Yes, Trump Is Disqualified from Office
Plus: Remembering Henry Kissinger
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ILYA SOMIN: Yes, Trump Is Disqualified from Office.
THE EFFORT UNDERWAY IN SEVERAL STATES to use Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify Donald Trump from becoming president again raises a variety of legal, moral, and political issues. But fundamentally it comes down to this: liberal democracies often have good reason to bar from positions of vast power people whose track record shows them to be a threat to democracy itself, or to basic liberal values. Section 3—originally enacted to bar former Confederates in the aftermath of the Civil War—is a useful tool towards that end. And Trump epitomizes the sort of person who should be barred, for both legal and pragmatic reasons.
Section 3 bans anyone from state or federal office who previously held certain public offices and “engaged in insurrection” against the United States or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Donald Trump is disqualified under Section 3 because of his attempt to use force and fraud to overturn the results of 2020 election, and especially because of his role in instigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
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ERIC S. EDELMAN AND ELIOT COHEN: Remembering Henry Kissinger.
Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state and national security advisor, died on November 29 at the age of 100. In a recent episode of The Bulwark’s podcast Shield of the Republic, cohosts Eric Edelman and Eliot Cohen discussed Kissinger’s life and legacy as a scholar of history and international relations, as a senior diplomat and statesman, and as a person.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Thursday! We’ll see you all tonight after the DeSantis / Newsom debate, yes? Remember, we watch so you don’t have to. It’s a little later than usual: 10:30 Eastern.
“Take the vote. I’m at peace.” Tomorrow, the House will (hopefully) put an end to the Santos era.
In the “Free State of Florida™”… A bombshell about the power couple behind “Moms for Liberty.”
David Brooks on Kissinger… From the first year of The Weekly Standard. It’s good to have physical copies on hand so one can appreciate the art!
Is that you, Old Marco Rubio? Sometimes we get a glimpse of the guy we wanted to beat Trump in 2016.
Leonard Leo is cruising… For a legal bruising. Will Congress call his bluff?
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