Exclusive: According to information obtained by Fox News Digital, Senator Eric Schmitt is calling on the entire Cabinet, including Vice President Kamala Harris, to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution against President Biden.
Schmidt sent the letter to all members of Biden’s Cabinet on Monday afternoon, the day after Biden suspended his reelection campaign following pressure from within his party over his age and fitness to serve another term.
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Biden instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his Democratic nominee for 2024.
Senator Eric Schmitt speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Seeger)
Although he has dropped out of the presidential race, the White House has maintained that he will serve out his term until January 20, 2025.
But Republicans, including his GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump, have questioned whether Trump will be able to serve out the remainder of his term.
Schmidt sent a letter to her Cabinet, including Harris, on Monday urging them to invoke the 25th Amendment. While many have suggested invoking the 25th Amendment, Schmidt is the first to officially take action.
President Biden speaks about the assassination attempt on former President Trump at the White House on July 14, 2024. (Kevin Deitch/Getty Images)
“Joe Biden has determined that he is incompetent to be the nominee, and by so determining, he is incompetent to serve as president,” Schmidt told Fox News Digital. “Accordingly, it is in the immediate best interest of the security of the United States that Joe Biden either resign or be removed from office under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.”
Schmidt said that under the Biden-Harris administration, Americans have “fought for economic survival, seen America’s standing on the world stage decline, and been overwhelmed by a flood of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border.”
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“If Joe Biden can’t run for office, he can’t hold office,” Schmidt told Fox News Digital. “And that’s it.”
Fox News Digital obtained the letter Schmidt sent to Cabinet members on Monday night.
“If President Biden agrees that health reasons prevent him from continuing to run as the Democratic presidential nominee after the primary, he will be unable to assume the office of President until January 20, 2025,” Schmidt wrote in a letter to the president’s cabinet members.
“As Democrats scramble to find a new nominee, I soberly recognize the gravity of my request and, as the leading executive branch official, I will work with Vice President Harris and my Cabinet colleagues to ask the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House to fulfill their constitutional obligations under the 25th Amendment by submitting a written declaration of the truth we all now see – that President Biden is unable to serve. If President Biden is unwilling to resign from office, then for the sake of our great nation, you must fulfill your obligations to relieve him of his constitutional powers and duties.”
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The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers of the executive department, or 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.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on July 17, 2024. (Chris Dumond/Getty Images)
“While Vice President Harris may have impairments that prevent her from effectively performing the duties of Acting President in a manner that serves the American people, unlike President Biden, she has not demonstrated a medically incurable incapacity to discharge the powers and duties of the office of the President,” Schmidt wrote in a letter to Cabinet members.
“Democratic Party elites who have been pressuring President Biden over the past few weeks have done so long after it has become clear to the American people that he will not fulfill his powers and duties,” Schmidt wrote.
“He should not have run for reelection in a primary, which instead of representing the people through the democratic process of a primary gives Democratic insiders and big donors the opportunity to select a new candidate in the backroom among the convention’s ranks,” he wrote. “The Democratic Party in 2024 is anything but democratic.”
First Lady Jill Biden and President Biden (AP/Manuel Balce Senator)
Schmidt called on ministers to act “in the interest of the country.”
“We cannot wait until January 20, 2025 to have a mentally sound president,” Schmidt wrote. “The stakes are too high, given the domestic and international challenges the United States currently faces.”
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Schmidt said Americans “cannot afford a part-time president.”
“I urge you to do your constitutional duty and relieve President Biden of his constitutional powers and duties,” he wrote. “If he is medically unable to be a candidate for President (after winning the primary), then he is unable to exercise the powers and duties of the presidency today.”
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
