What did Jerry Brown Mean?

Note: I will get back to the election but have a few other topics I would like to discuss.

It is no secret that California Governor Jerry Brown hates President Trump with a white-hot passion. Like anyone else, he has the right to say what he wants. Depending on how a person interprets some recent remarks, he may have gone way over the line.

Recently he was speaking to Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC. Needles to say, he was really tearing into Trump. Then he said “something’s got to happen to this guy, because if we don’t get rid of him, he’s going to undermine America and even the world.”

There are three ways to remove a president from office. He can be impeached and convicted. Many people misuse the word impeachment. It is an indictment drawn up by the House. The Senate holds a trial and it takes a 2/3 vote to remove the president from office. Jerry Brown is a smart man. He has to realize there is no way 67 senators will vote that way, barring something far more serious than that what has come out so far.

Adopted in 1967, the Twenty-fifth Amendment provides another way. The vice president and a majority of the cabinet (or another body chosen by Congress) must declare the president is unable to perform his duties. If the president says is able to, it takes a 2/3 majority of both houses to remove him. This is tougher standard than impeachment and conviction.

The third way has been successful four times. It was the method chosen by John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. Brown certainly didn’t call for it. I am not a mind reader so have no idea what he was thinking. Even so, I find the possibility that the governor of our largest state might have been thinking about the third way to be quite disturbing.
​
We certainly don’t need to respect any president. However, we should respect the office. Whenever I write about a president, the first reference includes the title and the name.
​