Kathrine Frich
US President Donald Trump could end his own presidency.
When a political leader crosses too many lines, even their own party eventually reaches a breaking point.
High-stakes foreign trips usually give a president a chance to look strong on the world stage.
One proposed summit next month, however, could trigger a massive revolt back home in Washington.
One fatal summit
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci warned on Sunday that US President Donald Trump could end his own presidency if he sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, HuffPost reported.
Speaking on “The Daily Beast Podcast”, Scaramucci said the president needs to watch his step. “Trump should be very careful with that because he would probably, he’s going to push the envelope where he may be asked to leave the presidency,” he said.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Putin pitched the three-way meeting during an October 9 phone call with Trump.
The talks would take place next month in China during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, with sources telling the newspaper the leaders aim to settle the war in Ukraine without inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
When reporters outside the White House asked about the invite last week, Trump said he would do whatever it takes to stop the fighting “whether somebody’s there or not”, HuffPost noted, before claiming the summit would focus on cutting nuclear weapons.
Getting a tombstone ready
Editorial boards at the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal have already urged Trump to skip the trip, and Scaramucci went even further on the podcast.
“If that meeting were to happen, then I would tell you that the Republican Party is completely dead; we’d probably have to get a tombstone out,” he said.
He added that he would carve an epitaph marking the party’s birth in Wisconsin in 1856, Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 win, and its death on the day of the summit. “The party is dead, sticking a fork in it, the Cheney, Bush, Romney, Reagan, Eisenhower party dead, stick a fork in it,” Scaramucci said.
Seventeen votes to oust him
Scaramucci argued on the podcast that his removal theory is “not crazy” if Democrats win the House in the upcoming midterms. While the Senate cleared Trump after his two previous House impeachments, Scaramucci believes enough Republican senators despise him to finally cross the aisle.
“Let’s say they split and they go 50-50, you need 17 Republicans that have had enough of him,” Scaramucci said, according to HuffPost.
Behind closed doors, that frustration is boiling over.
“They hate his guts… he hates them, by the way, and they hate him. And so, just so you know, keep pushing and keep doing this sort of nonsense that they all hate … And you’re going to get cross traffic into Democrats who say, ‘Impeach him in the House, I’ll pull up 17 votes and we’ll knock him out of the presidency,'” he said.
