Nancy Pelosi in a pink suit with eyebrows raised.

OMG, Donald Trump Is Setting Up a Real-Life Veep Scenario

"President Pelosi" could be a real possibility.
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As Donald Trump hurls toward impeachment, he isn’t going quietly. Not only is he loudly declaring this to be unfair “PRESIDENTIAL HARRASSMENT” while also trying to milk it for as much money as he can, he’s also taking as many people down with him, whether he means to or not.

Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has already admitted to pressuring the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on Trump’s political opponent. Attorney General William Barr has been heavily and directly implicated in those same crimes. And now Trump has turned the focus to Vice President Mike Pence.

At the UN summit today, Trump told reporters, “I think you should ask for VP Pence’s conversation because he had a couple of conversations also.”

“I could save you a lot of time,” he continued. “They were all perfect. Nothing was mentioned of any import other than congratulations.”

Cool. Cool cool cool. I’m totally sure the House Democrats are just going to take his word for that, even though Trump also used the word “perfect” to describe his own phone call with Ukraine, and even his own doctored summary of that call showed it was far from that.

What’s really incredible about this is that no one was publicly looking into Pence’s role in this probably impeachable scandal before Trump mentioned his name, but now they definitely will be.

The worst thing about the idea of Trump’s impeachment has always been the thought of him leaving Mike Pence to take his role of president. But if Trump and Pence get taken out in this scandal, you know who becomes President? Nancy F***ing Pelosi.

If we get our first female president because the two doofuses ahead of her on the chain of command get impeached by her, that might literally be the most Veep scenario imaginable.

In addition to being a weird imagination exercise, that scenario is also not entirely without precedent. When Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned (also due to crimes), Nixon appointed House Minority Leader Gerald Ford to take his place. When Nixon then also resigned because he wanted to avoid impeachment, Ford became the first person to ever serve as President and VP without ever having been elected to either office.

But if both Trump and Pence were to quit/be removed together, there would be no one left to appoint a replacement, meaning Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, would take that job.

It would be weird, but it would not be the worst outcome. Not by a long shot. And it would drive Trump absolutely mad.

(image: Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.