President Donald Trump's behavior at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday is cause enough to invoke the 25th amendment and see him removed from office, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has argued. During a wide-ranging cabinet meeting attended by reporters on Wednesday, the president made a number of controversial statements on topics from the Soviet Union to the partial government shutdown.
On Thursday's Morning Joe program, Scarborough told his co-host Mika Brzezinski: "If we had a cabinet that was filled with people with more character" and "had a House and a Senate that took their job seriously, there would be people going up to the White House this morning saying, 'Mr. president, questions abound whether you are fit for this office.'"
Lawmakers would then ask the cabinet to take a vote and "invoke the 25th amendment," he said. Scarborough also suggested "if any of the 44 presidents had behaved that way, then those questions would have been raised.
"If Barack Obama had done that in 2013 those questions would have been raised by Republicans, they would have probably tried to start impeachment hearings. If George W. Bush had done it Democrats would do the same, and rightly so.
"This is a man who obviously is not fit to hold the office, and we've known that for a very long time," said Scarborough. "He is pushing foreign policy initiatives that are actually going to do grave damage to this country, our national security and embolden and strengthen our enemy."
At the Wednesday cabinet meeting, Trump spoke about U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, which has been ongoing since 2001. Trump urged Russia and other nations in the region to become more involved in the war, and argued the former Soviet Union was "right" to invade the country in 1979.
Trump also said he would have been a "good general," and criticized the record of ex-Defense Secretary James Mattis who resigned last month. The president went on to describe war-torn Syria as "sand and death" when asked about plans to withdraw U.S. troops from the country.
Addressing the proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, whose lack of funding has triggered a fortnight-long partial government shutdown, he hit back at claims it was immoral by pointing out there is a network of walls in Vatican City. The president also claimed to have prevented a "big fat war in Asia," and also showcased a Game of Thrones-style poster about sanctions against Iran.
Last month Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who left the party over disagreements with Trump, described him as "the worst president in modern times, and perhaps ever."
This article was updated to indicate Joe Scarborough's remarks were made in reaction to Donald Trump's cabinet meeting.
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