Remember the 25th Amendment?
Back during the Trump administration, every Democrat seemed to be an expert in it. While it’s mostly intended to provide a roadmap to presidential succession, the corner of it that everyone seemed to obsess over involved removing the president without going through the process of impeachment if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Every time there was a Trump gaffe, it seemed, there was a groundswell of talk about how he was nutty and how the Constitution provided a mechanism to put him on the sidelines — provided, of course, “the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress” declare him unable to perform his duties in a written statement.
The 25th Amendment still hasn’t changed, even if the president has. Yet, we don’t seem to be talking about it much anymore. On Tuesday — as he tends to do on most occasions in which his mouth is open for any length of time — President Joe Biden proved why it’s more relevant than ever. If, of course, anyone who talked about invoking it was really concerned about a president mentally “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
On this occasion, Biden sat down to talk with CNN about a wide range of topics. Most of the headlines came from talk of Russia and OPEC+’s cut in oil production; Biden said Vladimir Putin was a “rational actor” who “totally miscalculated” by invading Ukraine, while he threatened Saudi Arabia and other OPEC powers with “consequences” for aiding Russia by proxy with the oil production cut.
However, the part that should have caught everyone’s attention came when Biden was touting his so-called “Inflation Reduction Act.”
If you’ve followed the omnibus spending bill, you’re aware it has as much to do with inflation as my buying a Porsche would have to do with securing my child’s education — because, you know, I could drive her to school in it.
Instead, the tax-and-spend bill was primarily aimed at ticking off boxes on the Green New Deal agenda: $370 billion of it was designated for climate-change provisions, according to the Daily Caller.
But that’s not all, Biden said. Banks are going to be bringing a whole lot of money from banking “off the sidelines” for green investment.
Just don’t ask him the exact number because he’s a bit, ah, unclear about it:
Biden: We’ve passed “a billion a trillion 750 million dollars billion dollars off the sidelines of investment” for climate change. pic.twitter.com/edrgOCAiYV
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 12, 2022
That’s right, “a billion, trillion, 750 million, billion dollars off the sidelines of investment.”
Which one is it? That’s kind of important, because the difference in those numbers is a few orders of magnitude off. What Biden seemed to be referring to was a Bank of America report that estimated corporations would spend $740 billion ” “to meet emission reduction goals over the next decade or so.”
It didn’t take long for the Biden stans to point out the usual excuse: He has a childhood stutter, so please stop bullying him.
That’s what he meant by 700 billion of investment off the sidelines.
Find the report here: https://t.co/wUcXIVVSqf
Note again, Biden has a stutter problem he’s worked for years to fix. He stumbled on billion/trillion/million, but stopped stumbling when he got it right at 700 bn
— Flash Knight (@FlashKnight777) October 12, 2022
OK, Mr. Flash Knight: Does a childhood stutter make you forget that a person died?
“Jackie, where’s Jackie?,” Joe Biden says about Rep. Jackie Walorski who died in a car accident a few months ago. pic.twitter.com/khdiesmEsx
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 28, 2022
This was Biden in September, infamously scanning the room for a GOP representative who’d died in a car crash a month earlier. As Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill noted, this was at an event where they planned to show a tribute video to Rep. Walorski, for the love of Pete.
Biden, thanking bipartisan lawmakers for making the conference happen, appears to reference the late Rep. Jackie Walorski without realizing she passed away in August
“Jackie,” Biden said after thanking Sens. Booker + Braun. “Where is Jackie?” https://t.co/noST87bW6l
— Meredith Lee Hill (@meredithllee) September 28, 2022
Childhood stutters don’t do that. Nor do they induce one to tell an audience at a Maryland auto plant, “Let me start off with two words: Made in America!”
Joe Biden, the same guy that said J-O-B-S was a three-letter word pic.twitter.com/vyzXsEFrDH
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) October 7, 2022
Nor do they induce … etc., etc.
PROMPTER: “Do you know how much we Reduced the deficit this year?”
BIDEN:“Do you know how much Rededudenedefet this year?”
pic.twitter.com/AjUu0RRNvg— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 5, 2022
Remembering the content of the Declaration of Independence is a recurring problem for Joe Biden.
From 2020: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by the you know, you know the thing.” pic.twitter.com/A0MRpMmIWk
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) September 12, 2022
whats with the “mr burns arms”
is that something old people do? https://t.co/HAkDYDhthf
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 29, 2022
Little wonder then that, as the president turns 80 on Nov. 20, the White House is trying “to downplay the birthday and simply focus on the work,” according to a Politico report.
Should Joe Biden be removed from office?
But it’s all just Biden’s childhood stuttering. Sure, Jan.
Remember, that 25th Amendment is still there. Will it be invoked? Of course not — but that unlikelihood didn’t stop idle discussion of it during the Trump years.
If this were just one case of the president searching for a number, and going from $750 million to a trillion dollars, that’d be one thing.
The bigger issue is that it’d almost be more of a surprise if he found it on the first try — and what’s more, we all know it.
For everyone who pretended to care about a president who was “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021, now’s your chance to show the world just how serious you really were.
