Pelosi presses on with impeachment | First Thing

The House Speaker said Democrats would launch impeachment proceedings if Mike Pence did not remove the president. Plus, how will Biden tackle nuclear weapons?

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Good morning. If Donald Trump is not removed from office by Mike Pence and the cabinet, the House is prepared to launch impeachment proceedings. This is the message that the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delivered in a letter to colleagues on Sunday night, describing Trump as an urgent threat to democracy. House Democrats will attempt to pass a resolution asking Pence to evoke the 25th amendment today, which allows the vice-president and cabinet to remove a president deemed unfit to do their job. This timeline gives an idea of how and when the proceedings could play out.

The ultimatum follows Trump's incitement of the mob that attacked the Capitol last week, an incident that Arnold Schwarzenegger compared yesterday to Kristallnacht, the night in November 1938 when Nazi thugs attacked German Jews and their property. The former California governor, who grew up in Austria in the wake of the second world war and whose father was in the Nazi party, said he had seen first-hand how things can spin out of control". Two people were arrested yesterday after they were seen carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs during the Capitol riot, indicating they may have been planning to kidnap lawmakers.