00:00American people can have the confidence in who is running the country and making critical decisions.
00:05The American people deserve no less.
00:08Thank you for those opening statements.
00:10The minority did not call any witnesses for today's hearing.
00:14They have chosen to ignore the hearing as they chose to ignore President Biden's mental decline.
00:20But we do have a short video of some previous statements from Biden administration officials and Democratic Party officials telling us not to believe our lying eyes.
00:27We can play the video.
00:30Does the president have the stamina physically and mentally, do you think, to continue on even after 2024?
00:40Don, you're asking me this question.
00:42Oh, my gosh.
00:43He's the president of the United States.
00:45You know, he I can't even keep up with it.
00:48The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it because he is sharp, intensely probing and detail oriented and focused.
01:00I can testify because I've been working very closely with this president for the past two years.
01:04I've been knowing him for 30 years and I'm telling you, this guy's tough.
01:07He's smart.
01:08He's on his game.
01:09Joe Biden has vision.
01:11He has knowledge.
01:12He has a strategic thinker.
01:15The president is focused.
01:17He's detail oriented.
01:19He's always thinking about the big picture.
01:21He is engaging.
01:22He is capable.
01:23He has an incredible record as president.
01:26And I'm often with him on foreign trips.
01:29He's at the top of his game.
01:31So he has a vision.
01:32He has knowledge.
01:33He has judgment.
01:35He has a strategic thinking.
01:37I met with the president, I don't know, five or six weeks ago, and he seemed fine to me.
01:41I have complete confidence in the president.
01:43I have watched him expertly guide meetings of staff and cabinet members.
01:50I could not have more confidence in the president.
01:53I would just tell you that I meet frequently with the president.
01:57And every single time I meet with him, he is just fine.
02:02But he is, again, knowledgeable, wise.
02:06Incredibly sharp, incredibly probing, incredible command of the details.
02:12He is sharp.
02:13He is on top of things.
02:15There is nothing to these challenges, these suggestions that somehow he's not sharp and
02:20he's not capable.
02:21We see Joe Biden up close.
02:23We know how attuned he is to the issue.
02:26And you're going to see how smart he is and the experience he has.
02:29I say his age is an asset.
02:32He's wise.
02:33Yes, he's wise.
02:35He has wisdom.
02:36He has experience.
02:36And his experience because of his age and his wisdom has been invaluable to this country.
02:44A lot of countries, people who've been in office a longer period of time are praised
02:48for their wisdom.
02:49I have seen a lot of 72-year-olds not as capable as this 80-year-old.
02:56It is hard for us to keep up with this president.
02:59His mental acuity is great.
03:01It's fine.
03:02It's as good as it's been over the years I've been.
03:04He's fine.
03:05All this right-wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong.
03:09And this kind of sense that he's not ready for this job is just a bucket of BS that's
03:13so deep your boots will get stuck in.
03:18Okay.
03:20Professor Harrison, I do want to ask a couple questions.
03:23I just want you to presume for a moment that a pardon was issued under President Biden's
03:33auto pen signature, but issued without his direction.
03:40It comes to light that he actually didn't direct it.
03:45A member of his staff used the auto pen for a pardon.
03:49And what recourse is available under those circumstances?
03:55Senator, I think there would be two questions.
03:57The first has to do with whether, and I can't answer it other than to identify the question,
04:06which is to say sometimes documents that are properly authenticated are treated as having
04:13been validly issued even when they're not.
04:15That can happen.
04:17There are legal rules that produce that result.
04:20And I don't think there is such a rule about a pardon, but I would have to inquire into that,
04:27again, because there are such rules.
04:29The other thing I'd say is that for a pardon particularly, the only situation I can think
04:38of that clearly would bring into question whether the pardon was valid, which was the first question,
04:46was if the government sought to prosecute someone and the person reportedly received the pardon,
04:51offered the pardon as a defense, then the government might say that, no, the pardon was invalid
04:57and therefore you weren't pardoned.
04:59You're still subject to prosecution.
05:00There might be some other way for a question like that about a pardon to come up with, come up.
05:06I can't think of another, but that's the one I can think of.
05:09So from your perspective, let's just say that if there isn't any other legal recourse other than the one
05:14that you sort of brought up, what advice would you give to this committee or this Congress or the Senate
05:18to address that?
