Trump is ‘phony president’ who must immediately be removed from office: Ethics watchdog Richard Painter

The former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration argued President Donald Trump must be immediately removed from office during a Monday appearance on MSNBC "The Beat."

Guest anchor Ayman Mohyeldin played a clip of Trump saying the emoluments clause of the United States Constitution is "phony."

"What other parts of the Constitution are phony?" Painter wondered. "The First Amendment? Freedom of the press? The impeachment clause of the Constitution? He is going to find out than one soon. The 25th Amendment, is that phony? The 25th Amendment that empowers the cabinet and Congress to remove a president who is psychologically unstable, unfit for office? He wants to say the Constitution is phony."

"He has no business being president of the United States. He needs to be impeached and removed from office now. The emoluments clause is a critically important part of the Constitution that was inserted in there by the Founders because they did not want foreign governments being able to influence United States government officials," he explained.

"It is not a phony constitution. We are not a phony country. We have a constitution, and we don’t want a phony president," Painter said. "He needs to get out of there if he can’t play by the rules."

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