they did wrong because as long as the republicans are able to do what they want to do, nobody says anything. the right thing to do was to speak up against trump. being able to put this last justice on the supreme court. i think trump should leave, but unfortunately there are not -- there's nothing in place that would >> "washington journal" continues. host: with us next is bill athough list, who is director and c.e.o. of the university of virginia's miller center. we have been talking a lot this morning about the 25th amendment because the topic has come up so frequently in the last day and a half or so. bill atholis, what is the 25th amendment and how did it come into the constitution? guest: first of all, it's great to be with you-all. i'm thinking about washington, i spent most of my career there. and i know that the capitol

building's in your background at c-span, my heart really goes out to everybody and to what the last week has meant to the capitol. thank you for having me ofpblet the 25th amendment really has -- on. the 25 $amendment really has been the latest effort to fix a flaw in the constitution that itself was fixing a flaw in government. secession of a president, particularly an unfit president, was -- has been a theme in western government, maybe governments everywhere in the world, and the 25th amendment was trying to fix a few things that were unresolved from the 12th amendment. which tried to fix the constitution itself. it's first presidential secession and how the vice president takes over when the president is incapable. it also tries to fix who then becomes vice president. which was never really clarified.

we had a few times where the vice president would secede a president after death, and there was no provision for selecting the -- succeed a president after death, and there was no provision for selecting a v it was trying to fix a flaw what is the president is incapacitated? and most of that incapacitation a expected to be of when person was not of sound body, the president was physically ill. they started thinking about what happens if the president is mentally ill. the 25th amendment tries to address all that. it came into being in the 1960's, but really it was almost 200 years in coming. host: some of the experience of the past certainly must have led to that. it's interesting you use the word fix a flaw. these are the sorts of things as phenomenal a document the constitution s. the things the founders didn't think about. guest: all of us that got a

refresh on what the founders were thinking about and how they missed it the first time were reminded of this in the play "hamilton." i'm here in charlottesville, thomas jefferson's university, and there's that great scene in hamilton where they explain why hamilton -- jefferson and burr tied for the presidency. it was widely assumed that jefferson was the candidate of this new political party, the democratic republicans, and that aaron burr from new york would be his vice president. yet they received the same number of electoral votes. somebody essentially forgot to cast an electoral vote, forgot to not cast a vote for burr so that jefferson would receive the majority. in the play hamilton you hear jefferson saying, oh, we can fix that. we'll just amend the constitution. which they did just a few years later with the 12th amendment. yet the 12th amendment didn't resolve what happens if a vice president takes over.

and we saw that in 1840 in his very long inaugural address, william henry harrison, caught a deep cold, maybe there is a theory it was the water at the white house that got him sick, but he died about a month after taking office. and john tyler becomes president. and he becomes the president, even though many people thought he should become the acting president. and he just assumed the powers of the presidency. and eventually both houses of congress affirmed that he was the president even though that wasn't provided for in the constitution. in many ways this has been -- had been left unresolved. frankly, one of the things that tipped in this direction was the assassination of john kennedy where lyndon johnson then becomes the president. and there needs to be a provision for selecting a vice president. host: getting a bit more modern, i'm thinking, too, of the woodrow wilson situation. woodrow wilson was incapacitated

by a stroke during the latter half of his presidency. so there was no tool, there was no constitutional tool at that time to replace him. guest: exactly. dwight eisenhower had a heart attack and there was some question, in more recent memory, when ronald reagan was shot. questions about whether and how powers should be transferred to the vice president. during 9/11 when it was difficult to be in touch with president george w. bush, and there was this famous incident of whether or not someone should make a call about shooting down one of the airplanes that was still under the direction of the terrorists and was heading toward the capitol. there was a question whether vice president cheney had the authority to issue that command. so these issues have been out there for some time. it is a gray matter of who is in

charge. host: it is a substantive, lengthy amendment to the constitution. maybe one of the longer ones. i just want to focus here in terms of the focusing on the trump presidency on section 4 of the 25th amendment. show our viewers and listeners what that says. whenever the vice president and majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such party as congress may by law provide, transmit to the president pro tem of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives their written declaration that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the vice president shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting president. has that ever been used in a presidency before? guest: it's quite interesting. it kind of has, but the phrase acting president never actually got activated.

