Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) began Wednesday’s Senate hearing on former President Joe Biden’s mental fitness with a striking rebuttal, displaying a video montage of President Donald Trump making his own series of gaffes.
The clip, played during Durbin’s opening remarks, included Trump’s pandemic-era comments about injecting disinfectant, comments about windmills driving whales “crazy,” and occasions when he struggled pronouncing the names of countries such as “Venezuela.”
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“Do any of these statements raise a question of cognitive ability? You be the judge,” Durbin said.
Senate Judiciary Republicans are holding a sham hearing now. If you want to talk about a President’s state of mind, consider this mess.
— Senate Judiciary Democrats ???????? (@JudiciaryDems) June 18, 2025
We’re focused on the critical challenges facing our nation.
Back to business. pic.twitter.com/nPXraHpcjU
Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused Republicans of staging a “political adventure” and exited the hearing shortly afterward. He charged the GOP with ignoring urgent oversight matters, such as political violence and alleged misconduct by Attorney General Pam Bondi, in favor of “armchair diagnosing” the former president.
Republicans have long highlighted Biden’s verbal missteps and have noted that the former president had more frequent trouble communicating to the public compared to Trump, who more often appears cogent and makes efforts to speak to the press at all times of the day.
“In contrast, love or hate him, we all know President Trump is in command of his presidency,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), accusing Biden of relying heavily on an autopen to sign key documents, a device that has undergone growing scrutiny amid GOP questions about whether aides were working behind the scenes to use Biden’s autopen without the former president’s knowledge or full awareness.
The hearing, titled “Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution”, is the first in a planned series of Republican-led inquiries into Biden’s mental and physical health while in office. The hearing featured witnesses aligned with the Trump administration.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is co-leading the inquiry with Schmitt, also played a short clip highlighting Biden’s gaffes, including his 2024 debate remark, “Look, if — we finally beat Medicare.”
Cornyn has raised questions about whether Biden’s Cabinet members failed in their duties to act under the 25th Amendment.
Aside from brief attendance by Durbin and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), Democrats largely boycotted the hearing. Durbin left after his opening remarks, and Welch only stuck around to deliver an opening statement criticizing Congress for neglecting core Article I duties. Notably, not every Republican on the committee was present for the hearing.
FIRST SENATE HEARING ON BIDEN HEALTH ‘COVER-UP’ TO SERVE AS ROAD MAP FOR INVESTIGATIONS
Schmitt argued the hearing was necessary to investigate what he called “shadow governance” during the Biden years. He also played a montage of Democrats and former aides to Biden defending the former president as “sharp” and pushing back on polling data showing a majority of U.S. voters saw Biden as too old to run again.
Republican witnesses included former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer, who told the Washington Examiner the media “lacked curiosity” about Biden’s decline.