Below is my column in the Hill on the withdrawal of President Joe Biden from the 2024 election. After weeks of Democrats and the media raising the alarm of his mental capacity, Biden finally gave up his public refusal to step aside. Harris will now be the nominee through succession by defenestration, or being tossed from a window. Yet, there remains a lingering question of Biden’s capacity to serve for another six months as president.
Here is the column:
President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw as the Democratic Party’s nominee solved an immediate problem for his party. Biden has plummeted in the polls as the vast majority of voters concluded that he is too diminished by age to serve another term. Yet, it has now created several new problems, including the obvious problem of a president who is viewed as incapable of running for an office that he continues to hold.
The Democratic Party essentially created its own political version of the 25th Amendment in forcing Biden off the ticket. This decision was about as voluntary as leaving a building by way of a window on the 46th floor. That is particularly the case when you are thrown out of the window by your closest friends.
The unseemly image of succession by defenestration will soon be whitewashed by a media that will praise Biden after weeks of declaring him incompetent and enfeebled.
That, however, leaves the lingering question after the fall. How can Biden remain in office when he is incapable of running for the office?
Biden is notably vague about the reason for his withdrawal after maintaining for days that he will be the party’s nominee. He simply says that it is in the best interests of the country.
The Democratic establishment has two equally unappealing options.
First, it could argue that Biden was withdrawing out of recognition that he is no longer politically viable. But that makes a mockery out of the democratic process. Millions of people went through the primary elections to select him as their nominee. Now he would be set aside and replaced by a vote of the party establishment like a shift in the Russian politburo.
Second, it could admit that Biden was, as stated for weeks in the media and by figures like Special Counsel Robert Hur, greatly diminished both mentally and physically. However, that makes this withdrawal an admission that could trigger a fight under the 25th Amendment.
The development could create a new constitutional controversy. The 25th Amendment was written with largely physical disabilities in mind. If a president is comatose, the incapacity is obvious and Section 4 allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to sign a declaration to Congress that a president is incapable of holding office.
However, Harris is eager to avoid the image of Brutus in the dispatching of the president. To support such a declaration would risk Biden proclaiming “Et tu, Kamala?” to the nation. The key to succession by defenestration is not to be seen as the hand that pushes the president out the window. Politics follows the same rules as the mafia for capo di tutti i capi: Kill a don, never be a don. While sometimes honored in the breach in the mob, it is hardly an auspicious path for a politician.
There is, however, another intriguing possibility.
Section 4 provides that a president’s fitness can be put before Congress when the “Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or such other body as Congress may by law provide.”
Previously Democrats have cited that language to suggest that they could create their own body to force former President Donald Trump out of office. Indeed, Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-Md.) sponsored legislation called the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act to create a commission empowered to examine a president to Congress on the president’s capacity. It would circumvent the necessity of getting Harris to be the primary hand that dispatched a president.
The question is whether Congress will now make this decision to warrant an investigation or even a Raskin-like bill.
This is different than President Lyndon Johnson’s decision on March 31, 1968, that “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
That was before the end of the primaries. In this case, Biden won a primary in which the Democratic Party obstructed anyone who would challenge him and barred any debate.
Millions voted for him, and tens of millions of dollars were contributed to his campaign. He is now withdrawing weeks before accepting the nomination. That unprecedented decision alone would warrant a House investigation into Biden’s continuing capacity to serve in an office that he no longer believes he can run to occupy after January 2025.
Before this decision, a special counsel cited President Biden’s diminished faculties as a reason not to indict him for unlawfully retaining and handling classified material. Now, the president is effectively saying that, in addition to being allegedly too diminished to be prosecuted, he is too diminished to run for the office that he currently holds.
The question is whether Biden has ended the fight to retain his nomination only to trigger a fight to retain his office.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).
“Biden won a primary in which the Democratic party obstructed anyone who would challenge him and barred any debate.” Then the party replaced Biden with Kamala Harris, someone who never won a primary or got a single vote. Her four years as VP are notable for…nothing. We’re still waiting for her report on the “root causes” of the border crisis. But that’s “democracy” Democrat-style. Truth is, the Democrat party is a party of oligarchs. The Clinton, Bush and Obama clans, together with the intelligence community, run this country. That’s not democracy.
