Biden’s Cabinet Should Consider 25th Amendment to Remove Boss, Johnson Says

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Friday that high-level discussions should take place within President Biden’s Cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment to force him out of office after a disastrous debate performance the night before.

“A lot of people are calling for invoking the 25th Amendment right now because this is an alarming situation,” Johnson told reporters. “Our adversaries see weakness in the White House, as do we all.”

“I would ask the Cabinet members to think hard,” he added. “I would be panicking too if I were a Democrat today and this was my nominee. I think they know they have a serious problem.”

“But it’s not just politics, it’s not just the Democratic Party, it’s the whole country,” Johnson said. “We have a serious problem here because we have a president who clearly is not up to the task. »

The 25th Amendment, proposed by Congress in 1965 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and ratified by the states two years later, allows the Cabinet to declare the president unfit to exercise the powers and duties of his office – and to be replaced by the vice president.

Biden, 81, struggled to start the debate on CNN. He spoke in a hoarse voice that his advisers attributed to a cold and froze in agony as he tried to answer a question early in the debate.

“Everyone here…made a mistake,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a Biden campaign surrogate, told reporters Friday when asked about the president watching into the void before delivering a non-sequitur that his administration had “finally.” beat Medicare.

More than eight in 10 Post readers said in a snap poll taken after the verbal sparring that the president should drop out of the White House race and not run for reelection.

But a senior White House adviser told CNN Friday morning that Biden was already preparing to return to the debate stage for another round with Trump, 78, in September, a statement the president backed during a afternoon gathering in North Carolina.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) was the first to dismiss talk of replacing his party’s leader, while former leaders like Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) were only too willing to admit that Biden “wasn’t great” and had a “bad night.”

Many House Democrats avoided reporters at the Capitol on Friday when asked whether the president was capable of serving another four-year term — or even if he wanted to appear in a second debate against his opponent republican.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said “it was a mistake” that the Biden campaign even agreed to participate in the debate on CNN, and he advises against doing so again “with the same set of rules of conduct.” base”, which was not the case. This does not allow for real-time fact-checking.

“There are two schools of thought,” Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY), who represents the swing district, told the Post. “Some of them immediately took (Sen. John) Fetterman’s approach, which is that it was just a bad night.”

“But I think most of them are engaging in the political equivalent of a drive-by shooting,” Molinaro said, referring to the anonymous pundits and strategists who attacked Biden immediately after the debate and called on him to withdraw from the race.

“I think President Biden has made it clear that he can’t serve another four-year term, but I think many people thought that before last night’s debate,” he added. “Many Democrats and Republicans have felt that way for months.”

House Republicans are currently battling with Attorney General Merrick Garland over audio recordings taken during an October 2023 interview with Biden, part of an investigation that found he “willfully” hoarded classified documents after his vice presidency.

The House voted along party lines earlier this month to hold Garland in contempt for withholding the audiotapes, while continuing to turn over transcripts of Biden’s meeting with special counsel Robert Hur.

Hur ultimately chose not to indict Biden because a federal jury would likely view the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning older man with a bad memory.”

“The president of the United States has asked the attorney general not to turn over the tape,” Johnson said Friday. “After last night’s debate, I think we all understand very clearly why.”

“It’s very likely that he’ll sound exactly like he did on stage last night on that tape,” Johnson said, “and that’s embarrassing for the president.”