With President Joe Biden having formally dropped from his race for reelection on Sunday afternoon, the words of Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, now vice presidential nominee, have even more meaning:
“If Joe Biden doesn’t have the cognitive function to run for re-election, then he certainly doesn’t have the cognitive function to remain as Commander-In-Chief. How can any Dem pushing him to drop out of the presidential race, argue in good faith that he should stay on as POTUS?” Vance asked last week.
Today, Vance wrote: “If Joe Biden ends his reelection campaign, how can he justify remaining President? Not running for reelection would be a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as Commander-in-Chief. There is no middle ground.”
Operatives at the highest levels of the Democratic Party have been conducting a backroom coup to erode the ground under President Biden, who is sequestered due to having contracted Covid last week. By Sunday, the tide had tuned and the rumored “withdrawal” letter that had been drafted for him to sign turned out to be one rumor of many that ended up being accurate, in a month of many rumors and speculations following Biden’s disastrous performance in the debate against Donald Tump on June 27.
In his letter, Biden said it was in the best interest of the “party” for him to drop out. But Biden’s leaving the race is his admission that he has already lost to Trump. Polls for both Democrats and Republicans show it, and Biden’s campaign has also access to polling done on his behalf but not revealed to the public. The down-ballot impact of him remaining on the ballot was serious for the Democrats, who could have faced a wipe-out in the Senate and House races in November, if he had stayed.
The person Biden has designated to replace him on the ballot is a person who could not win even one delegate when she ran for president in 2020: Kamala Harris. Harris may face challengers who have been warming up in the bullpen for weeks: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, former Sen. Hillary Clinton, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are no doubt having war room meetings on Sunday to determine if there is a path forward against the war chest that Harris inherits from Biden.
Biden’s campaign had $91.6 million on hand by the end of May, according to its most recent report to the Federal Election Commission. By early July, the Biden campaign had $240 million, which included new funds from the Democratic National Committee. Presumably, the majority of that will go to Harris’ campaign.
She will have to pick a vice presidential nominee before the Democratic National Convention. Harris may choose someone like Gov. Shapiro, to help lock up the Pennsylvania swing-state vote and attract the Jewish vote. The same holds true for Gov. Whitmer, who also leads the swing state of Michigan.
But then there’s Team Barack Obama, who is highly influential behind the scenes. Obama may throw his weight behind Hillary Clinton, who in 2016 won the national vote when she ran against Trump. She lost the electoral vote and claimed the election was stolen. Although Hillary won 2.9 million more votes than Trump, he worked the map, and ended up with 304 electoral votes, more than the minimum 270 electoral votes needed. Clinton won 227 electoral votes that year, in spite of all her baggage. She is a nationally known candidate and could make the case to Democrats that, as a person who took on Trump directly, she’s the stronger candidate to win this time.
While the Democrats spin, Biden is lounging at his beach house at Rehoboth Beach, Del. He has nothing on his public schedule on Sunday, which is true to his usual schedule. He is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, a day before Netanyahu is due to address a joint session of Congress. The White House has not yet announced if it has canceled the meeting.
Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, released a health report on Sunday: “President Biden completed his eighth dose of PAXLOVID this morning. His symptoms [which were not disclosed by O’Connor] have improved significantly. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear.”
There was no report about whether Biden was alert or how his cognitive functions are.
Matt Walsh, podcaster and political writer, observed, “Every Republican needs to go on the record right now calling for Biden to be immediately removed from office. If he is not competent to run for re-election then he is not competent to remain in the White House.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, in a post on X/Twitter, reminded people that he had predicted this exact scenario 18 months ago:
On Truth Social, Donald Trump wrote his reaction to the news: “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve — And never was! We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Kelly Tshibaka, chair of the Trump campaign for Alaska, said, “No new information has arisen about President Biden. Predictably, Democrat elites forced him out, despite his unanimous selection through a democratic, primary process. Biden’s withdrawal from the race shows either that Democrat Party leaders are willing to reject the will of their own voters because they know their candidate can’t win, or it proves they have known President Biden has not been fit to fulfill the duties of his office. Either way, this decision reflects the anti-democratic impulses that have corrupted the party’s leadership ranks. And, make no mistake, Kamala Harris has been part of this anti-democratic cover-up to subvert democracy and the will of primary voters. Et tu, Kamala?”
Although neither the Alaska Democrats or Rep. Mary Peltola issued no statement about the news, the Alaska Republican Party did:
