‘I would’: John Kelly says Trump’s cabinet should vote the president out of office

‘As all of us look at what happened yesterday we really need to step back and decide, how do we fix ourselves’

Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said he would vote to remove the Donald Trump from office, and that the current Cabinet should discuss invoking the 25th Amendment.

A growing number of lawmakers and government officials are calling on Mike Pence to remove Mr Trump through the 25th Amendment, which gives the vice president and a Cabinet majority the power to end a presidency due to an inability to "discharge the powers and duties of his office".

"The Cabinet should meet and have a discussion," Mr Kelly said on CNN. "I don't think it will happen but I think the Cabinet should meet and discuss this because the behaviour yesterday, and the weeks and months before that, has just been outrageous from the president."

Asked by anchor Jake Tapper if he would vote in favour of removing the president, Mr Kelly thought for a moment before saying he would.

"The one thing we have going for us here Jake is it's only 13 more days and no one, as indicated yesterday by the vice president, no one around him anymore is going to break the law," Mr Kelly said.

 

"He can give all the orders he wants and no one is going to break the law. And we saw Mike Pence, vice president Pence, stand his ground yesterday."

Mr Pence defied the president to declare Joe Biden had been elected as president after Congress completed counting the Electoral College votes.

It came after he issued a letter to Congress confirming he did not have the "unilateral authority" to reject electoral votes, prompting anger from Mr Trump during a rally preceding the riots.

Following the swift reaction and outrage from both Republicans and Democrats over the chaos, Mr Kelly said he was no longer worried what Mr Trump might do in the next 13 days until Mr Biden is inaugurated as the next president.

"Again, this has so enraged, what happened yesterday has so enraged the country, and has turned most of the country back onto the right course, and that is a course that no longer listens to Donald Trump. Sure there'll be some, the core of the core, but I wouldn't worry too much about it," Mr Kelly said.

"And we have magnificent police, federal agents, everyone's on heightened alert. I wouldn't worry about it. And I know you have people like Chris Wray at the FBI, all of the leadership in law enforcement and intel working to prevent they might want to do in the next 13 days."

Mr Kelly served as Mr Trump's first secretary of Homeland Security and became the president's chief of staff before stepping down in December 2018.

He said speaking earlier during the election would have been inappropriate for a former senior military officer, but that it was now time to begin addressing the issues that lead to the storming of the Capitol.

"The election is over and I wanted to try to put some perspective into what took place yesterday, but again as all of us look at what happened yesterday we really need to step back and decide, how do we fix ourselves," he said.