Ex-Obama Adviser David Axelrod Slams ‘Disruptive’ Effort to Keep Trump off the Ballot: ‘It Worries Me’
CNN commentator and former Obama adviser David Axelrod said the effort to keep former President Donald Trump off this year’s ballot is misguided and would elicit a “strong reaction” in the country.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments as to whether the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Trump from the presidential ballot should be allowed to stand. The state court ruled in December that Trump ran afoul of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That provision states:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The court found that Trump’s actions ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection disqualified him under the amendment’s insurrection provision. In the weeks following the 2020 election, Trump falsely claimed the contest was rigged against him. He spent weeks attempting to coerce officials in states he lost to subvert the results and declare him the winner. He also urged his vice president to refuse to certify the results in Congress as the presiding officer.
“I’m not here as an apologist for Donald Trump and I’m certainly not here as a lawyer,” Axelrod said on Wednesday’s OutFront on CNN. “There are myriad legal questions that they’re gonna consider tomorrow. Some will undoubtedly offer off-ramps if they want an off-ramp, but I’m trying to imagine what it would be like if the Supreme Court said, ‘We’re removing the front-running Republican candidate from the ballot,’ and essentially saying to the American people, ‘You won’t have the opportunity to vote for him.'”
Axelrod went on to argue that removing Trump from the ballot would be disruptive and heighten cynicism in the country.
“And I think it would be very, very disruptive in this country,” he said. “I think it will create a huge reaction. And that worries me. It worries me because partly because of Donald Trump. There’s so much cynicism about our institutions already. And the strength of our democracy are these institutions. You can argue that’s why you have to go the way the Colorado court suggests. But I think in the minds of many voters, this would be a subversion and it would draw a very strong reaction.”
Trump has also been removed from the ballot in Maine after the secretary of state there deemed Trump ineligible under the 14th Amendment. The state’s supreme court is declining to weigh in on the matter until after the U.S. Supreme Court decides the Colorado case.
Watch above via CNN.
