Walsh calls for Trump to “be removed from office”

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Isabel Leon

Boston Mayer Martin J. Walsh.

By Frankie Rowley, Content Managing Editor

Mayor Martin J. Walsh said President Donald J. Trump should be removed from office following the armed insurrection of the U.S. Capitol Building Wednesday. 

“I absolutely believe that the president should be removed from office,” Walsh said during his city COVID-19 briefing at Faneuil Hall Thursday morning. 

The siege that took place at the United States Capitol Building on Wednesday was incited by a rally President Trump held earlier in the day, where he continued to put forth unfounded claims of election fraud on the day of the congressional certification for President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral win.

Walsh, a Democrat, denounced Trump’s inaction amid the chaos in D.C., specifically citing a video Trump released on Twitter wherein he said “we had an election that was stolen from us,” then asking his supporters to “go home now. We have to have peace.”

“The President did not want to come up and say ‘stop,’” Walsh said. “You put that video out there and told [the rioters] you love them. … Right now we have servicemen and women overseas fighting for democracy and helping other countries achieve democracy. The president just threw that out the window yesterday.”

In a tweet following the Faneuil Hall brief, Walsh invoked the 25th amendment of the United States Constitution as justification for Trump’s removal from office. The amendment allows for the President’s removal from office if the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet declare the President is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” according to the Constitution.

Walsh also publicly denounced the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol building in a statement Wednesday evening, saying President Trump is “incapable of rising to the responsibilities of the Office of the President of the United States.”