Vice President Mike Pence denied Saturday being part of any conversation about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.
“No. Never,” Pence said during an interview with CBS News that will air Sunday.
“The truth of the matter is over the last eight years, despite what we heard from President Obama on Friday, I mean this country was struggling,” he added. “I mean it was the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression.”
Pence’s comments come after the New York Times on Wednesday published an anonymous opinion piece by a senior member of Trump administration who described themselves as also belonging to the movement quietly resisting the president.
“Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president,” the mystery author wrote. “But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.”
Pence refused to speculate Saturday regarding the identity of the administration official, having denied on Thursday that he was the unknown Trump appointee.
[More: Here are the Trump officials denying they wrote anonymous New York Times op-ed]
“Well, I wouldn’t know. But what I can say is it’s a disgrace. I think the author of the anonymous editorial and, frankly, the New York Times should be ashamed,” he continued. “But it seems to me to be just an obvious attempt to distract attention from this booming economy and President Trump’s record of success.”
Trump called on the New York Times Wednesday to turn the person “over to the government at once” for “national security purposes.”