05:20What remedies could the legislative branch enact?
05:22I, it's, it's hard, it's hard to think of anything Congress can do ex post.
05:29That's why I do think that it would be advisable ex ante to improve the process of authentication
05:35and make it, make it more clear that documents that are signed by Audepen really do reflect
05:42a decision by, a decision by the president.
05:45That done in advance will make whatever the authentication system is more reliable.
05:50Mr. Wald, um, given sort of the role that you played in trying to provide more transparency
05:56of what happened during the four years under Joe Biden, who was, who was running the country
06:02under Joe Biden?
06:04Let's just take the last two years.
06:06It's a great question, uh, Senator.
06:07And at some level, I'm not the right witness for this hearing.
06:10I mean, there should be members of the media here.
06:13Um, maybe some of your, your Senate colleagues who had known the president over the years
06:19and obviously had close proximity during the time of his administration and obviously his
06:23staff.
06:24Um, I think, uh, you know, sort of aligned with your, your previous question.
06:28There is a real consideration here on authentication.
06:32And in my time in the first Trump White House, there, there was an exhaustive process to determine,
06:39uh, how paper flowed into the oval.
06:41And when the president had given his assent to a certain action that was, uh, through,
06:47in fact, two different policy channels, the staff secretary.
06:50And then there was also an office, uh, essentially a policy management, um, guiding the flow of
06:56documentation.
06:56If the Biden administration staffers and personnel wanted to put this to bed, they could very
07:01easily dispel all of this by saying, here are the documents that show the president
07:06assented to these actions.
07:08The Trump administration would have that, uh, previous administrations would have that.
07:13Uh, and if that's not there, then there is cause to improve the way that executive branch
07:18employees authenticate actions undertaken by the president.
07:20Yeah.
07:21I mean, the, the president actually performing the functions of president is kind of an important
07:25thing in our constitutional order.
07:27Um, you had, you know, Kings used to affix their seal to, to show that this was an official
07:32declaration from the sovereign in this country, the sovereign or the people, they delegate,
07:36you know, the authority to, um, to their elected representatives.
07:40And as you mentioned in your opening statement, there's only one person elected by everybody.
07:44So that signature, this is not just a small point, that signature issuing a pardon for
07:49someone who'd been convicted, um, of a crime or in the case of Joe Biden, these preemptive
07:54pardons, which are sort of unprecedented is a big deal.
07:56And I think that's part of the reason why we're here today.
07:59Um, Mr. Spicer, I wanted to, um, ask you, you, you alluded to this, but the media, um,
08:06so desperate to make sure president Trump never got back into office.
08:09Of course, you saw the lawfare that took place, but then of course, this narrative, um, that
08:13Joe Biden was fine.
08:14Don't believe your lying eyes until that they couldn't deny it anymore based on the debate.
08:18Could you just kind of compare that to your experience?
08:20Um, when you were, you know, press secretary for president Trump, just sort of the inquiries
08:25that were made daily about his mental acuity versus the inability to do that during the
08:30four years under Joe Biden.
08:32Senator, in many cases, there was no inquiry.
08:34They would just run with a story, having guests on that would question his physical or mental
08:38acuity, speculate on it, bring guests on that would speculate it.
08:42Uh, we would often then push back on those kinds of stories.
08:45Uh, that's in vast contrast to the lack of any kind of curiosity that exists.
08:50Throughout the four years of president Biden.
08:53And I think the difference was they would seize on the simplest thing with president Trump.
08:57Whereas in president Biden's case, there was multiple issues of physical, mental confusion,
09:05him going in the wrong direction, him falling down, him on misunderstanding an event or not
09:11being able to finish the sentence.
09:12That was never the case with president Trump.
09:14They were almost manufacturing instances in his case, without actually trying to get to
09:18the bottom of a story or inquire within the press office to, to get our response.
09:23They would go with the story.
09:24Then we'd push back with Biden.
09:25My understanding from the conversations that I would have with the media is they would never
09:28ask.
09:29They, they just literally were basically afraid to go there.
09:33Senator Cornyn.
09:34Professor Harrison, the, uh, it strikes me when talking about the auto pin, there are really
09:42two issues.
09:44One is the, the mechanical use of.
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