Republican lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee admonished Democratic colleagues for boycotting and walking out of a Wednesday morning hearing examining former President Joe Biden’s health decline while he was in the Oval Office.
‘I will note that few of my Democratic colleagues are here today,’ Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn said Wednesday. ‘Thank you to Sen. Welch from Vermont for being here, leaving us with no other option than to take the boycott of this hearing as an admission of guilt for their role in this crisis.
‘We must not turn away from the search for answers, and it is not an overstatement to say that the future of our country could one day hinge on how we choose to act or not act on this very issue,’ Cornyn continued.
The Senate committee held a hearing Wednesday morning dubbed, ‘Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution.’
Vermont Democrat Sen. Peter Welch and Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin did attend the start of the hearing, with Durbin abruptly walking out after describing the hearing as a distraction and accusing Republican colleagues of being ‘asleep at the wheel’ with other legal issues within the Trump administration due to their focus on Biden.
‘In the last week alone, several events have demanded this committee’s immediate attention,’ Durbin said Wednesday. ‘The horrific assassination in Minnesota, the treatment of our colleague Sen. Padilla by federal agents in Los Angeles, and President Trump’s unprecedented deployment of the U.S. military in Los Angeles.
‘We should hear without delay from Attorney General Bondi and FBI Director Patel about what they are doing to address the unacceptable political violence in our country, including threats to Article III judges and justices, as well as members of Congress,’ Durbin said. ‘And we need to hear from the Homeland Security Secretary Noem about the treatment of our colleague, Sen. Padilla, and this administration’s mass deportation campaign against immigrants.’
Welch also left the hearing after declaring it would not benefit his constituents.
There are 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including lawmakers such as Sens. Klobuchar of Minnesota, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Adam Schiff of California. The press secretary for Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats directed Fox Digital to Durbin’s initial participation in the hearing and his remarks when asked about GOP lawmakers arguing Democrats’ boycott of the hearing was an admission of guilt.
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz seethed that Democrats and the media ‘lied’ and covered up Biden’s health decline, while slamming Democrats for their lack of participation.
‘Not a single Democrat is here today because not a single one of them gives a d— about the fact that they lied to the American people for four years,’ Cruz said at the hearing. ‘They knew. Every one of them knew that Joe Biden was mentally not competent to do the job. The White House press secretary, she knew, when she stood in front of the American people and lied over and over and over again. And they’re not here because they can’t defend themselves. It wasn’t a surprise, for four years, the White House hid President Biden from Republican senators. Would not let him meet with us.’
Other Republicans railed against Democratic counterparts for skipping the hearing, such as Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmidt.
‘Today, as we seek to answer this question, it is deeply disappointing, but not surprising, that most Democrats on this committee have chosen all but boycott the hearing and failed to call a single witness,’ Schmidt said at the hearing.’They have chosen to ignore this issue like they ignored President Biden’s decline. Their absence speaks volumes, an implicit admission that the truth is too inconvenient to face. By refusing to engage in this critical examination, they abdicate their responsibility to the American people. This de facto boycott is not just a refusal to participate. It’s a refusal to serve the American people who deserve answers about who was truly leading their government.
‘The title of the hearing, ‘Unfit to Serve,’ captures a sobering and undeniable truth,’ Schmidt added. ‘President Biden was mentally unfit to carry out the responsibilities of the most powerful office in the world. Given his mental incapacity, the American people deserve to know who was running the country the last four years.’
The hearing included testimony from three experts, including University of Virginia law professor John Harrison, conservative think tank Heritage Foundation fellow Theodore Wold, and a former White House press secretary from the first Trump administration, Sean Spicer.
Concern over Biden’s mental acuity hit a fever pitch in 2024 as the election cycle heated up, when the then-president delivered a dismal debate performance against now-President Donald Trump in June. The debate opened the floodgates of criticism, including traditional Democrat allies calling for Biden to drop out of the presidential race after conservatives had already long argued that Biden’s mental acuity was slipping and he was unfit to serve as commander in chief.
Concerns over his health have continued after his presidential tenure ended, including with the revelation that the Biden admin frequently used an autopen to sign official presidential documents, the release of Biden’s interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur, and Biden’s shock announcement in May that he had advanced prostate cancer.
The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project first investigated the Biden administration’s use of an autopen earlier in 2025 and found that the same signature was on a bevvy of executive orders and other official documents, while Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the apparent machine-produced signature.
Heritage fellow Wold testified before the committee and described the alleged cover-up of Biden’s declining health a ‘constitutional crisis.’
‘I will say the 25th Amendment. It’s a modern contrivance, but it still is consistent with the American Constitution, which assumes that officers of the United States will act virtuously and morally,’ Wold said. ‘And the idea that members of the Cabinet would go to the length of avoiding the Oval Office so as to abdicate their responsibility to verify the appropriateness of the president’s acuity or the ability to authenticate actions taken by the president. If that’s not a constitutional scandal, I honestly, I don’t know what would what would constitute such.
‘There could be the potential for crimes,’ he said. ‘But moreover, the 25th Amendment can only function in its sole mechanisms if people are actually willing to call a spade a spade.’
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.’
Biden’s Cabinet, other administration officials and Democrat lawmakers fiercely defended his health amid outcry from Republicans and others that Biden’s health had cratered and that he was likely unfit to serve as president.