Trump and His Allies Are Freaking Out Over Biden Leaving Race

Nikki McCann Ramirez
·5 min read
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Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 campaign and the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris as the leading contender for the Democratic ticket has provoked a nuclear-level meltdown from the right — especially from Donald Trump.

“It’s not over! Tomorrow Crooked Joe Biden’s going to wake up and forget that he dropped out of the race today!” the former president wrote on Truth Social late Sunday night, hours after Biden announced he would be suspending his campaign in an open letter on social media.

In a series of Truth Social posts, Trump also complained that he had been unfairly forced to spend money campaigning against Biden, and even suggested that “the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud” now that he wouldn’t be running against the president.

Trump even hinted that he may back out of the scheduled presidential debate in September, unless major changes are made in his favor. “My debate with Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the history of the United States, was slated to be broadcast on Fake News ABC, the home of George Slopadopolus, sometime in September,” he wrote. “Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC.”

Trump’s musings became more unhinged as the night went on. In another post, he suggested that Biden was faking a recent Covid-19 diagnosis. The rant extended into the early hours of Monday morning, when Trump accused Democrats of having stolen the nomination from Biden. “They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries — A First! These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!” He wrote.

Similar meltdowns took place across Republican politics and media. On Fox News, former Trump White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller was apoplectic about the campaign shakeup.

“They held a primary!” Miller squealed at a pitch that likely perked the ears of every dog in a 10 mile radius. “They had ballots! They filled out circles that went to the voting booths! They spent money on advertisements, and — as President Trump said — the Republican Party spent tens of millions of dollars running against Joe Biden.”

“Now they just woke up one morning and said ‘never mind we are canceling our entire primary. We’re getting rid of our candidate, and we’re pretending the election has never even happened and we’re gonna let donors handpick a new nominee,’” Miller continued at a full blown yell.

One of the reasons Harris does make sense as a pick to lead the ticket is precisely because millions of Democrats voted for the presumptive Biden-Harris ticket in the Democratic primaries — not that Miller cares for the nuance.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told CNN on Sunday that Democrats could face legal challenges in attempting to replace Biden on the 2024 ticket. “I think they’ve got legal hurdles in some of these states and it’ll be litigated, I expect, on the ground there.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity was literally grasping at straws in his reaction to the news, accusing Vice President Harris of wanting to “ban plastic straws.”

“I love my plastic straws. I hate paper straws,” Hannity told viewers. The host also suggested that the reason voters “detest” Harris is because of her laugh.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) demanded “proof of life from Joe Biden today by 5:00pm,” on Monday. “He needs to get in front of some camera and discuss if he’s aware that he dropped out. Hiding is completely unacceptable.”

Conservative influencers ran with the suggestion that Biden dropping out of the race amounted to an effective coup.

“We are witnessing a third world-style coup engineered by oligarchs as we speak, and it isn’t going to be pretty. Stay calm, folks. It’s about to get crazy,” Harmeet Dhillon, the California Republican National Committeewoman and prominent Trump ally, wrote on X.

The serial harassment account Libs of TikTok wrote on X that “the people who called us a threat to Democracy for years just ran a coup against the sitting President.” Biden will continue to serve the rest of his term, and while an incumbent president dropping out of the race is rare, it is neither unprecedented or illegal.

But even as Trump’s sycophants rage at the prospect of running against a younger, more agile candidate, there are at least a few voices within Republican circles who are unconvinced that the will of Democratic voters was unceremoniously cast aside with Biden’s decision. “If almost 80 percent of Democrats polled say they wanted another nominee in the last four weeks, I do not think they feel disenfranchised,” Fox News host Dana Perino said Monday morning.

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