Senate Democrats largely boycotted a high-profile Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday aimed at investigating what Republicans described as a White House cover-up of President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. The walkout left Republicans unchallenged—and they wasted no time framing the absence as a damning confession.
Only two Democrats bothered to appear. Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Peter Welch made brief appearances before exiting. Durbin dismissed the hearing as a partisan waste of time, while Welch offered no counterarguments to the central issue: who was really running the country?
That silence spoke volumes, according to Sen. John Cornyn.
“With nearly every Democrat skipping this hearing, we have no choice but to treat their absence as an admission of guilt,” Cornyn said, thanking Welch for being the lone Democrat to stay seated before adding, “Their role in this crisis cannot be ignored.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt drove the point further, calling the no-show a “de facto confession.”
“If President Biden was not mentally fit, the American people deserve to know who was pulling the strings. Democrats didn’t call a single witness because they don’t want those answers made public,” Schmitt said. “This is not oversight—it’s abandonment.”
Sen. Ted Cruz was even more direct: “Not a single Democrat gives a damn. They lied for four years, knowing full well that Joe Biden wasn’t mentally capable of doing the job.”
Former Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer testified before the committee, slamming the Biden administration’s inner circle for shielding the president and misleading the public about his capacity to govern.
Meanwhile, Democrats attempted to flip the script by circulating clips of former President Donald Trump’s past remarks to raise questions about his cognitive sharpness. In a post on X, Judiciary Democrats dismissed the hearing as a “sham” and claimed they were focused on “real challenges.”
But Republicans weren’t buying it.
“This hearing wasn’t about party lines,” Schmitt said. “It was about accountability—and they chose to run.”
Bottom line: Republicans painted the hearing as a defining moment: the American people deserved transparency, and Democrats had nothing to offer but empty chairs.