October 15, 2017

I hate to break it to The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin, but she'd better not hold her breath waiting for members of her party in Congress to grow a spine and do the right thing when it comes to Trump. They're more worried about their own reelection campaigns than they are protecting the country from this loose cannon in the White House.

During a discussion about Trump's recent attacks on the media and our free press this week -- one of which was during a meeting in the Oval Office with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, where Trump said “It is frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write, and people should look into it.” -- CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter asked Rubin to weigh in on his remarks, and the conservative writer didn't hold back.

STELTER: Jennifer, you wrote about this for the Washington Post. What was your reaction to that sound bite?

RUBIN: I was horrified, and I guess I'm getting used to being horrified with this administration. But, he took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, and that includes the 1st Amendment. So it's in his denunciation, him saying that this is disgusting that the press gets to write everything that they want, he really is renouncing his oath of office.

And I would say to Sen. Sasse and the rest of the Republicans in the Senate and the House who have been lumps on a log, they should do something about this. They should conduct hearings. They should begin considering in the totality of all of his behavior whether he is in fact unfit to hold office.

And they haven't. They haven't demanded any hearings. There is a raft of behavior that he's engaged in that Republicans have no interest in investigating whatsoever. And they really are now in danger of not upholding their oath.

They took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution and I think in failing to check the president, not only in this regard, but in his other behaviors and his conflicts of interests, in his, certainly in his firing of the former FBI Director, they are not taking their oath of office seriously, and there is nothing more important than the 1st Amendment, and for them to simply shrug their shoulders or roll their eyes, or send a tweet, I think really does not hold them in good stead.

STELTER: Let’s take a look at all the headlines this week, not about not the 1st Amendment, but the 25th Amendment. This, of course, a mechanism for removing a president from office. There was a lot of attention around this idea, only an idea, of course, in the last few days. And I know you brought up as well, Jennifer. Are you advocating now for that and is that appropriate?

RUBIN: I am advocating this be taken seriously. We now have a Senator, very well respected, Senator Bob Corker, suggesting that the president really is not thinking properly. And we’ve certainly seen a lot of behavior which suggests that he is unwilling or unable to fulfill his obligations and that he is not behaving rationally.

I think it’s time for members of Congress to begin talking to people who see him on a regular basis, to be talking to people who have left office, and to begin to take this seriously. We are a long, long way from the 25th Amendment and I do not want the 25th Amendment to be invoked in lieu of impeachment, in other words, to be used because we think he's unfit.

But to the extent to which people are beginning to wonder whether he is rational, whether he is able to understand material put in front of him, whether he is able to make rational decisions, Congress needs to get involved in this.

And they should start talking seriously to members of the cabinet, as I said they should talk to people who talk to him on a regular basis. And we’ve had some of his close confidantes now say they are horrified, they’re shocked by what he has been saying lately. So I think we all need to take it seriously and stop just rolling our eyes and saying, "Oh, it’s Trump being Trump."

They'll remove him just about the time hell freezes over. He could start WWIII and Fox would still be cheerleading for him and these spineless members of Congress will still be defending him to the bitter end.

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