the white house slips deeper into crisis in the final days of the trump presidency politicsthe white house slips deeper into crisis in the final days of the trump presidency marovich for the new york timesjan 8 2021what was already shaping up as a volatile final stretch to the trump presidency took on an air of national emergency as the white house emptied out and some republicans joined speaker nancy pelosi and a cascade of democrats calling for mr trump to be removed from office without waiting the 13 days until the inauguration of presidentelect joseph r biden jrthe prospect of actually shortcircuiting mr trumps tenure in its last days appeared remote vice president mike pence privately ruled out invoking the disability clause of the 25th amendment to sideline the president as many had urged that he and the cabinet do according to officialsdemocrats suggested they could move quickly to impeachment a step that would have its own logistical and political challenges representative katherine clark of massachusetts the assistant speaker of the house said friday on cnn that the democrats could get an impeachment vote to the house floor as early as the middle of next weekthe democratled house already impeached mr trump once in december 2019 and he was acquitted in the senate the process took monthsbut the highly charged debate about mr trumps capacity to govern even for less than two weeks underscored the depth of anger and anxiety after the invasion of the capitol that forced lawmakers to evacuate halted the counting of the electoral college votes for several hours and left people dead including a capitol hill police officer who died thursday nightafter mr trumps twitter account was restored he posted a 2minute video on thursday evening denouncing the mob attack in a way that he had refused to do a day earlier reading dutifully from a script prepared by his staff he declared himself outraged by the violence lawlessness and mayhem and told those who broke the law that you will paywhile he did not give up his false claims of election fraud he finally conceded defeat a new administration will be inaugurated on jan 20 mr trump acknowledged my focus now turns to ensuring a smooth orderly and seamless transition of power this moment calls for healing and reconciliationmichael r sherwin the us attorney in washington did not rule out investigating mr trump himself when he pledged to investigate all actors in wednesdays siege the president is said to have discussed pardoning himselfdespite the talk of healing however mr trump quietly made plans to take a trip next week to the southwestern border to highlight his hardline immigration policies which have inflamed washington over the years according to a person briefed on the planning he also told advisers he wanted to give a media exit interview which they presumed might undercut any conciliatory notes but the first family has discussed leaving the white house for good on jan 19 the day before the inauguration