There is a lot of misunderstanding out there about Ross Douthat who interviewed President Donald Trump Sunday on 60 Minutes. He is repeatedly described as a "conservative" without any reference to the fact that less than six months into Trump's first term in May 2017 he wrote in his New York Times column that although there were no grounds to impeach Trump, he still wanted him removed from office via the 25th Amendment because Douthat's sensibilities were somehow offended by the "childishness" of Trump's demeanor.
One typical example of emphasizing Douthat as being "conservative" sans any mention of his history of hostility towards Trump came in the wake of the latest 60 Minutes interview with this description of him from the Daily Beast (which described Douthat as "conservative" TWICE in just one sentence) that you will also see echoed in many other outlets:
On Sunday, CBS aired Trump’s 60 Minutes interview with CBS correspondent Ross Douthat, a conservative Catholic writer who was hired in the show’s latest shakeup after his time as The New York Times’ resident conservative commentator.
Of course no mention of Douthat's past opposition to Trump in most of the same outlets emphasizing him as "conservative." However, a trip down memory lane reveals the true Douthat who not only begged for the removal of Trump from office via the 25th Amendment for an absurdly laughable reason, but later demanded the impeachment of Trump despite the fact that he would be already be out of office when such an action took place.
First let us flashback to May 2017 when NewsBusters revealed Ross Douthat demanding the removal of Trump from office because his precious sensibilities were somehow offended by the supposed "childishness" of Trump's demeanor as you can see in "Ross Douthat Childishly Begs for Trump's Removal via 25th Amendment."
Here is Douthat whining about being offended Trump's "childishness" and demanding the 25 Amendment solution for this offense in his May 16, 2017 column, "The 25th Amendment Solution for Removing Trump."
There is, as my colleague David Brooks wrote Tuesday, a basic childishness to the man who now occupies the presidency. That is the simplest way of understanding what has come tumbling into light in the last few days: The presidency now has kinglike qualities, and we have a child upon the throne.
...But a child also cannot really commit “high crimes and misdemeanors” in any usual meaning of the term. There will be more talk of impeachment now, more talk of a special prosecutor for the Russia business; well and good. But ultimately I do not believe that our president sufficiently understands the nature of the office that he holds, the nature of the legal constraints that are supposed to bind him, perhaps even the nature of normal human interactions, to be guilty of obstruction of justice in the Nixonian or even Clintonian sense of the phrase. I do not believe he is really capable of the behind-the-scenes conspiring that the darker Russia theories envision. And it is hard to betray an oath of office whose obligations you evince no sign of really understanding or respecting.
So there you have it. Although Ross Douthat believed that Trump committed no impeachable offences he still wanted him removed of office via the 25th Amendment because of... behavior that offended him?
But wait... There's more!
On the day after January 6, 2021 when it became pretty much a job requirement at the New York Times to demand the impeachment of Trump even though it wouldn't take place until after he left office (Chief Justice John Roberts declined to preside over the second impeachment of Trump for this reason), Ross Douthat fell right into line:
Despite my past interest in 25th Amendment remedies in this case impeachment and removal really seems like the appropriate route to take.
— Ross Douthat (@Douthat60) January 8, 2021
It could have bad effects on the GOP but barring Trump from running again could also cancel out some of those effects, who can say, do the right thing.
— Ross Douthat (@Douthat60) January 8, 2021
Just remember when you hear Ross Douthat described as a "conservative" that the man interviewing Trump on 60 Minutes had a history of lining up with his liberal New York Times colleagues in supporting the removal of Trump from office whether by the 25th Amendment or the impeachment process.