Very informative as to the law, history and strategy. Professor Turley did not discuss the handling of Woodrow Wilson’s disability after his stroke – not his first neurological event – in 1919: see https://lib.arizona.edu/hsl/materials/collections/secret-illness/wilson.
Regarding “capacity to serve,” what of Kamala Harris’ capacity to serve for four years, let alone six months, given her record? (Just don’t mispronounce her first name, or you are a presumptive, if not per se, racist.)
Certainly a case of very dangerous loons. What else can anyone say. Perhaps Generalissimo Mayorkas will seize control in a coup with General AWOL Austin. Only the shadow knows.
Thank you
Ah, isn’t it cute to see Professor Turley talk about making a mockery out of the democratic process. After 81.2 million Americans voted for Biden and he was sworn into office as President, the Texas GOP issued a proclamation: “We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”
A mockery of the democratic process? Like when Trump fired his own Homeland Security Cyber Chief for reporting that the 2020 election was the most secure election in American history? Or when Bill Barr was forced to resign after telling Trump there was no evidence of voter irregularities which would alter the outcome of the 2020 election? Or when Republicans censured Republican state election officials for certifying 2020 election results after multiple recounts?
Turley colorfully insists Biden’s decision to withdraw was as voluntary as leaving a building by way of a window on the 46th floor. Which means Turley adamantly rejects the reports that Biden made his decision after his closest aides showed him that their own polling confirmed he had no path to victory.
No one will ever accuse Jonathan Turley of being a journalist.
“No one will ever accuse Jonathan Turley of being a journalist.”
Boy isn’t that the truth. How many trump lawyers have had their career ruined because they did trumps bidding? Several. How is Rudi Giuliani doing these days?
What power does trump have that people willingly ignore facts and do crazy stuff that gets them arrested for trump?
And by the way JT, how’s that Biden impeachment going? Any day now right? I’m waiting.
Nice to see you responding to your own posts again, Lawn Boi.
What has JT to do with an impeachment?
LMAO you are too low IQ to even understand what the purpose of that inquiry was. Its called politics, and your boy Biden is out now, in part because more than half the country thinks he is a crook.
Have another sip, drunktard.
Republicans would be cutting their own throat if they indicated in any way that they thought Kamala Harris could serve as President, even for the time between now and the November election.
Ae we absolutely certain that she will be the nominee and which hapless tool will be tapped to sacrifice his/her political career to sign on as her VP?
How about she accepts Obama or HiIlary as her VP, the Dems manage to manufacture enough votes for her to win, then sometime in February AF-1 crashes, or there is some other “accident”. Somewhat farfetched, but imo not completely beyond belief, considering what the Dems have already shown themselves to be capable of.
yeah but it wont
The 25ht amendment is totally invalid, and your premise for this article is a total fallacy!
I think everyone has the wrong idea about how we choose the president, because I could care less who the parties believe should be the president, and I care even less about who believes they want to be president! And let’s get this Straight, this isn’t a historic decision by Biden to drop out, because it’s not an individual’s decision to run for president in the United States, FOR A REASON, and if it isn’t obvious to everyone given this presidential election cycle, then you are living under a rock.
First, we must consider what the role and responsibilities are of a president, which we have distorted into something short of a dictator, but nevertheless authoritarian, which goes against every principle of democracy and republican forms of government, which are based upon distributed power and collective decision making. But as a democracy, which the States assembled in the Senate is, every State has a right to participate as equals, and to have their own citizens considered for every position throughout the government system. This is why our electoral system for president was designed around “Consensus Choice”!
In the most basic form of consensus choice, each State is required to choose a predetermined number of persons from their own State to be considered by all the States in congress. That number is reduced and ranked leaving only a small number of the best choices for the States to consider and determine the choice by vote, 1 vote per State, and a majority of the States is necessary to the choice. In a republican form of government instead of a fixed number of choices from each State, each State is apportioned a number of choices that is proportional to their population as a percentage of the aggregate population of all the States in the Union, and each State is given twice the number of choices, and at least half of the choices must be for persons which do not live within their State, that prevents the largest States by population from dominating the aggregate ranked list, because they have to make just as many choices from other States that they can from within their own State.
Why this is so difficult to understand baffles me. With over 200,000,000 people in the United States that meet the requirements for holding the office of president, that we believe we should go to the polls in November faced with a binary choice of the lesser of evils. Do we even care anymore?