it was twice. for those of us over 50 we have been there and done that. twice presidents have gone under, let's call it a routine medical procedure, a colonoscopy, where they had to be put under anesthesia, the difference between anesthesia and going to sleep at night is you can't be quickly awoken when you are under anesthesia. the question is, in that moment where we know a president's alive, is of sound body and mind, but for that brief moment acting, and of incapable of being revived quickly, who is in charge? and so twice in recent memory when presidents have gone under those kinds of procedures, paperwork has been filed preeming the vice president -- preparing the vice president to be in that situation if need be. and they were quite careful in those cases not to actually activated the acting vice

president because the idea was that then the vice president was empowered to do other things. and even though in both cases the president, sitting president, trusted the sitting vice president, the sense was, in the broader world it did not want to signal that suddenly authority had been passed. host: there are 12 days left in the trump presidency. i want to focus on the very end of the amendment and how it may apply here. the vice president and the cabinet, according to the amendment, can strands mitt to the president pro tem and the speaker of the house their written declaration that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. there upon congress shall decide the issue. explain that. if the vice president and cabinet say the president is unable to discharge his duties, then the congress would vote on that? guest: it's just submitted and t happens.

it has to be -- congress has to be alerted that this is happening. congress does not have a role in the actual process. there is an alternative process where the vice president and congress work -- working with congress can determine this. but in this process, about activating the cabinet, they are just alerted. congress gets brought into play if the president then says, no, i'm actually fine. but if you have scene in "monty python's holy grail" people pronounced dead. no quite dead yet. the president, particularly in this situation where the president is alive and functioning at some capacity, the president could challenge it. congress -- sorry, the vice president and the cabinet can then challenge back. and this is then sent to congress to resolve.

that would take a matter of days. and there are various provisions of days listed in the amendment. that plays this out. most people expect that if it were to play out, it would probably run past the 13 days left. and the assumption is that during that period the vice president would actually be in charge if he and the cabinet had determined that the president was unfit for office. host: bill antholis, director and c.e.o. of the miller center at the university of virginia. we are talking about the 25th amendment. the remaining days of donald trump's presidency. here are the lines. 202-748-8000. 202-748-8001. 202-748-8002.-- some of the clamor coming from the republican side. bill antholis, comments of

illinois representative adam kinzinger and his comments calling for the ininvocation of the amendment. >> yesterday was a sad day as we all know. it was date where fire stoked by the president and other leaders and lit the trees. thankfully the strength of our constitution and democracy helped, and ewe emerge today a little better but resolved. what happened yesterday is a wake-up call to many. it's a call of accountability for others. in the past few presidencies the administrations have been so concerned about even a moment of weakness that the 25th amendment was invoked during minor surgeries. passing the duties to the vice president while the president was under anesthesia, even for that moment to have the captain of the ship acts that could cause a major catastrophe. sadly yesterday it became evident that not only has the president abdicated his duty to protect the american people and

the people's house, he invoked and inflamed passions that only gave fuel to the insurrection we saw here. when pressed to move and denounce the violence, he barely did so. while of course victimizing himself and seeming to get a wink and nod to those doing it. all ipped cases are that the president has become unmoored not just from his duty but from reality itself. it is for this reason that i call for the vice president and members of the cabinet to ensure the next few weeks are safe for the american people and that we have a sane captain of the ship. section 4 of the 25th amendment allows a majority of the cabinet and vice president to assume the duties of the office of presidency until a president is able to, himself. it's time to invoke the 25th amendment and end this nightmare. we will arise from this, but we cannot forget what led us here. the liers and conspiracy authors

are already at it again this morning with false narratives about yesterday's disaster. here's the truth. the president caused this. the president is unfit. and the president is unwell. and the president must now relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily. god bless you. and god bless our enduring democracy. host: bill antholis, what did you think of both congressman kinzinger's language and his request there to the vice president? guest: one of the things that struck me, i want to know a little about about the congressman, but he's a veteran. he served in the air force. served in the iraq war. one immediate thing came to mind, which is really an assumption rather than something that i know, but as somebody who served in the armed services he's probably really thinking about the chain of command, perhaps thinking about how this projects overseas what's happening here. in fact, that's one of my

greatest concerns about the current moment. it's important to know who is in charge of the country. i think he's also talking more broad than that. he makes reference to lies, to playing with the truth about the elections, to fraudulent claims of fraudulent election. the republican party, fragely, is divided on -- frankly, is divided on which reality they are seeing. are they seeing the reality of election ballots, of the affirmation of the count in the most important swing states as affirmed by many and many of the most important cases were public, and local officials, republican governors, judges including republican judges appointed by president trump and other republican presidents. many other republicans who have been challenging the results, some believe that the results are fraudulent, believe conspiracy theories, frankly.

others are not contesting that but nor one reason -- for one reason or another are contesting that state election officials ither without approval from or in violation of the law, in my view, inaccurately changed the way the election was conducted. the congress that is essentially pushing back on all of that to say, look, this is what happened in the capitol on the 6th, on wednesday. was the outgrowth of a series of lies. using that word is really important. it starts to set a benchmark for truth in the election. and you are either on one side of the truth or the other side. that's a big fight going on within the republican party and it's still going on. host: you wrote a couple of weeks ago about the challenge ahead for the president-elect, joe biden, in a piece published at the miller center.

