Nancy Pelosi Could Become ‘Acting President’ In January, Columnist Says
In a Friday piece for Forbes, the publication’s editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes, outlined the possibility of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi becoming president of the United States.
According to Forbes, the current disarray surrounding America’s vote-by-mail system is all but guaranteed to cause delayed election results that will include a legal battle between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden. The publishing executive predicted that many states would lack clear winners, which could leave both candidates without a majority of votes when the Electoral College meets in December.
In a video accompanying the piece, the columnist noted that Pelosi is next in line for the presidency after the vice president. If neither Biden and Kamala Harris or Trump and Mike Pence secure a formal Electoral College victory by January 20, he highlighted that Pelosi would be next in line to take the White House.
“Or, because of how the Constitution says we must choose the president and vice president under such circumstances, we could have Trump becoming president and Kamala Harris vice president,” he wrote.
According to Fox News, Pelosi’s election would hinge on a scenario where many things “go off the rails.” But in this case, the publication noted — as the previous piece did — that Pelosi would be become “acting president.”
“If the House remains stymied at noon on Jan. 20, there is neither a president nor a vice president. The terms of President Trump and Vice President Pence expire. But there is a speaker of the House, next in line to the presidency.”
Per Fox News, the 12th Amendment states that the acting leader remains in power until either Trump or his Democratic opponent is elected head of state by the House. As the publication noted, this scenario would be unprecedented, as Pelosi would have to resign from her position as leader of the Lower Chamber.
In an op-ed for The Hill, Douglas MacKinnon argued that Pelosi could be an effective head of state and pointed to her political leadership experience and acumen.
“But academic exercise or not, Republicans, conservatives and the Trump White House underestimate Pelosi at their own risk.”
As The Inquisitr reported, another possibility is that Pelosi’s House reelects Trump. In this scenario — speculated by Breitbart’s senior-editor-at-large, Joel B. Pollak — Biden and Trump do not secure enough Electoral College votes, and the decision goes to the Lower Chamber. But with one vote from each state delegation, Republicans would have the majority and reelect the Republican candidate. To avoid this situation, Pollak claimed Democrats could stall by denying the House a quorum.
