Ex-GOP operative's stark ultimatum on ousting Trump: 'Choose the Republic or surrender it'

Former GOP strategist Rick Wilson unleashed a scathing attack Monday on Donald Trump, calling the former president a threat to American democracy itself, and making the case for forcible removal if Trump doesn't willingly leave.

In a fiery piece titled "Declaration of Independence From The Mad King," Wilson ripped into Trump for treating the presidency as a "personal franchise" designed for revenge, profit, and self-protection. The political operative pulled no punches, accusing Trump of replacing law with loyalty and governance with grievance.

"A President whose character is thus marked by repeated acts of abuse and usurpation, pursuing invariably the same object—the concentration of power and the erosion of liberty—is unfit to be the chief magistrate of a free people."

"This is not a normal political disagreement," Wilson thundered. "It is a constitutional emergency."

In Wilson's broadside, he skewered Trump for attempting to coerce NATO allies over Greenland, corrupting the presidential pardon power into a pay-to-play scheme, and weaponizing the Justice Department against political enemies. He also blasted Trump's tariff policies as harming working families and his use of federal enforcement to intimidate communities exercising constitutional rights.

Wilson reserved particular scorn for Republicans who privately express concerns while publicly enabling Trump.

"If you will not join in removing him, then cease pretending you are conservatives. A conservative conserves the institutions that safeguard liberty. He does not torch them for the momentary warmth of power," he declared.

He also challenged Democrats to use Congress's power of the purse, urging them to threaten government shutdowns unless constitutional guardrails are restored.

He ended with a stark ultimatum.

"Let him resign. If he will not, let him be impeached and removed. If Congress falters and the danger remains, let the Twenty-Fifth Amendment be invoked. Choose the Republic. Or surrender it," he concluded.