Cruz’s comments came after Fox News host Tucker Carlson called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked in order to remove Biden from office on Monday.
The Republican senator was not responding directly to Carlson’s comments when he was asked about the 25th Amendment on Verdict with Ted Cruz on Thursday—a podcast he co-hosts with Michael Knowles—but he offered a different view to Carlson.
The 25th Amendment allows the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to inform the House of Representatives and Senate that the president is unfit to carry out his duties through a written declaration. This would enable the vice president to assume power as acting president.
Knowles said to Cruz: “It seems clear, I think even to honest liberals, that Joe Biden has some age-related impairment. He’s not the man he was five or 10 years ago and he was never all that sharp to begin with. So, it does raise the question. Should we be talking about invoking the 25th Amendment?”
“There’s no doubt he is diminished—and diminished significantly due to age,” the senator replied “I think the threshold for the 25th Amendment is really damn high. And it’s particularly damn high when the voters were on notice of the impairment and elected him anyway.”
Cruz went on to say that it was “not a secret a year and a half ago that Joe Biden had, you know, lost about 65 miles on his fastball.”
Some Republicans have claimed that President Biden is suffering from cognitive issues and have called for him to undergo tests. However, Cruz appeared to reject the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment.
“So, I would be hesitant to go down that road of the 25th Amendment. I think it’s dangerous as hell,” Cruz added.
“I think having a president in office who is less than fully aware of what’s going on. Who our enemies believe is less than fully aware of what’s going on, who our friends believe is less than fully aware of what’s going on, who everybody believes is, to a significant degree, out of it—that’s a real problem,” the senator said.
Carlson struck a different note on Monday night when he expressed support for using the 25th Amendment, calling the president “a man who is losing the ability to regulate his emotions.”
The Fox News host went on to cite Biden’s recent comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin where the president had said Putin should not remain in power.
Following some controversy over those remarks, Biden said it was “ridiculous” to suggest anyone believed “I was talking about taking down Putin.”
“All right. Joke’s over, too much is at stake,” Carlson said on Monday. “If there was ever a time, if there was, in U.S. history, ever a time, to invoke the 25th Amendment, it is now. As Joe Biden himself put it, ‘For God’s sakes, this man cannot remain in power,’ for all of our sakes.”
Cruz’s comments on the issue came days after Carlson’s show and were not a direct response to the Fox News’ host’s suggestion. During former President Donald Trump’s time in office, some of his opponents frequently cited the 25th Amendment as a means to remove him from power.
In January, Carlson criticized Cruz for calling the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot a “violent terrorist attack.” The senator appeared on Carlson’s show on January 6, 2022 and apologized for those remarks.
Newsweek has asked Cruz’s office for comment.
