Republicans are ramping up calls to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Joe Biden from office after Thursday night's debate.
GOP Representative Chip Roy said Friday that he plans to introduce a resolution urging Vice President Kamala Harris to use her constitutional powers to convene the Cabinet to declare Biden unable to carry out his duties as president.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment—which has never been used since its adoption in 1967—allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet or Congress to deem the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." Under such circ*mstances, the vice president would immediately become acting president.
GOP calls to remove Biden come after his troubling performance on Thursday's debate stage with Donald Trump. The president, 81, struggled to dispel concerns about his age, with watchers noticing his hoarse, weak voice early in the event. At one point, he trailed off while speaking, unable to finish his answer to a question.
"I think anybody with eyes and anybody observing objectively last night saw an individual that is not capable of carrying out the duties of the commander in chief in a world in which we're, you know, facing increasing dangers," Roy told reporters on Friday.
Asked what he thought of the calls to invoke the 25th Amendment, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that if he were in Biden's Cabinet, "I would be having that discussion with my colleagues at the Cabinet level."
"We've definitely entered 25th Amendment territory," GOP Senator Mike Lee wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after the debate concluded.
GOP Representative Anna Paulina Luna said Biden's debate performance was another reason for the Justice Department to release the audio recordings of special counsel Robert Hur's interview with the president in his classified documents case. On Friday, Luna told Fox Business that if Biden sounds "incompetent" on those tapes, "we could invoke the 25th Amendment."
"I believe that if those tapes come out, I believe that [the Cabinet] would have to [vote on ousting Biden]," Luna said. "And I say that based on last night's performance and the outcry from Democrats, from various news outlets, from the American people, at Joe Biden's performance."
Dave McCormick, a Republican candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania, agreed that Biden's Cabinet should consider invoking the 25th Amendment.
He told Pittsburgh radio station KDKA, "If what we saw last night is reflective of what he is like day to day...if the man that got confused and turned around is the man that they're dealing with every day, if you're secretary of defense or attorney general or secretary of state, you have a responsibility to say, 'Hey, wait a second, this guy is not up to the job.'"
Conservative commentator and former Trump official Sarah Isgur tweeted, "Forget the election, this is heading into 25th amendment territory." Billionaire Bill Ackman, who has said he would not vote for Biden and is open to voting for Trump, as he did in 2016, said, "The question to ask is: Who is actually running the country?"
"No one will call the question because the 25th amendment says that the next in line is the Vice President," Ackman wrote on X.
A video of Trump talking about the 25th Amendment during his time in the White House was recirculated by the popular conservative page End Wokeness after the debate. In the clip from January 2021, Trump is heard saying, "The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me, but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration."
It's not only Republicans who have brought up the 25th Amendment. Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, poked fun at the idea, saying during his broadcast Thursday night that Biden had "resting 25th Amendment face" when it was Trump's turn to talk.
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"So Biden, perhaps not on top of his game. So maybe I will check out this young upstart Donald Trump," Stewart said before clarifying, "Just so we're all clear: Everything Donald Trump said in that clip is a lie, blatant and full."
In February, a poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek found that a third of Americans support Biden's removal under the 25th Amendment. The sentiment was largely split along party lines, with 52 percent of Trump 2020 voters agreeing with the statement, compared with only 26 percent of Biden 2020 voters.
Harris, meanwhile, has made it clear she would not consider such a move. The vice president defended Biden after the debate, saying that while he had a "slow start," he ended the 90-minute event with "a strong finish."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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