Speaker Mike Johnson
The right’s response to President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will not seek reelection is absurd, cynical, and self-discrediting. Reporters should not treat the resulting opportunistic hodgepodge as if it were credible.
Following weeks of Democratic Party angst after Biden’s June 27 debate performance triggered widespread concern about his ability to win reelection, the president said on Sunday afternoon that he would drop out.
“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 to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a statement.
Biden’s decision was a blow to President Donald Trump, whose campaign was built around a run against the president and reportedly believed Biden’s nomination gave Trump the best chance of winning in November. Republicans are flailing as they grapple with the prospect of a different opponent for their historically unpopular nominee.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments before and after Biden’s announcement are instructive.
Johnson claimed on Sunday morning that replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee would be “unlawful” and suggested Republicans would litigate to keep him on the ballot if the party tried to replace him.
“I think they would run into some legal impediments in at least a few of these jurisdictions," he said on ABC’s This Week. "I think there'll be a compelling case to be made that that shouldn't happen, and so I think they've got legal trouble. If that's their intention, and that's their plan. So we'll see how it plays out.”
The argument that Democrats can’t legally choose their own nominee at the party’s convention next month don’t deserve “any credence,” according to election expert Rick Hansen: “Joe Biden is not the party’s nominee now, and states generally point to the major party’s nominee as the one whose name is on the ballot.”
But in any case, Johnson’s argument that Republicans will sue to keep Biden on the ballot logically conflicts with his argument after Biden said he was dropping out.
On Sunday afternoon, Johnson said: “If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately.”
(Johnson, a key figure in Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, also now claims the Democrats “invalidated” Biden’s primary voters in an affront to the democratic process.)
So Republicans are going to sue to keep Biden on the ballot to serve as president for four more years while simultaneously claiming that he should resign his office? That’s totally incoherent, a signal of obvious political desperation.
The right’s leaders have benefited at times from the low standards the news media sets for them. But Republicans are telegraphing that the coming days will feature an avalanche of bad faith nonsense — and that’s how reporters should treat their arguments.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
