Trump’s 3rd term

In the Letters to the Editor, April 8 edition one person commented in response to the possibility of a third Trump term as president. He concluded that under the 22nd Amendment if Trump was elected as vice president if the candidate elected president were to resign then Trump would become president again, and “could serve a third term because he wasn’t elected” as president.

This is a classic example of someone reading only what they want to read to make their case or hearing only the talking points from the media outlet they only want to hear.The 12th Amendment states “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” Trump is ineligible to run again for president under the 22nd Amendment, and thus under the 12th Amendment he is ineligible to become vice president. Some fact checking in this case before publication would have been appropriate.

— Michael E. Pick, Pasadena

DOGE

Before writing your editorial April 6 about Trump needing a better “game plan” for DOGE, I suggest the writer do more research into the subject than what the mainstream media offers. Bret Baier did a panel with the DOGE team, and they are hardly a group of frat boys who just graduated from tech school.

They are all high-powered professionals who have left their businesses temporarily to deal with an impending financial disaster. It is not “hubris” that motivates them, but fear of an unsustainable federal spending death spiral. Another accessible video is of Musk in the Oval Office, where he explains what they are doing and why. Most of the criticism of DOGE emanates from those whose slush funds are being revealed. Any mistakes being made are trivial compared to that.

— Carol Houghton, Chino

Tariffs

Letter writer Martin A. Brewer April 6 was quite mistaken when he asserted “every economist and economic historian writes that tariffs are bad for our economy.” Peter Navarro and Charles Payne are just two of the many notable economists who disagree.

Obama, Pelosi and Schumer, although not economists, have all advocated for tariffs in the past. They were only against them when proposed by Trump. Biden not only quietly retained Trump’s tariffs on China, he actually increased them.

— Grant Rose, Orange