Several top Democrats that called for the 25th Amendment to be used to remove former President Trump from office during his tenure have remained silent on whether it should be triggered to remove President Biden, which some Republicans have suggested.
Fox News Digital reached out to Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; Jamie Raskin, D-Md.; and Maxine Waters, D-Calif., along with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who all declined to comment on whether the 25th Amendment should be in play with President Biden as they suggested it should be for former President Trump.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment authorizes the vice president and a majority of the executive cabinet to make the decision whether the president is fit to continue in office or not.
At various points during the Trump presidency, Democrats called for the 25th Amendment to be triggered against the president for a variety of reasons ranging from the coronavirus, to Trump’s competence, to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot.
‘It’s long past time,’ Waters told MSNBC in October 2020 when asked if it was time to trigger the 25th Amendment based on Trump’s ‘erratic and bizarre behavior’ and ‘spreading the virus personally.’
That same month, in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Raskin and Pelosi introduced legislation that would create a commission involving Congress in the process to remove the president if he became ‘incapacitated.’
‘This is not about President Trump,’ Pelosi claimed at a press conference at the time. ‘He will face the judgment of the voters, but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents.’
‘Congress has a constitutional duty to lay out the process by which a president’s incapacity and the president of any party is determined. This bill honors the duty by creating a standing commission of top former executive officials and medical experts selected in a bipartisan, bicameral way. A president’s fitness for office must be determined by science and facts. This legislation applies to future presidents, but we are reminded by the necessity of action by the health of the current president,’ she said.
The legislation was the reintroduction of the same bill from Raskin in 2017.
‘Since January, President Trump has thrown our country into chaos at every turn,’ Raskin said in a 2017 press release.
‘For the security of our people and the safety of the Republic, we need to set up the ‘body’ called for in the 25th Amendment. The President can fire his entire Cabinet for asking the same question tens of millions of Americans are asking at their dinner tables, but he cannot fire Congress or the expert body we set up under the Constitution. At a moment of unprecedented presidential chaos, the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity is essential, urgently needed and indispensable.’
Following the Jan. 6 riot, Pelosi, Raskin, Jayapal and every other Democrat in the House voted for a resolution calling on Vice President Pence to ‘declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President.’
‘We are demanding Mike Pence and the Cabinet finally put America first and uphold their constitutional duty to invoke the 25th Amendment, ending Trump’s terror and his total control over the military,’ Jayapal said. ‘Assuming the Vice President continues to put this lawless, dangerous president over the people of this country, the House of Representatives must urgently join my call to once again impeach Donald Trump.’
That move was backed by Schumer, who said Trump is ‘dangerous and should not hold office one day longer.’
Following Biden’s widely panned debate performance that has caused some Democrats to call on him to drop out of the race, several Republicans have floated the idea of triggering the 25th Amendment due to concerns over Biden’s mental abilities.
‘Over the past 3 years, it has become painfully clear that our inaugurated President has slipped into a rapid decline,’ Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said Wednesday.
‘As a Christian principled nation, We the People must revere our elders and shelter them from unnecessary struggle and anguish. The 25th Amendment allows America to respond to this moment of crisis by gently removing President Biden from the world’s most powerful elected position. It’s the right thing to do, the Christian thing to do.’
Both the White House and Biden campaign have maintained that Biden is not dropping out of the race and is fit to serve as president.