#Cruz says Biden position on using 14th Amendment is ‘legally frivolous’

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Sunday that President Biden’s position on using the 14th Amendment to unilaterally address the debt ceiling, which the president outlined earlier in the day, is “legally frivolous.”

“I think Biden’s position on the 14th Amendment is legally frivolous,” Cruz said on “Fox News Sunday.” 

“That’s a provision that was put in place to say that we’re going to pay our Civil War debts,” he added. “It refers to the Civil War that we had just fought and paying those war debts off.”

“I think we have the authority” to use the 14th Amendment, Biden told reporters at a press conference earlier Sunday in Hiroshima, Japan. “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.”

The argument for such a unilateral move is based on a phrase in the amendment to the U.S. Constitution that the public debt “shall not be questioned.”

However, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has previously warned that invoking the 14th Amendment would cause a “constitutional crisis.” 

Cruz noted on Sunday that former President Obama also rejected the use of the 14th Amendment when he encountered similar roadblocks to raising the debt ceiling.

“By the way, someone else who agreed with that was Barack Obama,” he said. “The left tried to convince Obama to do this, and Obama said, ‘No, you can’t do this under the Constitution, under the terms of the Constitution.’”

The Texas senator suggested that Biden should instead vow to pay the interest on U.S. debt as a means of preventing default.

“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,” he added.