With negotiations over the debt ceiling seemingly at an impasse as President Joe Biden has indicated that he’s ready to pull the trigger on the 14th Amendment, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted the deeply unpopular leader over the possibility that he would circumvent Congress.
On Sunday, Biden told reporters at a press conference in Hiroshima, Japan where he is attending the G7 summit that he has decided that he believes that he has the authority to use the Civil War-era provision of questionable legality to cut House Republicans out of the picture, effectively exercising one-party rule.
“I’m looking at the 14th Amendment as to whether or not we have the authority — I think we have the authority,” Biden said. “The question is, could it be done and invoked in time that it would not be appealed, and as a consequence past the date in question and still default on the debt. That is a question that I think is unresolved.”
Cruz, who is no slouch when it comes to constitutional law, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” where he tore into Biden for allowing himself to be influenced by the most extreme Democrats in the Senate, including avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders who led a pack of nearly a dozen far-left senators who demanded that the geriatric career politician just go for it rather than to negotiate in good faith with Speaker Kevin McCarthy over sensible spending cuts.
When asked by anchor Shannon Bream about Biden’s remarks on the 14th Amendment as well as the ideological driving force behind the Democrat senators – Harvard University professor emeritus Laurence Tribe, a left-wing zealot – the Lone Star State Republican scoffed at the legal reasoning behind such a radical move.
Joe Biden’s position on using the 14th Amendment on the debt ceiling is legally frivolous.
Even Barack Obama thought that! pic.twitter.com/8apEcTo8uH
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 21, 2023
“I think Biden’s position on the 14th Amendment is legally frivolous,” Cruz said, noting that not even Barack Obama would go to such an extreme.
“That’s a provision that was put in place to say that we’re going to pay our Civil War debts,” he pointed out. “It refers to the Civil War that we had just fought and paying those war debts off.”
“As I said, Joe Biden can ensure that we don’t default on the debt. He has ample authority to do that and to do that right now by saying we’re going to pay the interest on the debt,” Cruz said.“What they want is not to pay the interest on the debt, what they want to do is they want to pay the $6 trillion in other government spending, and there’s nothing in the 14th Amendment that gives them the power to do that.”
“Once they run out of money, they have to obey what Congress has appropriated,” he added. “And what’s happened, the position of the Democrats, for two months, they wouldn’t talk at all and now their position is that we can’t cut any government spending reasonably, we have to let debt keep skyrocketing…”
“It really is unfortunate to see how Joe Biden is approaching this job. It’s all politics all the time, and he consistently goes to the hard left. He’s off in Hiroshima right now, in Japan. He should be in Washington, D.C. He should be sitting down and working out a deal, working out a compromise,” Cruz said.
Joe Biden is willing to tank the economy.
It’s blatantly unreasonable! pic.twitter.com/ldHVJbgdu0
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 21, 2023
“The House of Representatives did its job weeks ago,” he continued. “It passed legislation, raising the debt ceiling and it passed responsible legislation that makes real steps to rein-in the out of control spending and unfortunately, Joe Biden has handed his entire agenda over to the radical left, to the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs of the world and his view is that he’s willing to tank the economy because he’s unwilling to give even a penny in the trillions of new spending that have caused the inflation that’s hurting Americans all across the country.”
“It’s a blatantly unreasonable position but yet, he nonetheless smiles and just blames the other side,” the senator said.
“So much of what Congressional Republicans have proposed during budget negotiations is simply unacceptable,” Biden said via Twitter on Sunday. “It’s time for them to move off their extreme position and act to avoid default.”
Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.