'He is dangerous': Congressman calls for Trump to be removed from office after deadly riot
Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) is one of a growing number of lawmakers calling for President Trump’s immediate removal from office after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
“He is dangerous. He incited this,” said Ryan in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live. “He needs to go immediately — and I don't think we want to spend the next two weeks with him having the tremendous amount of power that the president holds before an inauguration. Who knows what he'll do — and I just don’t think he can be trusted to stay in place.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) also called on Vice President Mike Pence and Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office. If Pence refuses, they said Congress should move to impeach the president.
“By inciting sedition as he did yesterday, he must be removed from office. While it’s only 13 days left, any day can be a horror show for America,” said Pelosi.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R.,Ill.) — one of the few Republicans to consistently criticize the president since the November election — also called for the 25th amendment to be invoked. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) told reporters he didn’t think invoking the 25th amendment was “appropriate at this point.”
Ryan slammed other Republican lawmakers who objected to the election results on Wednesday and have embraced Trump’s unfounded claims about wrongdoing in the 2020 election.
“They continue to do it and then manipulate their followers — who put their trust in them to shoot them straight. This is disgusting, what's happening here,” said Ryan.
“Our country is in a really, really bad place,” he added.
‘Why weren’t we prepared for that?’
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are also questioning what happened to allow rioters to breach the U.S. Capitol.
Ryan, who chairs the subcommittee which funds the Capitol Police, and House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.) announced a probe to find out what went wrong.
“We are thankful for their service, but we’re also going to be very, very critical of the lack of planning, the lack of a strategic anticipation of what this could be like — especially given the rhetoric coming from the president,” said Ryan. “He whipped them into a frenzy, gave them a pep talk and sent them out onto the field of battle and they stormed the Capitol. Why weren’t we prepared for that?”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said the riots represented a “massive failure of institutions, protocols, and planning,” while Pelosi called for the resignation of the U.S. Capitol Police Chief.
Jessica Smith is chief political correspondent for Yahoo Finance, based in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at @JessicaASmith8.
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