At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the "Biden cover-up," Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) claimed that former President Biden was suffering from cognitive decline while in the White House.
00:07Good morning. I want to thank Chairman Grassley for convening this hearing and
00:13my colleague Senator Schmidt from Missouri for co-chairing this with me as we examine
00:20the constitutional crisis posed by the cover-up of President Biden's cognitive decline.
00:27The U.S. Constitution provides, as we all know, for three co-equal branches. Today,
00:34we're concerned about the chief executive, the President of the United States. As we know,
00:40the chief executive, the head of the executive branch, enforces the laws,
00:44appoints high-ranking officials, serves as commander-in-chief of our armed forces, can
00:49issue pardons, and can veto and advocate for legislation. But what are we to do when the
00:56president is incapable of performing these duties? Last June, the American public saw
01:05with their own eyes what many knew to be true but would not dare to admit publicly.
01:11Our sitting commander-in-chief was suffering from severe cognitive decline, as evident by
01:19this video, which I will now show.
01:26Before what I've been able to do with the, uh, with the COVID, excuse me, with, um, dealing with
01:34everything we have to do with, uh, look, if we finally beat Medicare, wants to get away with,
01:44get rid of the ability of Medicare to, uh, uh, for the ability to, for the, us to be able to negotiate.
01:52As we now know, there was a conspiracy to hide the President's true condition by his family,
02:04by his staff, by the media, and many elected officials. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, who co-authored
02:15a book entitled Original Sin, um, that book amounted to a mea culpa by the mainstream media,
02:24um, but they summed up the problem when they wrote this. Quote,
02:30What the world saw at Joe Biden's one and only 2024 debate was not an anomaly. It was not a cold.
02:40It was not someone who was under or over-prepared. It was not someone who was just a little tired.
02:49It was the natural result of an 81-year-old man whose capabilities had been diminishing for years.
02:58Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and their fear of another Trump term justify an attempt
03:06to put an, at times, addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years.
03:16So make no mistake about it, this was a constitutional crisis, bigger than President Biden, bigger than any single election,
03:28and one that cannot be absolved by the collective apology of the press and an election where the President's party lost.
03:38Current events, such as we are experiencing today in the Middle East, are a prime example of why we need a President with his full cognitive abilities,
03:49making important decisions involving war and peace.
03:54We should know, but we don't yet know, precisely what should happen when a President is unable to perform his or her constitutional duties.
04:04And that's the purpose of today's hearing.
04:07There are many unanswered questions from this scandal, questions that the authors of Original Sin failed to address in their book,
04:15questions that are foundational to the proper functioning of our government.
04:21We will address those here and shine a light on exactly what went on in the White House during the Biden presidency.
04:30We simply cannot ignore what transpired because President Biden is no longer in office.
04:39With a compromised President, our government's very legitimacy and capacity to function was undermined.
04:49The American people paid a price from President Biden's handling of the border crisis
04:56to the disastrous events we saw unfold in Afghanistan.
05:01It's absolutely imperative that Congress grapple with these difficult questions,
05:07no matter how much our Democratic colleagues would like to simply sweep it under the rug.
05:14We need to know who was in charge during the last months of the Biden administration.
05:19Was it his wife? His chief of staff? Nameless others?
05:26None of these people were elected by the American people,
05:31nor were they authorized by the Constitution and laws of the United States
05:35to carry out the duties of the President of the United States.
05:41The 25th Amendment provides a roadmap for succession in instances of presidential incapacity.
05:48Section 4 gives the Vice President and a majority of the President's Cabinet
05:52the authority to challenge the President's ability to carry out the functions of his office,
05:57subject to a vote in Congress.
06:00But in this instance, the Vice President and the Cabinet,
06:05the very ones authorized by the 25th Amendment to question the President's capacity,
06:11they did nothing.
06:13Are there penalties when the Congress, excuse me, when the Cabinet and the Vice President
06:20refuse to carry out their duties under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment?
06:26Should there be more accountability?
06:30The framers of this amendment acknowledge that the execution of that amendment
06:34would depend on the good faith of the Cabinet and the Vice President.
06:40But Biden's Cabinet and the Vice President did not act in good faith.
06:45They acted in their political and personal self-interest.
06:51This is the great paradox of self-government.
06:54Many of the rules, traditions and institutions that sustain our Republic are self-enforcing.
07:00The health and legitimacy of our democratic Republic rests on the character of the men and women
07:07who serve in government.
07:09As a government, it is imperative that we have clear contingency plans when emergency strikes.
07:15And yes, it is an emergency when we have a sitting President who is unable to discharge the duties of that office.
07:26The concerns raised by this incident stretch far beyond the bounds of partisan politics.
07:32I will note that few of my Democratic colleagues are here today.
07:37Thank you to Senator Welch from Vermont for being here.
07:40Leaving us with no other option than to take the boycotting of this hearing
07:46as an admission of guilt for their role in this crisis.
07:51We must not turn away from the search for answers.
07:55And it is not an overstatement to say that the future of our country
07:59could one day hinge on how we choose to act or not act on this very issue.
08:08I look forward to hearing from our witnesses this morning
08:11as we examine the difficult but necessary questions that must be answered from this monumental scandal.
08:20I yield to my colleague from Missouri, Senator Schmidt, who will now co-chair the hearing.
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