'Absurd!' Legal scholar destroys Trump's claim he's exempt from Fourteenth Amendment

Former President Donald Trump is faced with lawsuits in multiple states trying to disqualify him from the ballot under the 14th Amendment's Insurrection Clause, which prohibits anyone who engaged in insurrection from serving in public office without a waiver from Congress. Trump's attorneys have argued that this prohibition doesn't apply to the office of president — but that's a ridiculous reading that doesn't make any sense, argued retired Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe on MSNBC Tuesday.

"Does Section 3 apply to presidents, the meaning of engaged in insurrection as used in Section 3, and did Trump's actions meet the standard for Section 3?" asked anchor Joy Reid. "Your thoughts, sir."

"I think the answers to all of those questions are quite clear," said Tribe, one of the most outspoken advocates for constitutionally disqualifying Trump. "It is clear that Section 3 by itself says that anyone who 'engages in an insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States' — that's the phrase, not just against the government, but against the Constitution of the United States — is not entitled to another bite at that apple. Now, Donald Trump says that might apply to a county commissioner in New Mexico, but it doesn't apply to him, because it doesn't apply to the president. That is an absurd argument."

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"I won't go into the details, but it's clear that if there's any officer in the country who would be a danger to democracy if he were allowed again to manipulate our processes, it is someone who took the oath as president and then turned around and tried to overturn the central part of the Constitution, which is the transition from one president to another," said Tribe. "And in accord with who actually wins the election, not who says I believe I won, I thought i won, I should have won, how could I have lost to this guy, but the person who our legal process determines as the winner. Now, one of the things that Mr. Trump — and by the way, in the Michigan filing today, he calls himself 'President Trump' 35 times — he seems to think that he won the election, but I have news for him. The Constitution says that you serve for only four years. And if you lose the Electoral College, that's the end of it."

"He argues, I never really took the kind of oath that Section 3 talks about," Tribe continued. "It talks about an oath to support the Constitution. I didn't take that oath. I took the oath that the president takes. It's an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Now, that's how ridiculous the arguments get. The legal arguments are clear. But the political argument is not so clear. A lot of people say even though Congressman Raskin's examples are perfect, they wouldn't apply it to a 30-year-old or to someone not a natural-born citizen, but they say let the people decide, even if someone is not eligible. That's not the way that people who fought the Civil War decided we needed to handle it. They decided that you needed to disqualify anyone who basically is a traitor to the Constitution. That kind of person is dangerous. Dangerous as a person who might attempt to seize power and then never let go."

"That's the history of autocracies around the world," added Tribe. "Somebody manages to make it into office, and then they decide they're going to stay. That's the danger against which this language is designed to protect us all."

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