him immediately to protect the health and well-being of the American people whom they are sworn to serve.
Now the virus is upon us, multiplying exponentially. (See https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). Our medical workers lack the masks and gowns they need to keep them safe, and doctors have warned repeatedly that they do not have enough ventilators and hospital beds for everyone who will need them.
The social distancing measures adopted by governors, and belatedly endorsed by President Trump, are our main hope for reducing the number of friends, family, neighbors and fellow citizens who will die. And now President Trump has said that he plans to ignore the example of most other developed countries and end these measures soon. This will benefit his hotels, but it will unleash chaos on our hospitals and cause the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens.
The 25th Amendment to the U.S. constitution says: "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."
If President Trump moves to relax social distancing measures in the absence of mass testing and against the advice of leading scientific experts, we call upon the cabinet to apply the 25th amendment and remove him immediately to protect the health and well-being of the American people whom they are sworn to serve.
Why is this important?
No-one can be sure they are safe from this virus. Countless American lives are at stake.