Our government has been so distorted from its original principles that it doesn’t even qualify as a governing system, much less as a democracy, or a democratic or republican form of government, which by the way, is required by the Constitution of the United States! We should not be subjected to all this nonsense of the parties in their struggle for power and control, which is mostly over economic policy and to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich.
Why do we put up with these political parties, which are only 24% of the people together! So 76% of the people are allowing 24% of the people to control our government to transfer wealth to 1% of the people. Isn’t there something wrong with that picture, or am I the only one who can see it?
Who did you vote for in the last election?
nftpNone posted this, reminiscent of one of The Big Guy’s statements about CornPop:
The 25ht amendment is totally invalid, and your premise for this article is a total fallacy!
Okay, I’ll be the one to bite out of curiosity. Before we’re tempted to read your tortured text… why is the 25th Amendment invalid?
It wasn’t properly ratified as the Constitution requires? Or it just offends your particular ideas of what should and shouldn’t be in the Bill of Rights?
Is it possible George the Confederate Constitutional racist now has a counterpart constitutional expert.
The 25th Amendment isn’t in the Bill of Rights, Decrepit Airdog
What are the requirements to amend the Constitution of the United States, and what parts are amendable?
Answer that question for yourself and you will the answer to the question you are asking me!
Hint: are our State and Federal legislatures assembled properly, because we need a 2/3 quorum of the States just to consider and agree to amendments, and then we need the ratification by 3/4 of the “State Legislatures”, which if either of those legislative assemblies are not assembled properly, we can not form a quorum to agree to the amendments, and we cannot ratify those amendments. We haven’t had a properly assembled legislative assembly, State or Federal, since the Civil War. And I haven’t even told you why the Articles of the Constitution of the United States cannot be amended for any reason, and that’s why the “Bill of Rights” are amendments by addition, and also why even the 12th amendment is on thin ice, but they did try to not fundamentally change anything, even keeping the number of candidates to consider in Congress at 5.
By the way, I don’t care if you read what I wrote, it wasn’t intended for you!
United States Constitution
“Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
“Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified”
There is nothing at all that a plain reading of Article V can validate your statement that “Articles of the Constitution of the United States cannot be amended for any reason”. It says “Part of”, not “supplemental” or “addendum to”, which is what you appear to claim.
Look genius, the articles of the Constitution of the United States have a nested dependency on each State’s own Constitution which makes it impossible to amend because each Article is dependent on the others. I know you probably don’t understand that type of logic, but that’s also why the process for amending is so difficult, and why the constitution seems not to say much about a lot of things. It’s because all the Constitution is for is to assemble and operate a legislative assembly, where all other matters can then be determined by a “Consensus Choice” legislative process, and the assembly, distribution of power through rights of suffrage, quorum requirements, and what constitutes a majority consensus, cannot be changed even by a Constitutional Amendment, because any change in those basic principles invalidates the whole constitution!
I don’t expect you to even understand what I just wrote, and I can guarantee you do not agree, but it isn’t up to you to agree, the States agreed to form the union in accordance with the Articles of the Constitution of the United States.
“To Constitute” means to form or assemble, and the only thing formed and assembled by the Constitution of the United States is congress as a legislative assembly of the States governed by legislative processes to reach a majority consensus of All the States as the Union and Established Government Authority. Which makes the Constitution of the United States the Blueprints and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for assembling and operating Congress as a legislative assembly of the States as the Union.
The Constitution, the document, is the formalization of a participation versus compliance agreement between the States establishing the benefits, privileges, rights of participation in decision making, and cost of membership in the Union, and those basic agreements cannot be changed ever, without a unanimous agreement between all the States, because that fundamental agreement, must be simple in nature, and can never be amended!
“The 25ht amendment is totally invalid”
Do you expect that contention to be accepted without any evidence, on your say-so? Loon!
I would be very surprised if Biden makes it another week. He has become a liability to the Party.
Gosh it’s hard to have the ability to see the future.
I very much respect your legal analysis Mr. Turley but this take is beneath you. Biden’s statement never says he is unable to fulfill his job. What it says is “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” Recognizing that you don’t want to continue your current job for another four years is not the same thing as asking to be fired immediately.
