Recently Tucker Carlson made the observation on his hit Fox News TV show that Biden will be so ill that he will be just a figurehead at best if he by chance wins the presidency.
This fact will make the choice of vice-presidential running mate very important. She (Biden has pledged to choose a woman) will be the effective head of the government.
“This year, Democrats have chosen a man who can’t manage the country, even if he does win. His aides know that, the candidate himself seems to know that, the whole country knows it. We don’t talk about it very much. Joe Biden’s decline is so depressing to watch, so embarrassing and sad that most of the time the rest of us try to ignore it and pretend everything is fine.”
Of course, if Biden is too ill to be president and everyone knows it, why is he ahead in all of the polls? Is Trump Derangement Syndrome that bad or are the polls not telling the whole story? It’s likely that latter since polls taken in May are rarely predictive of what will happen in November.
Carlson then talked about three possible running mates who happen to be famous women in public life.
He said of Stacey Abrams, the woman who failed to become governor of Georgia in 2018, though she has not admitted it, “Stacey Abrams’ career has unfolded almost entirely without distinguishing achievements. She does understand Joe Biden pretty well, though, and that’s her main advantage. Abrams knows or senses that Biden doesn’t really believe anything. He just wants to be liked. And more than anything, Joe Biden does not wanna be called a racist. That’s his kryptonite.”
Then Carlson turned to Gretchen Whitmire, the governor of Michigan whose coronavirus lockdown regime has caused many inhabitants of that state to rise in open revolt. She is already been talking with Team Biden about being on the ticket. However, Whitmire’s reputation as a tyrant may be a deal killer.
Carlson noted, “Ask anyone who lives in the state of Michigan. They’re still trying to figure out why Gretchen Whitmer banned the sale of paint and carpet in response to a pandemic.”
Finally, Carlson mentioned Sen Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota as a possible “moderate” pick. The FNC host mentioned that Biden has a reputation of being a moderate over his 40 plus years in public life. However, Team Biden has moved their candidate far to the left in order to accommodate the Bernie Sanders faction of the Democratic Party.
Having suggested that Biden vice president would really run the government if he were to be elected president, one wonders how that would work. History gives us a guide from the Woodrow Wilson administration.
When Wilson had a stroke that incapacitated him in October 1919, his wife Edith effectively ran the government in his name. The extent of the president’s ill health was kept a secret, even from the cabinet.
Would Biden be sequestered in the private quarters of the White House while his vice president acted in his name? Would he be trotted out to make remarks and sign bills when he was judged to be physically capable?
On the other hand, unlike in 1919, the 25th Amendment spells out a clear procedure for what has to happen when the president of the United States is incapable of performing his duties but is still alive.
“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.”
Biden could be so ill and incapable by inauguration day whoever is his vice president could invoke the 25th Amendment from the moment that Biden raises his hand from the Bible.
Congress would have to make a special provision since the majority of Biden’s cabinet would not likely have been confirmed by that point. In any case, Biden could be hustled off to Walter Reed or wherever has been selected for him to spend his final days, and we would have the first woman president of the United States, chosen by an oblique but constitutional means.
