This is my story from yesterday:
By Hal Brown
I am still not dismissing the possibility that Donald Trump will resign on the final day of his presidency after making a deal with acting president Mike Pence to pardon him. Trump would only do this if he could be convinced that a self-pardon wasn’t a sure thing and that this would have a very good chance of failing if he was charged for committing a federal crime by the Biden Justice Department.
Trump has already lost confidence in the Supreme Court being toadies he can count on. Someone might be able to convince him that they would rule that the Constitution did not allow a presidential self-pardon.
If Trump was thinking rationally, and there’s every reason to believe he isn’t, he’d be meeting with Pence right now to talk about resignation and a pardon. Pence isn’t stupid and I think he would make his pardon contingent on Trump not doing anything prior to the pardon to make him politically “unpardonable” from the perspective of the desire of Pence wanting to run for president himself.
While Richard Nixon was clinically depressed in his last days he wasn’t irrational. He didn’t do anything that would make it politically impossible for Gerald Ford to pardon him.
What would make Pence break from Trump after five years of worshipping him as a kind of demigod?
The answer is obvious. He wants to be president. To do this he will need to keep the Trump cult on his side and the best way to do this is to convince Trump to resign so he can pardon him as be seen as the hero that saved Trump from the evil Biden Justice Department sending him to prison.
If Pence wants to be president he can’t invoke the 25th Amendment because Trump supporters will see this as a betrayal. He can, however, use the 25th Amendment as a threat to pressure Trump to resign. This wouldn’t necessarily requiring his lining up a majority of the Cabinet in advance because he can still tell Trump the Cabinet is behind him.
What's a white lie when it may enable him to run for president? God, who Pence probably believes wants him to be His messenger on Earth, surely would forgive a little bending of the truth.
This was the poll (with image added by me) click to enlarge.
Update:
Over the past 24 hours there has been growing pressure in the media and from members of Congress and the likes of Chris Christie for Trump to either resign or for Pence to involve the 25th Amendment. Trump’s behavior in inciting the insurrectionist mob to storm the Capitol and reports leaking from the White House that his behavior is indicative of mental illness may be influencing Pence.
We’re reading articles like this:
The only advisers left around Trump are the ones 'most disconnected from reality': CNN
Excerpt: During a segment on what Donald Trump is doing in the White House now that all of his social media platforms have been stripped from him, CNN's John Harwood said the president is in a downward spiral and that no one is left to pull him out of it because they are as disconnected about what is happening in the country as Trump is.
According to "New Day" host Alisyn Camerota, "We've seen so many White House staffers and members jumping off this sinking ship. So there are acting cabinet members around, acting secretary of defense, acting attorney general. So are the people, it sounds like I should say, the people in the White House who have the most extreme views -- Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, that they are the people who are still by the president's side and have his ear."
"That's right," Harwood replied. "As the president has become increasingly deranged in his conduct, the people willing to be around him are people who are the most extreme, the most unreasonable, the most disconnected from reality. You're talking about Navarro, you're talking people like Rudy Giuliani who has advised the president and others."
"The real question right now is about who is actually running the government of the United States," he added. "We saw, of course, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi reaching out to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs last week to clarify safeguards in place that would prevent a deranged president from launching a military strike or a nuclear strike, God forbid."
What do you think Pence will do?
Please take the new poll below and add comments.