JT loves to obfuscate the facts. He has been blinded by the cult leader and must only say things that will make the orange god happy.
You idiots replying to yourselves are the ones obfuscating. Turley relates what the Republicans are arguing.
He makes no argument of his own.
Get a grip, dum dums.
The signature on biden’s statement is in question, it is a very poor non match, but besides that ruse, everyone knows biden hasn’t been capable of his duties for 4 years plus.
He’s a grifting family mob thief and liar and can’t remember his own name and has totally fraudulent make believe fairy tales as his body of greatest hits.
His hands are frozen in mummy form, stiff like a carcass on the ground, and he waddles and shuffles like the mental patient he is. Jill treats him like a 3rd grader, he stands there finally smirking through the botox, the puffed drugged up face and empty eyes.
The only time we even know he is alive is when he is screaming in anger which is often. Even then he shuffles off into a mumbling fools errand of disconnected jargon after a 5 second pause while looking downward, wondering how to make an empty minded save.
You demoncrats have exposed the deep state tyranny you love with your zombie lying con man mobster thief, everyone knows your bureau minions run it all.
The grift never stops.
Thank you for your clarity!
trump sits his dinning room watching fox news as “his people” ransack the Capitol building was not a reason to remove him from office and prevent him from ever running again.
Biden is old and you all loose your cookies.
Do you realize how juvenile you all look?
“Do you realize how juvenile you all look?”
I would add pathetic.
Do you realize how illiterate you look?
Probably as juvenile as Biden watching CNN while having a weenie roast in Rehobeth during the three months of looting and rioting by “his people” that occurred during the mostly peaceful protests across 35 cities during the summer of love.
So you’re equating an insurrection fomented by trump to keep him in power with protests over racial injustice?
Sure, go there, you will get lots of racial minority voters to agree with you.
That’s a nice fictional version of what happened. Now you just need to get all of these racial minority voters to buy it. What’s been stopping them for the past three years?
This idiot doesn’t understand who was most impacted by the violent rioting.
He probably thinks the corner store ransacking teenagers are voters. LMAO
A cowardly Anonymous Soviet Democrat liar and racist member of Black Liars & Marxists reverted to their 2020 campaign:
So you’re equating an insurrection fomented by trump to keep him in power with protests over racial injustice?
1. Black Liars & Marxists’ 2020 election campaign insurrection of Mostly Peaceful Rioting, Raping, Looting, Burning, Arson and Murder was pumped by Biden and Harris – not Trump.
2. “Racial Injustice” is a dogwhistle for morons to line the pockets of the Marxist leaders of Black Liars & Marxists while going to riot in the streets for months. Nice mansion you got there, Tovarisch
You just keep thinking that’s going to work this year as The Big Guy and VP Cackle Hoe have made it hard for “racial minority voters” to be able to feed their families.
If you demand we go back to the 2020 campaign, let’s just remind Useful Idiot racists like you of what then VP Cackle Hoe said as she directed the Back Liars & Marxists Insurrection:
They’re not gonna stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after election day … They’re not gonna let up, and they should not.
What should Trump have done? Tweeted?
I uh… looks down…. ( 5 seconds pass ..) looks up with blank stare and open liehole … 3 seconds pass
(now insert a chatGPT3 line)
Demoncrats like everyone else have no idea what the mummy demon was babbling but they erupt in applause anyway.
Now instead of the zombie brain dead mummy we’re getting a cackling pot smoking perma whack job known for incarcerating stoners who cackle and giggle at nothing less than she does, and she has two foreigner parents AT HER BIRTH MAKING HER ABSOLUTELY UNQUALIFIED TO BE POTUS, but the demonrats will lie and excuse it 100%, proclaiming illegal alien baby drops are eligible for potus.
A purge is coming, if it is averted the USA will no longer exist.
Latest poll of likely democrat voters
Who would you prefer to see as the democrat nominee for president?
Michelle Obama, 34%
Gavin Newsom 22%
Hillary Clinton, 16%
Joe Manchin, 15%
Kamala Harris 12%
Of the 12% who answered Harris, only 46% could name any position she held before vice president
Wait a minute. Democrat legislators are on a jihad to disqualify Supreme Court Justices because of the political speech and political activity of their spouses. Wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to Michelle Obama?
