Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report and President Biden’s disastrous press conference addressing the report’s findings were the topics of discussion that dominated NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. Amid moderator Kristen Welker’s sparing with Biden administration and campaign officials on the President’s mishandling of classified documents, she also surprisingly pressed them on whether or not there were discussions on removing him from office via the 25th Amendment or swamping out him as the Democratic candidate for 2024.
Welker’s first guest was Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; and before she ever got to the Republican effort to impeach him or the crisis at the border, she asked him about Biden’s mental fitness for office. Before pivoting to those issues, she pressed Mayorkas if he or members of Biden’s cabinet had discussed invoking the 25th Amendment:
WELKER: Let me ask you about what we are hearing from some Republicans. More than a dozen Republican lawmakers are now calling for the 25th amendment to be invoked, just to give our viewers a sense of what that means it basically means the cabinet would have the authority to start the process of frying to remove the president if he or she is deemed incapable of serving. What is the reaction to those calls? Has that ever been discussed?
MAYORKAS: I don't engage in governing and I follow the president's agenda which I scrupulously do. I have to tell you, I have met with the president many, many times over the course of the past three years. I prepare intensely from those meetings and I follow up with those meeting to get the answers to the questions he has posed and he is probing and focused on the mission.
After Mayorkas danced around the idea, Welker doubled down and wanted a clearer answer:
WELKER: As far as you know, the 25th Amendment has not been discussed?
MAYORKAS: Not at all.
Further in the show, Welker interviewed Biden Campaign national co-chair Mitch Landrieu and brought up the whispers that the President’s donors were looking for another Democrat to step in that they could throw money at. “People are watching him and again, 76 percent of them have those concerns and so do some of his donors,” she told Landrieu.
She read from a Washington Post report that said Biden’s donors were asking about younger possible candidates like California Governor Gavin Newsom. Landrieu used the opportunity to talk them down off the ledge:
WELKER: People are watching him and again, 76 percent of them have those concerns and so do some of his donors. This is what The Washington Post is saying, quote, “Top Biden donors were fielding calls and text messages from anxious Democrats asking if other Democrats still had time to jump into the presidential race. ‘When is Gavin getting in?’ or ‘How about Whitmer or Shapiro?’ buzzed around Democratic circles over the last 24 hours.”
How do you respond to Democrats who say they want to see a change at the top of the ticket?
LANDRIEU: I’m in the process of doing it right now and demonstrating the President’s accomplishments have really been second to none, and Joe Biden is going to get up every day. The one thing Joe Ben is never going to do – and you can count on this – He is never ever going to quit because that’s not what he's done his entire life; notwithstanding that, by the way, he lost another child earlier in his life and he got up and went to work. And he had difficulty with another son and he got up and went to work and he's going to keep doing that as we move the country forward.
ABC’s staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host of The View, Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) floated a similar idea during Friday’s show. “Once all of the delegates are received, the DNC will be certifying the delegates, right? And the count and Gavin Newsom can be swapped out if Joe Biden decides to step aside,” she explained.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
NBC’s Meet the Press
February 11, 2024
10:38:22 a.m. Eastern(…)
KRISTEN WELKER: Let me ask you about what we are hearing from some Republicans. More than a dozen Republican lawmakers are now calling for the 25th amendment to be invoked, just to give our viewers a sense of what that means it basically means the cabinet would have the authority to start the process of frying to remove the president if he or she is deemed incapable of serving. What is the reaction to those calls? Has that ever been discussed?
ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS (Homeland Security secretary): I don't engage in governing and I follow the president's agenda which I scrupulously do. I have to tell you, I have met with the president many, many times over the course of the past three years. I prepare intensely from those meetings and I follow up with those meeting to get the answers to the questions he has posed and he is probing and focused on the mission.
WELKER: As far as you know, the 25th amendment has not been discussed?
MAYORKAS: Not at all.
(…)
10:56:32 a.m. Eastern
WELKER: People are watching him and again, 76 percent of them have those concerns and so do some of his donors. This is what The Washington Post is saying, quote, “Top Biden donors were fielding calls and text messages from anxious Democrats asking if other Democrats still had time to jump into the presidential race. ‘When is Gavin getting in?’ or ‘How about Whitmer or Shapiro?’ buzzed around Democratic circles over the last 24 hours.”
How do you respond to Democrats who say they want to see a change at the top of the ticket?
MICH LANDRIEU (Biden campaign nation co-chair): I’m in the process of doing it right now and demonstrating the President’s accomplishments have really been second to none; and Joe Biden is going to get up every day. The one thing Joe Ben is never going to do – and you can count on this – He is never ever going to quit because that’s not what he's done his entire life; not withstanding that, by the way, he lost another child earlier in his life and he got up and went to work. And he had difficult we another son and he got up and went to work and he's going to keep doing that as we move the country forward.
(…)
