President Joe Biden said Sunday that he believes he has the legal “authority” to invoke the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to go around Republicans and raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, which would avert a default but likely invite a protracted legal battle that could smother the last-ditch strategy. “I’m looking at the 14th Amendment, as to whether or not we have the authority. I think we have the authority,” Biden said at a press conference around the G-7 meeting in Japan. “The question is: Could it be done and invoked in time that it could not—would not be appealed and, as a consequence, pass the date in question and still default on the debt. That’s a question that I think is unresolved.” The untested legal theory would rely on the fourth section of the amendment, which states that the “validity of the public debt of the United States... shall not be questioned.” But legal experts and White House aides have both expressed skepticism of the clause in recent days, with one anonymous Biden adviser telling Politico this week, “They have not ruled it out. But it is not currently part of the plan.”
