Amendment XXV – blowing smoke

Again, about sixty-five weeks (give or take one) later, we hear people talking about invoking Amendment XXV against pResident Biden. To be sure, Biden has given just cause to wonder about his mental health. Quite apart from rambling speeches full of mistakes (or lies), hundreds of millions of people have seen him wonder off, heard him lose track of what he’s trying to say, and give many other signs that in anyone else most people would pass off as “he’s just getting old.” The problem, of course, is that if the President of the United States is getting old, he shouldn’t serve. But those we hear talking about stripping him of the powers and duties of his office, are all blowing smoke. They knew what they were getting when they ran him in 2020, and they are anything but sincere.

What does Amendment XXV say?

CNAV discussed Amendment XXV last year. It has four sections, each covering a different circumstance involving presidential succession or inability. Section One says that the Vice-President becomes President if the President loses his office through impeachment, dies, or resigns. Per Section Two, if the Vice-Presidency falls vacant, the President nominates a Vice-President. Unlike any other Presidential appointee, a Vice-Presidential nominee needs confirmation of both chambers of Congress.

Presidents can use, and have used, Section Three to transfer their powers and duties to their Vice-Presidents for the few hours, or days, when out of sheer practicality they cannot actually do Presidential things. The typical case involves elective surgery or another medical procedure. (Emergency surgery requires a strictly extra-legal procedure and usually involves a line of military command authority.)

Section Four concerns us today. It allows a Vice-President to assert that a President can’t do the work. To make it stick, the Vice-President needs the signatures of a majority of the Cabinet. (Congress may by law provide for a different body to judge Presidential ability. Rep. Jeremy Raskin, D-Md., introduced a bill to make such provision in October of 2020. It failed.) A President can contest such a declaration, but the Vice-President and her signatories can then double down on it. But if they do, Congress must vote, within twenty-four hours, with two thirds of both chambers concurring, to sustain. (The twenty-four hour clock starts when Congress returns from recess, if it must; otherwise it starts with the doubling-down.)

Previous statements on Amendment XXV

CNAV said on August 8, 2021, that Vice-President Harris would have few friends, and Congress might decide better to have Biden than Harris. Two weeks later CNAV revisited the subject. The Afghanistan debacle especially sparked rumors that Harris was quietly trying to gather signatures on an Amendment XXV declaration. But nothing came of it.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.-11) must have been frustrated. He circulated a letter calling for a Section Four discussion.

CNAV said then that he should knock off such loose talk. We said then, and will say again, that this situation presents an opportunity for States to reclaim the sovereignty they ceded after the War Between the States. After Midterms we might have another opportunity: to remove the President and Vice-President from office entirely. Impeachment would not depend on any Vice-Presidential initiative. In any case, under no circumstances would any friend of liberty want Kamala Harris to be President, acting or actual.

Who is talking about it today?

Today we’ve been hearing about Amendment XXV from various legacy media sources for about six months now. In May, The New York Times alleged they had Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.-23), House Republican Leader, on audio discussing invoking Amendment XXV against then-President Trump. That alone should prompt all freedom-loving Republicans in the House not to allow Kevin McCarthy to become Speaker. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would be a far better choice.

In July, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig fielded an embarrassing question from The Daily Mail on this subject. In September 2019, Buttigeig told CNN that he considered President Trump unfit for office. Why, the Mail now wanted to know, didn’t he apply the same standard to Biden? Buttigeig roared back that he resented the question and regarded it as an insult to him and Biden both.

Two days ago, Merrill Matthews of The Hill visited the subject. (So did Claire Conway at Microsoft Network today, but CNAV believes she mostly lifted notes from Matthews’ piece without attribution.) Matthews reviewed all the loose talk about President Trump being unfit for office. For the record, Trump did take a cognitive test, which he passed with flying colors. That didn’t stop 350 “psychiatrists and other mental health professionals” from signing a petition alleging Trump’s mental unfitness.

Matthews poured contempt on that talk.

Yes, Trump can be unpredictable, moody, temperamental, undisciplined and occasionally downright crude, according to those who served under him. But I know several people who claim similar characteristics for their bosses.

What about Biden?

About Biden, Matthews says the concerns are real. He mentions the wandering-off, and the “baffled and confused” attitude he often displays. Nevertheless he does not expect Vice-President Harris to circulate an Amendment XXV Section Four declaration to the Cabinet. Instead he expects Democratic Party officeholders to insist strenuously that Biden not run. And if he refuses to listen, they’ll threaten him with Amendment XXV Section Four action if he won’t listen.

Those officeholders will have two problems. One, Matthews mentions. Neither Party can stop an incumbent President, who is still re-eligible, from running again. If they want to stop Biden, they’ll have to “primary” him; they have no other recourse. Matthews also calls the Section Four talk during the Trump administration “an exercise in futility that further divided the country.”

Matthews can’t or won’t mention the second problem. CNAV has suggested before that Ambassador Susan Rice might be the real officer-in-charge. We have been only half joking to say that. She is already a White House official – Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council. Her experience as an Ambassador to the United Nations gives her foreign-policy clout as well. The Hill knows about her “quiet but powerful perch at the White House.” All of which to suggest that she is indeed the power behind the Oval Office.

I directed this entire operation while you made pretty speeches! I was the power, and you wore the crown. Actress Jane Badler in the 1983 television series V.

Susan Rice will not allow a Section Four action

Any Amendment XXV Section Four action would remove Susan Rice from her position of power. Vice-President Harris would take over. Let us remember that she and Rice were direct rivals for the Vice-Presidential nomination.

So we have every reason to suppose that Susan Rice would not allow a Vice-Presidential Section Four declaration to stand. She would place a written statement contesting the declaration before the befuddled Biden’s eyes, hand him a pen, and say, “Sign.” And he would sign. (Actually she might succeed in making him angry enough to sign without any further prompting. We have seen this President become terrifically angry and “spout off” at the American people. Recall That Speech, and the speech he only recently gave.) Or, she would insist on retaining her ostensible, and actual, positions of power in a Harris administration as the price of her co-operation.

And Merrill Matthews surely knows all this. So why say it? To soothe the people into not repudiating this President at Midterms. Don’t worry, Matthews is trying to say; we’ll remove Biden and get somebody in there who’ll do better. And if you believe that, CNAV owns a partnership stake in a bridge spanning the East River which we would like to offer for sale.

So, don’t believe a word of the latest Amendment XXV talk. Likewise, don’t accept it as a solution to the basic problem. The only permanent solution is either impeachment, or waiting this President out and replacing him in 2024.