House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that President Trump should prepare to be “fumigated” out of the White House if he refuses to leave.
The California Democrat took a jab at Trump, who faces a tough reelection fight against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden this fall, after he declined to commit to accepting the election results during an interview on Fox News Sunday.
“Whether he knows it yet or not, he will be leaving,” Pelosi said Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Just because he might not want to move out of the White House doesn’t mean we won’t have an inauguration ceremony to inaugurate a duly elected president of the United States.”
Presidents, like other elected public officials, do not have the legal authority to stay in office longer than their elected term, but some critics have speculated that Trump may try to question the integrity of the 2020 contest if he loses after raising concerns about voter fraud. Biden himself said last month that he expects the incumbent to be marched out of the White House if he is defeated because he won’t leave.
Pelosi insisted that there is a concrete system for the presidency that must be respected and noted that she is second in line for the highest office.
“I’m second in line to the presidency, and just last week, I had my regular continuation of government briefing,” Pelosi said. “This might interest you because as I say to them, this is never going to happen — God willing, it never will — but there is a process. It has nothing to do with if a certain occupant of the White House doesn’t feel like moving and has to be fumigated out of there — because the presidency is the presidency. It’s not geography or location.”
