Invoking The 25th Amendment Is The Right Thing To Do, Not Just The Politically Savvy One
President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week has kicked off a firestorm in Washington and around the country about whether Biden should remain the Democrat nominee for president. The clear political truth is that Democrats recognize he should not remain at the top of the ticket, but they also recognize that Kamala Harris is neither popular, nor particularly competent, and as a result, they find themselves in a political box of their own design.
However, beyond the political discussion, there is a more fundamental truth regarding Biden’s ability to discharge the powers and duties of the office of the president — particularly that of commander in chief. While it is sad to observe, he assuredly does not have that ability.
Most recently, Biden lost train of thought during the debate, wandered off during a G7 summit, fell onstage at the Air Force commencement, and the White House admits these lapses are “increasingly common.”
This obvious truth is why I introduced a resolution last week that, if passed, would simply call on Vice President Kamala Harris to do what only she can do under our constitution — and that is to convene the cabinet and declare the president unable to do the job. What has been obvious to many of us from the earliest days of the Biden administration has now suddenly become politically expedient for the once-fawning corporate media as well as many radical Democrats. Leak after White House leak has demonstrated that the situation is as dire as we have all assumed, with even The New York Times now reporting that Biden’s “lapses seemed to be growing more frequent, more pronounced and more worrisome.”
Of course, now The New York Times, and numerous other editorial boards and media pundits, have called for Biden to step down. The fact the media are doing so tells you everything you need to know: They are in a panic. And they deserve every ounce of it, for they are culpable. Indeed, everyone around the president is culpable, including the vice president, for lying to the American people.
Because of this, there are some on the political right who understandably claim that removing Joe Biden from office would only help Democrats politically in November. This is a largely academic argument at best because the president can simply resign. Further, Congress cannot do anything unless Vice President Kamala Harris pulls the trigger. So, if Democrats cave to media pressure, it would be regardless of a Republican call to invoke the 25th, not because of it.
While it is a meritorious political consideration that we are told it is difficult — or even in some cases impossible — to replace Biden on ballots without invocation of the 25th Amendment, I am not convinced that this untested assumption is accurate. There are questions about whether states could rectify the ballots, and whether electors could support a new nominee if “Biden” was the name on the ballot. Democrats would clearly be motivated to find the best candidate to run and place on the ballot, and that decidedly is not Kamala Harris.
Setting that aside, the political truth is that Donald Trump will overwhelmingly defeat either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. It is not particularly close. Simply put, the American people are tired of the failed policies of radical progressive Democrats propping up a Manchurian candidate while they drive up inflation, endanger Americans with open borders, and weaponize government against us. President Trump loves America, he doesn’t hate it, and that is what is on the ballot this November.
We should not just ignore the blatant abuse of power by the president and those hypocritical purveyors of the “real big lie” around him to endanger Americans by allowing a senile octogenarian to control the nuclear codes for the sake of Democrat vanity and covering up their selfish incompetence. The current presidential term will last another 200 days until noon on January 20, 2025. During that time, there will be myriad issues that fall under the president’s authority as chief magistrate, chief diplomat, and — most saliently — commander in chief of the armed forces. Indeed, he has more work than can be done from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 70 that it was necessary to have what he called “energy in the executive,” i.e. a properly empowered president under Article II. This would be “essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.”
There are no easy matters that end up on the president’s desk. It is the most difficult job in the world, and its impact not only touches the lives and well-being of the American people but also the rest of the world. Can anyone who saw last week’s disaster, or the countless others that led up to it, say that Joe Biden should continue to hold the power with which he has been vested? Hardly. If Republicans look past the siren song of short-term immediate political “strategy,” and for once play chess, Republicans will not only do what is right for our national security and the constitutional order, but we will ensure a resounding victory at the polls.
There’s a saying in law, res ipso loquitor, which means that the thing speaks for itself. And the records of the current administration as well as the Trump administration both speak for themselves — on economy, on energy, on foreign policy, on border security, and every other metric that matters to the American people. Donald Trump will win because he should.
We all saw what happened on the debate stage last week. If the subsequent reports about President Biden’s cognitive state are true — if it is even half as bad as reported — then we are in the exact kind of situation for which the 25th Amendment was drafted, passed, and ratified. This is not just about whether or not one political party should swap out a candidate who cannot win an election. This is about whether or not a man who struggles to form a cohesive sentence should have the nuclear launch codes.
It just so happens that doing the right thing is also the right political thing.
Chip Roy is the Republican representative for the 21st congressional district in Texas.
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