Trump's desperate attempt to save his imploding presidency

It was too little, too late, and may fail to save a presidency imploding at staggering speed under the weight of Donald Trump's tragic flaws.
Late in the final act of his tumultuous administration, the President finally admitted the reality of his political demise Thursday, suddenly surrounded by threats of a historic second impeachment, calls for his resignation, a staff exodus, potential criminal liability and concern over his mental state.
In a scripted, stilted video, Trump condemned the mayhem unleashed by his supporters in the US Capitol and admitted unequivocally -- more than two months after his election loss -- that he will no longer be president in 12 days.
But presidents don't get credit for pledging a "smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power" after encouraging their mobs to punish another branch of government and doing everything possible to destabilize the nascent administrations of their successors.

Federal investigators are looking at everyone involved in Wednesday's unrest, including the role Trump played in the mass rally that preceded the assault on the citadel of US democracy and left lawmakers and staff cowering in their chambers amid an appalling scene of mob rule.

Trump tweets he is skipping Biden's inauguration

"What occurred in America’s Capital Washington D.C. – and in its capitol, its Parliament – is woefully inexcusable and just an evil product of Donald Trump’s excesses over his electoral defeat. Just as the PNC Brigadier has done here, Trump has implanted in the minds and souls of his seventy–plus million loyal supporters, that the recent U.S. elections were fraudulently manipulated against him and his Republicans."

Biden tapped Vanita Gupta, a career civil rights lawyer and Justice alum, as an associate attorney general. A child of Indian immigrants, Gupta recounted a story from her childhood when she first realized that U.S. justice more often fails people and communities of color.

She recalled how, as a four-year-old, she and her family were forced to leave a McDonald’s after a group of skinheads began calling them racial slurs and throwing food at her mother and grandmother.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held informal conversations within their own agencies about the contours of the 25th Amendment, the invocation of which would begin a process to remove Trump from office, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump withdrew his nomination of Chad Wolf to head the Department of Homeland Security, hours after Wolf, the acting Secretary, urged Trump to “strongly condemn the violence” at the U.S. Capitol.

“This is unacceptable. These violent actions are unconscionable, and I implore the President and all elected officials to strongly condemn the violence that took place yesterday,” acting secretary Wolf wrote in a statement Thursday.

The United States will find it harder to advocate for democracy and rule of law abroad unless it grapples with Trump’s role in the violence, current and former U.S. diplomats said.