In the wake of President Joe Biden’s expected yet stunning departure from the 2024 presidential race, Republicans everywhere are calling for the Democrat to step down altogether.
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote Sunday afternoon on his X account soon after Biden had his LBJ moment.
Several House Republicans stated the same.
“If Joe Biden can’t run for re-election, he is unable and unfit to serve as President of the United States,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said in a statement. “He must immediately resign,” chairwoman of the House GOP conference, said in a statement.
It wasn’t just House members. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told The Federalist that he would support the use of the 25th Amendment — the Constitution’s presidential disability and succession mechanism — to relieve the clearly cognitively diminished president of his duties.
“Anything we can do to replace him probably is a good thing to do, but that is not my call,” Johnson said.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., agreed.
“If Joe Biden is unfit to run for re-election, he is unfit to carry out his term,” Mullin wrote on X. “25th Amendment.”
Trump echoed the sentiments of his party on his social network platform, Truth Social.
“Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!” he wrote, adding that “we will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly.”
Invoking the 25th is the call of Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, the woman Biden has endorsed in an open contest to succeed Biden on the top of the ticket. It would be highly unlikely that Harris employ the Constitution to forcibly remove the man who just endorsed her. Not that the Biden administration has been all that interested in the Constitution over its tenure in office.
The Hill reported that U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on Monday will introduce a House resolution calling on Harris to invoke the 25th amendment to remove the 46th president.
Democrats are very familiar with the 25th Amendment. They had pushed it for years to get rid of then-President Donald Trump, the GOP’s newly nominated candidate for president, falsely claiming that Trump was what Biden is: cognitively incapacitated. The amendment states that, “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
‘In the Best Interest’
In his letter, Biden boasted of what he believes to be his administration’s accomplishments in the face of an unpopular record filled with economic and national security turmoil. He promised he would speak to the nation later and provide more details on his decision.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said in a letter released on Sunday. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.
“For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected,” the embattled president added.
As Johnson noted, Biden’s supporters — and the list seemed to be dwindling, at least in Congress and in leftist fundraising circles since his disastrous debate performance last month — have effectively been disenfranchised in the latest turn of events.
“At this unprecedented juncture in American history, we must be clear about what just happened. The Democrat Party forced the Democrat nominee off the ballot, just over 100 days before the election,” the speaker wrote. “Having invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president, the self-proclaimed ‘party of democracy’ has proven exactly the opposite.”
It’s the Party Not the Man
The Republican Party, fresh off a rousing national convention in Milwaukee just days after its leader narrowly survived an assassination attempt, is already hammering the idea that it doesn’t matter who gets the Democratic Party nomination. Leftist policies would continue the devastation wrought by Biden over the past three and a half years, they say.
Sen. Johnson has long called for the Republican Party and voters to focus on the failed policies of the Democrats, not their candidate. Like other political observers, Johnson said he didn’t believe Biden would make it to the Dems’ nominating convention next month in Chicago.
But the senator predicted there will be a quick transition from Democrats and their corporate media allies in celebrating Biden’s successor as the American Messiah, after they collectively called for the head of the senile old man that they elected in 2020.
“They’ll now say that Kamala Harris is so talented, unbelievably articulate,” and popular among the party, Johnson said. Of course the record and the polling shows otherwise.
‘Joe Biden Ought to Step Down’
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison pledged the party will “undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a united Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
“This process will be governed by established rules and procedures of the Party. Our delegates are prepared to take seriously their responsibility in swiftly delivering a candidate to the American people,” the chairman added.
There’s a first time for everything. Ask the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Bernie Sanders campaigns how “transparent” the DNC nominating process has been over the years.
The reason the Democrats are in this political predicament is because they and their media partners could no longer hide Biden’s sharp cognitive decline following the debate. Biden’s performance was so shocking to the American people, the Dems’ jig was up. They would have dragged the rapidly failing old man to the November election finish line had they been able to avoid uncontrollable public appearances as they did in 2020.
Now that Biden is exposed, Republicans are asking a critical question.
“Joe Biden is too weak and feeble to be prosecuted. He is too weak and feeble to campaign. How is he strong enough to continue serving as Commander in Chief of the strongest nation in the world? Joe Biden ought to step down,” said U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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