Trump banned from social media – and may be ‘forced out of office early’

Members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet on Wednesday discussed the possibility of removing Trump from office after his supporters stormed the Capitol, three US news channels reported. This comes after a night of shameful violence at the Capitol Building was seemingly ‘encouraged’ by the outgoing president – who’s also been handed two social media bans.

JUST IN: CNN reports that a growing number of Republican leaders believe Trump should be removed from office

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) January 7, 2021

What is the 25th amendment – and can it force Donald Trump to leave the White House?

The discussions focused on the 25th amendment to the US Constitution, which allows for a president’s removal by the vice president and cabinet if he is judged “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Invoking it would require Vice President Michael Pence to lead the cabinet in a vote on removing him.

Pence drew the ire of Trump and his supporters – after showing four years of unwavering loyalty to the one-termer – on Wednesday, when he went ahead in his attempts to certify the election results and officially confirm Joe Biden as America’s next president. The scenes of destruction and violence unfolded soon afterwards.

“Domestic terror attack” – a day of infamy on Capitol Hill

CNN quoted unnamed Republican leaders saying the 25th amendment had been discussed, saying they had described Trump as “out of control.” Others have slammed him for “inciting a domestic terror attack”.

Democrats of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Pence urging him to act to remove Trump, saying he had stoked an act of insurrection and “sought to undermine our democracy.” Pointing to a rambling speech Trump gave Wednesday, it said he “revealed he is not mentally sound and is unable to process the results of the 2020 election.”

Trump suspended from social media

Facebook and Instagram temporarily banned Donald Trump for 24 hours on Wednesday over posts accused of inflaming violence in the US Capitol, as social media scrambled to respond to mayhem by supporters buying into his baseless attacks on the integrity of the election. Twitter also removed some of his posts, which fanned the flames of insurrection.

Facebook vice president of integrity Guy Rosen said that the company were particularly concerned by the video Trump had uploaded to all of his social media channels, which repeated false allegations about the US Election and labelled the far-right radicals storming the Capitol ‘special people’.

“This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video, We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”

Guy Rosen

Twitter said Trump’s messages were violations of the platform’s rules on civic integrity and that any future violations “will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.” The messaging platform said Trump’s account would be locked for 12 hours and that if the offending tweets were not removed, “the account will remain locked.”

• Additional reporting from AFP