Not from Trump, the man is nothing if not a serial exaggerator, he is totally capable of bombing some infrastructure and then declaring that the whole Iranian civilization has stopped existing.
In the same way that he is boasting of having already won the war, or already having effected regime change with the war still going and the regime very much not changed.
He’s also a malignant narcissist with a huge nuclear arsenal who can, in fact do exactly what he said with a single command. And who would have zero moral scruples about doing so.
And so far “he’d never do such a thing” has a very poor track record.
no no, I’m not saying “he’d never do such a thing” , I’m saying “he usually overpromises and underdelivers”
There is a guard rail that I don’t think that you are considering.
For all the talk about how Trump only cares about himself, he actually cares a great deal about what other people think about him. He craves attention, wants adulation, and regularly seeks out the advice of others.
If he can he convinced that he’d be thought of as a monster if he dropped a nuke, then I think he’d reconsider.
I also recognize the enormity of that If
TACO applies.
If we’re lucky.
That’s a good one!
My take is that Trump would choose the relatively less risky carpet bombing (or, in reality, precision bombing of civilian structures) before he drops nukes. That’s still a massive war crime and would make the US into a worldwide villain, more so than historically.
Links:
Me: If you shoot at the king, make sure you don’t miss. Any 25th amendment option would require careful preparation within all 3 branches of government.
Jonathan Bernstein:
Regardless. The two points here are that Republicans are actually free to choose to fight against policies they believe are terrible for the nation and for the party, and that there’s plenty they can do even if they’re not willing to impeach and remove the president. And if they don’t do it, then it’s on them, not anyone else.
See Moriaty’s post: Trump is susceptible to peer pressure.
The real problem with the 25th Amendment in a situation like this is that it’s really designed for a President who is comatose or similarly incapable of speaking for himself, or is in such bad shape that he isn’t going to make the attempt.
Because if the President is ready and able to sign a declaration saying no, he’s ready to resume his duties (which very definitely is the situation we’d be in), the bar for the 25th Amendment is substantially higher for the bar for impeachment and removal. So you might as well ‘just’ impeach and remove.
Impeachment and removal: majority vote in the House, 2/3 vote in the Senate.
25th Amendment: VP + majority of Cabinet + 2/3 vote in the House + 2/3 vote in the Senate.
ETA: People need to read the Amendment (just Section 4, really) when they feel the urge to propose its use. Ten minutes, max.
And if Trump does declare himself the fittest, most bestest president ever in history, and gets back in, then ANYone in cabinet who voted for his ouster will find themselves very much in the crosshairs of whatever nutjob is in charge of the DOJ.
or worse. As MeasureforMeasure said.
The problem is: when nukes might be involved, ‘usually’ is nowhere near good enough.
Oh I fully agree with that.
Exactly. It’s good for basically two things: Clarifying that the VP isn’t “acting President” but effectively President when the President is incapacitated (basically codification of the Tyler principal) for whatever reason (including things like scheduled medical procedures) and dealing with a potential problem like Wilson. Sure, it sets further succession past that but how likely is that to ever actually come up and matter.
Frankly, if the President needs to be permanently removed it can be done faster and easier by Congress.
TACO has been implemented.
A “truce” is on.
The nuclear threat has receded for the next 2 weeks, but I wanted to note that Tom Nichols extended his tweet at the Atlantic Magazine today:
It’s more opinion than analysis. More should than will; it’s normative, not predictive.
If Trump did give an order to attack civilian targets that have no military value as a means of collectively punishing the Iranian people, he would be ordering war crimes. If he directs the widespread and irrevocable destruction of Iranian civilization—that is, if he commands a genocide and especially if he approves the release of nuclear weapons—the U.S. military should refuse such blatantly illegal orders.
If Trump gives that order, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should lay his stars down in front of Trump. Then, each general who gets the order should do likewise, and each man—and it will be men, in Hegseth’s Pentagon—promoted as a replacement should do likewise, until Trump has a pile of stars and eagles on his desk. Trump may eventually find someone to fulfill his orders, but people of honor and duty need not be the unwilling instruments of so great a sin.