MANDEL NGAN / AFP
- The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board called on President Donald Trump to resign in an op-ed on Thursday after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.
- The Journal’s editorial board argued against impeachment or forced removal via the 25th Amendment, saying that the former would be too drawn out and political, and the latter would incite his base.
- On Capitol Hill, calls for Trump to be impeached have grown among Democrats, and mounting list of Trump officials, including Betsy DeVos, have submitted resignations in wake of yesterday’s events.
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The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board published an op-ed on Thursday calling on President Donald Trump to resign following the attempted insurrection by his supporters at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
The Journal’s editorial board, which since 2016 has often written favorably about Trump’s actions and policies, said that “the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch.”
The board also claimed that the President’s actions yesterday – between his rally and call to action, conspiracies, and attempts to coerce Pence to reject the results – amounted to “an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election.”
The Journal’s editorial board wrote that Trump’s incitement was “impeachable,” and that “this week’s actions are a far greater dereliction of duty than his ham-handed Ukrainian interventions in 2019.”
In the op-ed the board stopped short of calling for invoking the 25th Amendment to facilitate Trump’s removal, arguing that it would allow him to play the political victim.
The board did not outright endorse forced removal or impeachment, arguing that impeachment could be drawn-out, and that "Democrats would have more impeachment credibility now if they hadn't abused the process in 2019." The Journal claimed that impeachment wouldn't help Biden govern with GOP colleagues, and would "pour political fuel on Wednesday's dying embers."
"If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign. This would be the cleanest solution since it would immediately turn presidential duties over to Mr. Pence. And it would give Mr. Trump agency, a la Richard Nixon, over his own fate," the Journal board wrote.
Ahead of the 2020 general election, which Trump lost and has repeatedly failed to overturn, the Journal board wrote that, "Mr. Trump's first-term accomplishments are real, and better than we expected in 2016 given his apparent unconcern for policy. "
But in Thursday's op-ed, the board called for him to take it upon himself to resign. Acknowledging that he likely wouldn't entertain the notion, the board said, "this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure," having cost the GOP the House, the White House, and the Senate.
"He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose. It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly," they wrote.