Pressure to step aside as nominee continues to mount against President Joe Biden from members of his own party following a disastrous debate performance that put Biden’s cognitive decline on full display. But if Democrats want to get rid of Biden as nominee, they need to use the 25th Amendment. Anything else is an attempted coup.
More than a dozen congressional Democrats have called on Biden to step down as the nominee alongside left-wing talking heads and Hollywood elites. Reports indicate former President Barack Obama is also nudging his former No. 2 to pass the torch.
Democrats want to have their cake and eat it too, by getting rid of Biden the nominee but keeping Biden the current president. But that’s not how it works.
Had Biden not shot himself in the foot by demanding an earlier debate, the White House and left-wing corporate media might have continued to get away with hiding the president’s visible struggles from voters. Back in February, after Special Counsel Robert Hur described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who wasn’t fit to be charged with a “serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” Democrats didn’t call for Biden to step down. They could cast doubt on the report and shield Biden from the public with few to no questions asked.
At the debate, however, it couldn’t be hidden: Biden was unable to put together coherent sentences, let alone walk off the stage unassisted. Now that Biden’s mental and physical limitations have become a political liability for Democrats and their electoral prospects, high-ranking Democrats are running a public pressure campaign to prevent Biden from being the nominee. As The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway explained, efforts by “coup-plotters” to coerce Biden’s exit by leaking their concerns to corporate media don’t indicate that a Biden withdrawal would be a “dignified exit.”
But if Biden is so incapacitated he can’t be the nominee, he certainly cannot remain president for the next six months.
Luckily for Democrats, there is a process, created in 1967, to remove a president who is “unable” to carry out his role. The 25th Amendment says the president himself may submit a written declaration to the president pro tempore of the Senate and speaker of the House that “he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” and would therefore transfer such powers and duties to the vice president.
But in the event the sitting president will not submit such a declaration, there is another option:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
In layman’s terms, Vice President Kamala Harris could convene members of the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Biden from office. And while the definition of “unable” is ambiguous, Jay Berman, who was an aide to the senator who sponsored the amendment, told The New York Times that there is a “clear distinction between unfit, which is basically a political judgment, and unable.”
Biden is not simply “unfit,” he is “unable” to do basic presidential duties — like staying awake and cognizant past 4:00 p.m. (Biden is “more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued” outside the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., White House aides admitted to Axios.) Common and major verbal misses like referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Vladimir Putin, or telling reporters Trump was his vice president, point to a lack of a basic ability to grasp subject matter.
Biden, speaking to Democratic governors shortly after the debate, said he tires out easily and needs more sleep and less work, The Times reported. Meanwhile, current and former officials who met with Biden behind closed doors over recent months said Biden would become confused and “listless,” as described by the NYT. The Wall Street Journal, citing two unnamed sources, reported that Biden skipped a meeting with German officials to go to sleep early and instead sent Secretary Of State Antony Blinken. The State Department disputed the report.
Biden also physically struggles to do basic things like walk up stairs or off a stage. Video footage, which the White House wrongly labeled a “cheap fake,” showed former President Barack Obama leading Biden off stage after the president froze while staring at the crowd. First Lady Jill Biden was also caught on camera having to help Biden off the stage after the presidential debate.
Whether Biden is Democrats’ best bet or not, primary voters already chose him. The only acceptable excuse for rejecting those voters’ decision is if Biden is constitutionally unable to serve as president. And if that is the case, Democrats had better be prepared to invoke the 25th Amendment. Conversely, if Biden is able to continue his presidential duties, an attempt to undermine him by party leadership and other Democrats amounts to nothing less than a coup attempt.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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