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12:23 24.07.2024 •
Photo: NYP
Joe Biden was forced to leave the presidential race after high-level Democrats threatened him with the 25th Amendment, writes ‘The New York Post’.
Operatives at the very highest levels of the Democratic Party threatened Joe Biden with forcibly removing him from office unless he stepped down, sources told The Post.
The well-orchestrated “palace coup” to stop the faltering president seeking re-election has been in place for weeks, but stubborn Biden fought against it every step of the way, a source close to the Biden family told The Post Monday.
The insider also made clear the anger, paranoia and frustration Biden displayed as the party elite circled around him and piled on the pressure.
Part of the “elaborate” strategy to remove Biden from the race – as he announced in a shock letter posted on Sunday – was allowing him to debate Republican candidate Donald Trump last month on live TV in Atlanta.
During the car crash 90-minute debate, Biden appeared confused, slack-jawed and at one point he froze up, with his shocking performance turning the tide against him.
Biden is said to have stubbornly fought against the recent calls for him to step down until his shock announcement on Sunday that he will not seek re-election.
“That debate was a set-up to convince Democrats that he couldn’t run for president,” the source said Monday.
As calls for him to bow out mounted, Biden insisted he would continue, but party bigwigs threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution.
The amendment allows for the vice president and members of the cabinet to declare he is unfit to serve and force him to step down, the source added.
Although Biden immediately endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for president, the source said Democratic delegates will be strongly encouraged to instead back Arizona senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
Some holdouts have still yet to endorse Harris as Biden’s successor, despite less than a month until the convention and only four months until election day. Most notable among them is former President Barack Obama.
“We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead,” Obama said Sunday.
Barack Obama has been a conspicuous holdout and has so far not endorsed Kamala Harris as Biden’s replacement.
Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place for president, but a source said delegates at the Democratic National Convention in August will be encouraged to back Senator Mark Kelly.
Following the debate, first son Hunter Biden suddenly became more involved in his father’s day-to-day business and insisted upon attending every official and unofficial meeting, the source said.
“Hunter felt he [Joe Biden] was being set up and he was very concerned about his father,” the source said. “These people, these officials were not on Joe’s side.”
Biden’s own staff did not have any forewarning about the bombshell decision to pull out of the race, which was known since at least Tuesday, the source said.
First son Hunter Biden insisted upon being present at meetings with his father after his disastrous performance in last month’s debate against Donald Trump, a source told The Post.
Many were also shocked by the letter posted to Biden’s X account itself, as it was typed on his private letterhead rather than White House notepaper and signed electronically, the source said.
“Everyone was totally shocked,” the source said. “It was pretty telling that Jill Biden tweeted a heart emoji and nothing else.”
Photo: USA Today Network
Vice President Kamala Harris moved swiftly to assert herself as the de facto Democratic nominee for president on Monday, her first full day as a candidate, as virtually every potential remaining rival bowed out and she clinched the support of enough delegates to win the nomination, writes ‘The New York Times’.
The Associated Press said late Monday that Ms. Harris had secured the backing of more than the 1,976 delegates needed to capture the nomination in the first round of voting. But it was just a “virtual roll”.
Harris worked to quickly lock up the support of her party’s donors, elected officials and other leaders, and has so far received support from at least 2,214, writes AP.
However, the AP is not calling Harris the new presumptive nominee. That’s because the convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention in August or if Democrats hold a virtual roll call ahead of that gathering in Chicago.
The pledged support is not binding until the delegates cast their votes, which party officials said would take place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7.
With barely more than 100 days until the election, Ms. Harris immediately pressed her case against former President Donald J. Trump during a visit to her new campaign headquarters, invoking her early career as a prosecutor who took on “predators” and “fraudsters.”
The vice president compared her day-old campaign to the civil rights and voting rights battles of the past, placing it on a continuum with “abolitionists and suffragettes.” And she said that Mr. Trump’s potential return would undo some of those victories and take the country backward.
Ms. Harris’s most immediate task had been to secure the support of enough Democratic delegates to lock down the nomination.
The next step in the party’s formal nomination of Ms. Harris will come on Wednesday, when the rules committee of the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to meet to set a date for a virtual roll-call vote of the state delegations. On a call with reporters on Monday night, Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the party’s presidential nominee would be selected by Aug. 7 to avoid legal risks from ballot deadlines.
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