EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Eric Schmitt is urging all members of the Cabinet, including Vice President Kamala Harris, to invoke the 25th Amendment against President Biden, Fox News Digital has learned.
Schmitt sent letters to every member of Biden’s Cabinet Monday afternoon, just a day after the president suspended his re-election campaign amid pressure from within his own party about his age and fitness to serve another term.
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Biden, instead, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to serve as the 2024 Democratic nominee in his place.
Sen. Eric Schmitt speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
While he has dropped out of the race, the White House has maintained that the president will finish his first term, which concludes Jan. 20, 2025.
But Republicans, including his GOP opponent, former President Trump, are questioning his ability to serve for the remainder of his term.
Schmitt, on Monday, sent letters to the Cabinet, including Harris, urging them to invoke the 25th Amendment. While many have suggested the invocation of the 25th Amendment, Schmitt is the first to officially take action.
President Biden delivers remarks on the assassination attempt on former President Trump at the White House on July 14, 2024. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Joe Biden has decided he isn’t capable of being a candidate; in so doing his admission also means he cannot serve as President,” Schmitt told Fox News Digital. “Therefore, it is in the best immediate interest of the safety of the United States for Joe Biden to resign from office or face removal under the 25th Amendment.”
Schmitt said that under the Biden-Harris Administration, Americans have “fought to stay afloat financially, have seen America’s standing on the world stage diminished, and have been pushed aside in favor of illegal aliens flooding across our southern border.”
“If Joe Biden is incapable of running for office, he is incapable of serving in office,” Schmitt told Fox News Digital. “It is that simple.”
Fox News Digital obtained letters Schmitt sent to members of the Cabinet Monday evening.
“If President Biden is willing to admit he is unable to continue to stand as the Democratic Party nominee for President after the primary process due to his health, he is unable to continue to serve as President until January 20, 2025,” Schmitt writes in the letters to members of the president’s Cabinet.
“As the Democrats scramble to find a new nominee, it is with a sober awareness of the gravity of my request that I ask that you, as a principal officer of the executive department, discharge your constitutional duty under the 25th Amendment, working with Vice President Harris and rest of the Cabinet to submit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration of the truth we now all see—President Biden is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” he continues. “If President Biden is unwilling to resign, for the sake of our great nation, you must do your duty to relieve him of his constitutional powers and duties.”
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The U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment states that “whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of 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 on July 17, 2024, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. (Chris duMond/Getty Images)
Schmitt wrote to members of the Cabinet that “while Vice President Harris may have deficiencies to effectively serve as the Acting President in any way that benefits the American people, she has not displayed a medical, incurable inability to discharge the powers and duties of the Presidency, unlike President Biden.”
Schmitt wrote that “the same Democrat elites that forced President Biden’s hand over the past several weeks did so long after the American people could see his inability to discharge his powers and duties.”
“He should have never stood for reelection through the primaries. Rather than allow the voice of the people to speak through the democratic process of primary elections, the Democratic party insiders and megadonors will now have the opportunity to pick a new candidate in a crony-filled backroom of their convention,” he wrote. “In 2024, the Democratic Party is anything but democratic.”
First lady Jill Biden and President Biden (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Schmitt urged the Cabinet secretaries to take action “for the sake of our nation.”
“We cannot wait until January 20, 2025 for a mentally capable President,” Schmitt wrote. “The stakes are too important given the domestic and foreign challenges the United States is currently facing.”
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Schmitt said Americans “cannot afford a part-time President.”
“I urge you to fulfill 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 Presidency (after he won the primary), then he is unable to unable to discharge the powers and duties of the Presidency today.”
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News digital’s request for comment.