the headline from the director, the president-elect of the new secessionists, you write now the electoral college has cast its otes, prime faces a new cry -- president biden face as cries. this will not lead to civil war, but biden must still address it. by uniting the supermajority of americans who committed to a united states of reality. bill antholis, who are these new secessionists how is president-elect biden and soon ton president biden go about uniting the country. guest: those are two questions i have been spending a lot of time thinking about. when i wrote that, frankly, didn't expect we would have the kind of violence in the capitol we had today. i really believe that it would be peacefully resolved. i also didn't think that some of the states involved in challenging the election results , some of the state attorney

generals, would start playing with the idea of a group of states forming their own union, essentially, seceding. what i was trying to get at was that this statistic that is widely cited and consistent that 77% of president trump's voters, 77% of 47%, or roughly 36%, 37% of the country don't believe the election results. some of this, frankly, has been stoked by president trump and the people around president trump. but some of it is bottom up. i think there are news organizations out there that were challenging the election results. i won't cite them. they are often cited because i think giving fuel to those organizations is problematic. they are creating an alternative not ty, they are stoking

just fear but anger in a number of people that the election has been stolen from them, which is, quite frankly, not the truth. what i think it means for president biden -- people focus on the big number, 77%, it seems like a majority. it is the majority of a minority of 74 million people who voted for president trump. it it's a big number, 3/4 of those people, but that's still only just a little more than a third of the country, which means that almost 2/3 of the country, more or less, accepts the same common reality. they may have concerns about the way some states changed their election rules about certifying absentee votes, but they basically understand that election happened and that joe biden won. i think joe biden's challenge is to unify that group of people around our constitutional system.

both the actual constitution but also how we constitute reality. we have essentially forged filters more or less that filter reality. i should say none of them are perfect. and all of them have had flaws. but they are still extraordinary, extraordinary in the world and extraordinary in history. and the four filters are, first of all, our government, particularly our court system, which is the model in the world, our universities, which are the model in the world, we filter reality. yes, there are a lot of opinions. and there are almost certainly biases in our universities. but they are first rate. our media, there is a lot of conversation about the media, but the media also is extraordinary and extraordinarily good. but it is challenged with social media and more biased media. then finally, science.

and a lot of science happens in university. much science happens in the government. a lot of science happens independently in businesses and in other organizations that are devoted to -- nonprofit organizations that are devoted to scientific research. those for institutions by and large are being challenged by these two secessionists. i have received multiple emails in response to things i have right writen recently. it's extraordinary to me many of these people cite their problems with bias in all four of those entities. i think, frankly, if i were advising president-elect biden, my advice would be focus on those four, particularly in the covid epidemic, all four have a really important role to play. and make sure that you understand that they are imperfect but they are the best thing that we have. host: we have phone calls

waiting. just before we get to those, a quick question, from jimbo in bakersfield, california. independent voter. he says, question for your guest about the 25th amendment. if the 25th amendment is used to remove trum from office for the rest of his term, does it prevent him from running again or seeking another elected position? guest: it does not prevent him from running again or seeking another elected position. and that's why many democrats are calling for both impeachment and the 25th amendment. they want to deal with the immediate crisis of whether or not the president is of sound mind, and whether or not there are clear lines of authority, and whether the president, frankly, the president as the chief executive officer, must secure the inauguration. he said in a statement yesterday that there would be an orderly transfer of power. but the slowness in calling out

the national guard or protecting the capitol is a sign the president as the person who controls the institutions of government that should be providing civil order, failed in that regard, among others, to do so. the reason people are calling for impeachment is impeachment in the constitution contains language that says once someone is impeached, they can no longer hold high public office or other honors and duties of public trust. and that's why democrats are also calling for that. and i should say we are hearing some republicans might be considering that as well. frankly, so they can deal with what is becoming a cancer on the republican party. host: hear from atlanta, georgia. and on our democrats line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. thank you for taking the call. i just wanted to make a brief

commentary in terms of saying when we look at the recalcitrance, the insurrectionists, subversives, and treatment like behavior exhibited at the capitol, we can definitely say unequivocally that that was very tragic and unfortunate. however i think it does bring to mind that we should look at this a a nation collectively as metaphor i canly speaking an alarm clock to wake us up to some very serious issues that divide us as a country. and makes us in some instainses, look like the divided states of america versus the united states of america. a that extent i think that seeking a cure or solution to a problem that affects the nation, i think the diagnosis or assessment must consider the ideological or causative factors that is triggering the problem.

