Commentary: A necessary action?

“Trump must be removed from office as soon as possible. Either Section 4 of the 25th Amendment must be invoked — because he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” — or he must be impeached and convicted under Section 4 of Article II of the Constitution for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Secretary Reich reached that conclusion after offering this explanation:

“I’ve worked for three presidents, one Republican and two Democrats. I’ve seen presidents up close. The job is overwhelmingly difficult. It takes a toll. But I have never seen anything remotely like what has happened to Donald Trump.

If Trump was once rational, he no longer is.

His response to the Reiner killings, like his AI post on October 18 in which he defecated on millions of protesters, reveals a depth of paranoia and grandiosity worse than anything he has shown before. “

And then Secretary Reich reveals the reason behind his call for removal of the president:

“As commander-in-chief, he is the only person in the United States with the authority to launch a nuke (nuclear weapon). No one else need be consulted before he does. No one else can veto such an order. Not even the vice president or secretary of defense has the power to stop it.”

The president and his subordinates are using the military to strike small boats and kill their occupants without authority from Congress. While asserting his eligibility for a Nobel Peace Prize, he ordered strikes in Africa on Christmas Day. Other military actions he has ordered in his second term were in Iran, Syria, and Yemen.  So far in 2025 there have been well over 500 U.S. bombings around the globe, according to one authority.

Questions about the mental health of the President are frequently in the news.

As far back as 2017, a group of 27 psychiatrists joined in a book stating the dangerousness of this president. They agree that, although a diagnosis should not be made without examination of the patient, dangerousness may be assessed from observed behavior.

We have all observed much in this second term, and Secretary Reich is one of the first to suggest a very serious next step. Secretary Reich asserts: “It’s a risk that neither the United States nor the rest of the world can afford to take. I don’t think I’m being alarmist. If anything, I worry that we’ve become so inured to Trump’s madness that we’re not alarmist enough.“

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Keith Mobley, Dufur, is a retired lawyer who was a Republican candidate for the Oregon House of Representatives in 1980. He lost, and then served as the Antelope city attorney against the Rajneeshees until late 1982, when he was hired as assistant to the president of Oregon State University. He grew up on a wheat and cattle ranch near Shaniko.