BIDEN suddenly announced his withdrawal from the race.
On July 21, US President Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential campaign and supported Vice President Harris as becoming the Democratic presidential candidate. This was the first time in decades that a US president has dropped out of the reelection race. Following the first televised debate in June, Biden experienced increasing scrutiny for his subpar showing, leading to mounting pressure from Democrats and voters for him to exit the race. He has repeatedly emphasized that he would continue participating in the election, but the pressure from all parties has only increased. Biden's decision caught many White House staff off guard with several expressing shock at the news. Just hours ago, the Biden campaign denied reports that Biden was considering withdrawing from the presidential election. Biden was said to be particularly annoyed with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom his advisers believed was instigating a campaign to force him to withdraw from the race.
According to CNN, a senior campaign adviser to Biden said he made the final decision to withdraw from the race in the past 48 hours after consulting his family and senior advisers over the phone. On Friday the 19th local time, after Biden recovered from being quarantined at home after contracting the coronavirus, he did not have a final interview with senior campaign team members or White House advisers.
Trump and Republicans harshly criticize Biden
In a brief phone interview with NBC News, Republican presidential candidate Trump reacted to Biden's withdrawal from the race, saying: "Joe Biden is the worst president in the history of the United States."
"There has never been a president who has done a great job for our country. He has caused so much damage - from energy independence to allowing millions of illegal immigrants to enter the country," Trump added.
"We will correct what he has done," Trump continued.
Trump also criticized Biden in a post on social media platform X.
Trump said: "He doesn't deserve to run for president, and he certainly can't be president. He never can. Biden has occupied the presidency by lying, disinformation and hiding in basements. Everyone around Biden, including doctors and the media, knows that he cannot be president. Now look at our country: There are millions of people with no access to inspections and no visas, many of them from prisons and mental hospitals, and record numbers of terrorists entering American soil."
US Republican lawmakers have repeatedly publicly called on Biden to resign.
House Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted: "If Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to be President. He must resign immediately."
Johnson also criticized Harris for not being any better than Biden, saying that she is also responsible for the policy failures of the Biden administration.
"As the No. 2 figure and the completely incompetent person in charge of border affairs, Harris is not only undermining US sovereignty and security," Johnson said, adding that Harris also undermined US prosperity and was an accomplice in the largest political cover-up in American history.
"Harris, like everyone else, has known for a long time that Biden is not qualified for this position," Johnson continued.
Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York State tweeted: "If Biden cannot run for reelection, he cannot and is not suitable to serve as president of the United States. He must resign immediately."
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina asked: "Can a president who does not have the mental acuity or cognitive ability to fight an election serve for another 6 months? He should resign."
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance and other Republicans called on Biden to resign immediately from the White House before he announced his withdrawal from the race. Vance said in a message sent by the X platform that if Biden withdrew from the race, it would mean that Biden was not mentally qualified to serve as president.
Democrats face many challenges
The first challenge was the issue of succession. CNN reported that late last Sunday, the campaign teams of Biden and Vice President Harris formally revised the documents submitted to the Federal Election Commission and nominated Harris to run for president. However, this did not mean that Harris was the confirmed nominee; it depended on the final decision of the Democratic National Convention delegates. The conference usually took place from August 19 to 22. Although former House Speaker Pelosi expressed her approval of Biden's withdrawal from the election in her statement, she did not express support for Harris. Pelosi had previously said she would prefer to start an open nomination process to select Democratic candidates. At present, there were several candidates who might join the race. Vice President Kamala Harris was at the top of the list, but she was running into problems of her own after a rocky start on the job and poor polling numbers. The US Constitution stipulated that the vice president would succeed the president if the president died or became incapacitated, but this did not affect the bipartisan nomination process. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker had all been considered possible successors. A free-for-all could ensue among these Democratic heavyweights. Some 4,672 delegates were expected in 2024, including 3,933 pledged delegates and 739 so-called superdelegates or senior party members, based on Ballotpedia. To win the nomination, a candidate needed a majority, which was, more votes than everyone else combined. If no one did this, then there was a "broker's conference" where delegates were free to negotiate with the party leadership. And there would be rules set and a roll call vote on the nominees. It might take several rounds of voting for someone to gain a majority and become a candidate. The last brokerage convention where Democrats failed to nominate a candidate on the first ballot was in 1952.
The second challenge was the issue of Biden's campaign funds. The Biden-Harris campaign had $91 million in its bank account as of the end of May, but campaign finance law experts were divided over how much of the money had changed hands. Since Harris was also on campaign documents, many experts believed the money could be transferred to her if she ran. However, there was some controversy over whether one needed to be formally nominated as a party candidate before the transfer could take place.
The third challenge was the strong attack from the Trump campaign team. Trump's main political action committee, Make America Great Again, had prepared an attack ad against Harris. An official said they were working to air the ad on major media platforms in Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states. The ad claimed that Harris "participated in covering up the reality of Biden's mental decline." After the Democratic Party "changed generals," they discussed how to choose a better strategy to confront Trump head-on and prepare for the second presidential debate that might be held in September. It might become a great difficulty for the successor or the Democratic Party. In addition, did Harris have the ability to quickly establish her authority and recognition among party insiders and voters? Democrats had heavily criticized Trump in previous campaigns, accusing him of being a "criminal" and "undermining democracy." However, after the assassination attempt, Republicans believed that such criticism was the primary reason for the attempt, which largely caused the Democratic Party's campaign to be unable to continue to be effective in the short term.
Associated Press analysis said after Biden withdrew from the election, the Democratic Party needed to take urgent action to start the nomination process in the next few weeks and convince voters in a "very short period" that Biden's successor could defeat Trump. ability. With Trump's assassination attempt boosting the Republican election, and with Harris' qualifications and abilities being questioned by the outside world, the election might show a trend favorable to the Republican Party in the short term.
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