and i say that to say that in conclusion that one of the problems that i think is making us more to some degree, i say that contextually speaking, to some degree a divided states of america as opposed to a united states of america, is the problem and issue of racism. racism comes to mind from what happened at the capitol in several context. first, that many, unfortunately speaking of the supported, not necessarily all of them, but many of them are profiled as being supportive of racist values and concepts and ideology. that speaks to white supremacy, etc., etc. we saw images of people with flags, confederate flag, which speaks of divisiveness, etc., etc. we have that element. then the way some of these people who are being violent the way that you were treated,

juxtaposition to how people were involved in issues relating to protests around black lives matters responding to police brutality, the way they were treated. there was a difference. it does speak to racism in a multiplicity of ways. i think it's an original sin that america still must deal with as we strive to become a more perfected union. we still have to deal with issues that divide us because we cannot really make the meaningful substantive progress, first is cosmetic progress, that we should make until we deal with issues that are really divisive and really hurts us to the core. host: appreciate your call. bill antholis. guest: look, there was a lot in those very thoughtful comments. i really do think that we should be focusing on unity. the issues of race are particularly meaningful here in charlottesville. as you know i live just about two blocks from the robert e.

lee statue which was the cite of the controversy in 2017. was there that day. wednesday's events were a little bit of ptsd for me because my daughter on august 11 and 12th, august 12, 2017, was working there 0 yards from where was the killing. i was there when that happened. on wednesday, my former assistant, who is a reporter for "politico," was in capitol hill reporting. these issues are very much intertwined. and the arc of president trump's first crisis, which was charlottesville, to his last crisis, which he created, which was wednesday, january 6, is, in my view, a very clear one. i think republican leaders like

mitch mcconnell know that. and i think this is an opportunity, david brooks had a terrific column in the "new york times" in the last 24 ours or so, where he said this could break the fever where i think a number of republican leaders will see that this is not the america that they signed up for. and will want to work with president biden when he becomes president on the 25th of january to try to address some these issues. host: ivan in antlers, oklahoma, republican line. caller: yeah. i believe talking about this 25th amendment they plan on using on joe biden, he's incapable of thinking for himself. he's incapable of being a president of our united states. somebody else talks for him. they talk to him like he's a child. and i got no questions what that man said. he's not very educated. i don't believe himself.

host: michelle in philadelphia on the independent line. michelle, good morning, go ahead. caller: hi. good morning. thanks for taking my call. i wanted to say, what happened wednesday was definitely embarrassing for america as a country. but it's not like the biggest shame or stain on america like some people keep saying. when i think about mob attacks as a black woman who knows her history, i think this was not the first time that angry white people have had mob attacks. if you-all hadn't -- judges voted for trump you wouldn't have brought this kind of anger out of white people. you made us do this. really, this is just -- this is really all a democracy. even if the vote was stolen, they did not have the right to o what they did. if black people did that same

thing, i guarantee you right now there would be reports of over 300 or more dead and over 300 more in jail. how can this be the biggest shame or stain on america when america is guilty of crying. i also want to say i love this country and i hope it heals. i don't see it happening. i feel like trump was a very integral part of bringing out white people who were already angry, who were alreadier dealing with racist kind of way about different things. he roethlisberger promoted it. yes, be you. go ahead and speak your hate. it's ok. it's ok to hate. it's ok to be president. it's ok to be racist. he did help fuel this. he really d thank you for taking my call. have a good day. host: bill, let me ask you, is there danger in the of applying the 25th amendment at this political time? you mentioned that the amendment

came into effect as a result of, in the aftermath, of the kennedy assassination. it is obviously a heightened time right now in the united states with 12 days remaining in the trump presidency. guest: i think there are a number of challenges of pulling it off. first of all, i think the process of pulling it off is a complicated one. the vice president, first of all reports are the vice president and president are not talking to one another. in the process of assembling a majority of the cabinet and figuring out what that actually is, who counts in this process, a number of people are resigning. do acting officials in those agencies count by reading of the amendment? is that they do count but that's uncertain. there is uncertainty about the gality or the procedural mechanisms to make this happen.

and you would at the very least for the attorney general secretary of defense, secretary of the treasury, and the head of the c.i.a. at the very >> we are leaving us at this point, you can finish watching live, we take you live to georgia for an update on the pandemic. gov. kemp: we have our deputy chief operating officer and health care adviser here to answer any questions you may have on vaccine distribution. we have been working with the team for a long time now on that and he can give you more in the weeds details if there's anything that we are missing. i wanted to take this moment before the weekend to give you an update on where we are in the administration with the covid-19 vaccine as we continue to fight the virus here in the state of georgia.