Have democrats ever lived by their own rules?
Um, if she were up for SCOTUS???
Don’t behave like a liberal
Well, the “saviors of democracy” party successfully pulled off a Weekend at Biden’s primary, effectively preventing their base from choosing anyother candidate. Now, in their best Henry Ford moment, they offer the base the option to choose any candidate, as long as they’re a black female.
Bottom line: Biden had no path to victory. He’s out for any or all of the following reasons:
– He is mentally unfit and the people know it.
– He was a drag down ballot.
– Forced out by threat of the 25th.
– Forced out by threat of exposing his crime family to prosecution.
The “saviors of democracy” are saving their own donut holes. Sort of like when Big Hill invoked the Democrats “Super Delegates” to smoke out Old Bernie in 2016. Worked like a charm. And now Lunch Box Joe’s anointed Border Czarina will be crowned Queen in August.
She’ll wear the “border czar” label around her neck like a cow bell. Not only was flooding the country with illegals a Soros payoff centerpiece of the Biden administration, but by scapegoating Kamala with it, she’ll have the impossible task of explaining why she couldn’t stop it. That’s what you get for calling Biden a racist during your debate.
“President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race Sunday and backed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him.
But will Harris or any other Democrat make the Ohio ballot? Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office says Democrats need to pick a candidate by Sept. 1. ”
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/21/biden-dropped-out-will-harris-another-democrat-make-the-ohio-ballot/74490691007/
can you imagine the Democrats not having a candidate on the Ohio ballot
at the same time what happens to the money donated to the Biden campaign? My understanding is that if he dropped out before a certain date then the money donated from the campaign fund were limited to $2500, but after a certain donation amounts were unlimited.
Is this true?
PeterK,
This may answer some of your questions concerning the funds.
If nominee isn’t Harris, contributions have to be refunded: Federal Election Commission
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/3093022/if-nominee-isnt-harris-contributions-have-to-be-refunded-federal-election-commission/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=offthepress&utm_campaign=home
UpstateFarmer wrote: “If nominee isn’t Harris, contributions have to be refunded: Federal Election Commission”
According to an article in The Epoch Times, there is some doubt about whether even Harris can avail herself of those contributions:
Challenges Potentially Lie Between Kamala Harris and Biden Campaign’s Millions
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/challenges-potentially-lie-between-kamala-harris-and-biden-campaigns-millions-5691555
Lovin’ this stuff 🙂
I seem to recall previous discussion here of two issues for the Democratic Party, should Biden fail to be its nominee:
First was the claim that a certain class of donations (constituting a large portion of total donations) made to support a Biden-Harris ticket could only be utilized by either one of those candidates, which, if true, would appear to be a major disincentive for them to nominate anyone other than Harris, especially given the reports that donations for Biden-Harris had recently run dry.
Second was the claim that the election laws of some states prevent any candidate who has not qualified to be on the ballot under the banner of a specific political party by a fixed cut-off date from appearing on the ballot as a candidate for that party. I recall Ohio, in particular, being discussed in that context.
What is the current status of these issues in light of Biden’s withdrawal from the race?
“He simply says that it is in the best interests of the country.”
except that in his own statement as well as those congratulating him for withdrawing the “good of the country” is preceded by “good of the party.” Left unsaid is his commitment to pursue the “good of the Biden,” which is perhaps his highest priority.
The Republicans would be wise not to push Biden out of office until he finishes his term. Harris would become an incumbent.
“Harris would become an incumbent”
And put all of her weaknesses and failings on full public display, in addition to making her visibly accountable for all of the many policy failings of the Biden-Harris administration. That is a potent combination of vulnerabilities, and, for Republicans, a double-edged sword at the very worst.
Bob,
The Biden, Inc corruption operation requires a number of pardons for friends and family. I doubt JillJoe would trust Kamala to follow through on a deal. A stack of pardons before the election is essentially an admission of guilt – a bad look for the Dems’ campaigns.
more recumbent than incumbent
That depends on what position of the Kamala Sutra is in play, wouldn’t you say?
Great point.
Here is the text of the 25th Amendment. It isn’t very complicated. Read and interpret it for yourselves, instead of relying on others to do that for you who may interpret it according to their own self-interests:
” Twenty-Fifth Amendment
Section 1
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4
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.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days 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. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”