Biden Calls for Amended Constitution in Apparent Move Against Trump
January 16, 2025 at 7:25am
President Joe Biden called on Wednesday evening for an amendment to the Constitution that would end presidential immunity for acts while in office.
The comments, which came during his farewell address, come after President-elect Donald Trump faced several lawsuits in recent years and accusations from Democrats of crimes committed during his first term, prompting speculation that the proposed amendment was targeted at him.
“We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president, is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office,” Biden said from the Oval Office.
The Supreme Court ruled last summer in Trump v. United States that presidents have absolute immunity for acts that fall within their core constitutional duties, as well as presumptive immunity for official acts in the broader span of their responsibilities, but no immunity for unofficial acts.
“But unlike anyone else, the President is a branch of government, and the Constitution vests in him sweeping powers and duties,” he added.
“Accounting for that reality — and ensuring that the President may exercise those powers forcefully, as the Framers anticipated he would — does not place him above the law; it preserves the basic structure of the Constitution from which that law derives,” the opinion declared.
Justices declined to rule on whether or not presidential immunity applied to alleged actions committed by Trump, remanding that part of the case to a district court.
Biden was among the Democrats who were highly critical of that decision.
“It’s an office that not only tests your judgment, perhaps even more importantly it’s an office that can test your character because you not only face moments where you need the courage to exercise the full power of the presidency, you also face moments where you need the wisdom to respect the limits of the power of the office of the presidency,” Biden added.
“With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed,” he continued. “For all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.”
Biden also claimed that the decision would potentially enable Trump to enter office “more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.”
An amendment to the Constitution can be proposed with the assent of a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate or by a two-thirds majority of state legislatures to call for a convention.
Then three-fourths of the state legislatures must ratify the amendment, or three-fourths of states must hold conventions to approve the amendment.
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