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

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Sunday that President Biden’s suggestion that he could use the 14th Amendment to unilaterally address the debt ceiling 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.”

Biden said earlier Sunday that he was looking at “whether or not we have the authority” to use the 14th Amendment, after debt ceiling negotiations with Republicans broke down the day before. 

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

“I think we have the authority,” Biden told reporters at a press conference 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.”

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

Cruz noted 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.