If Biden is Removed, Who Should Replace Him?

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jun. 30, 2024) — As reported by numerous outlets following Thursday night’s first presidential debate, much consternation ensued among members of the Democrat Party, including some donors, over whether presidential incumbent Joe Biden is capable of serving a second term or should be replaced by another candidate, with the November 5 election just over four months away.

Some Republicans in Congress, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, have gone farther, suggesting members of Biden’s cabinet should meet and agree to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office before his current term ends.

Whoever the Democrat nominee is will face former president Donald J. Trump in November, whose debate performance was arguably overshadowed by Biden’s difficulties. During the 90-minute event, Biden often lost his train of thought and drifted into rambling, unintelligible and at times incomprehensible statements. At one point, he claimed no military deaths occurred under his watch despite the 13 soldiers and Marines killed by an explosive at Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021.

All were in their 20s and early 30s.

In a statement two days afterward, Biden referred to those killed as “heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others.”

In late January three soldiers lost their lives in an attack in Jordan conducted by “Iranian-backed militias,” with 34 wounded.

On today’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” host Maria Bartiromo asked U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), who is also a medical doctor, if Biden should be removed from the ticket.

“The Democrats are going to have to make that decision” in regard to “replacing him,” Barrasso responded, as well as the issue of “removing him from the presidency” via the 25th Amendment. He recounted that senatorial Democrats have insisted, until after Thursday’s debate, that Biden is fit to serve.

Specifically, Biden’s cabinet, Barasso said, would be tasked with voting on whether to remove Biden despite the fact they have been “complicit” in maintaining Biden in office.

He opined foreign adversaries China, Russia and North Korea pose an immediate threat to the security of the United States, necessitating a leader viewed as formidable on the world stage.

“Does he have dementia?” Bartiromo queried, which Barrasso did not answer directly, instead expressing indignation that Biden would “forget” the 13 killed in Afghanistan. One was Wyoming native Rylee McCollum who Barrasso recalled was a “state wrestling champion” and enlisted in the Marines directly after high school.

“You’re a doctor, right?” Bartiromo pressed, which Barrasso haltingly affirmed, though with the qualifier, “I haven’t examined him.” He referred to the report issued in February by Special Counsel Robert Hur concerning Biden’s possession of classified documents and his decision not to recommend prosecution.

In the report, Hur described Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who might not be competent to stand trial, a claim Democrats swiftly refuted.

Biden’s presidency has been marked by other incidents of concern, including several stumbles while ascending or descending the steps to Air Force One and last June while on stage to speak at a U.S. Air Force graduation ceremony in Colorado.

At the recent G7, while the group of world leaders was assembled facing the cameras, Biden turned around and walked in the opposite direction, apparently gesturing to someone, and had to be ushered back to the others by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

At the time the mainstream media largely criticized video footage of the incident as “edited,” and the White House termed it a “cheap fake” despite its having emanated from the customary journalist “pool” in attendance.

Reuters contended Biden was “interacting” with parachutists who did not land directly in front of the G7 leaders, claiming the “clip” “lacked context.”

Several major outlets normally conciliatory toward Democrats have now called for Biden to withdraw from the race, including The New York Times Editorial Board and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Editorial Board.

The Biden campaign has insisted he has no plans to withdraw, with Biden himself telling supporters in Raleigh, NC that he can win over presumptive Republican nominee and former president Donald J. Trump.

On Friday the Associated Press published an article bearing the headline, “Biden’s debate performance leaves down-ballot Democrats anxious — and quiet.”

On Friday, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX21) filed a resolution calling upon Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, to “convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Joseph R. Biden incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as Acting President.”

Some questioned Roy’s motive in doing so, accusing him of attempting to engage in “a rescue mission to save Democrats.”

In an interview directly following Thursday’s debate, Harris told CNN host Anderson Cooper Biden had a “slow start” with a “strong finish.”

As readers of this publication will know, when it was first rumored Harris herself would seek the presidency, California citizen Gary Wilmott contacted Harris’s U.S. Senate office to discover whether she is a “natural born Citizen” as required for the president by Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution.

“Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 mandates that a president be a NATURAL-born citizen, which you clearly are not,” Wilmott wrote in December 2017. “At the time of your birth, BOTH of your parents were citizens of foreign countries, so your birth in California makes you at best a NATIVE-born citizen (anchor baby?) under the prevailing view of the 14th Amendment. Lest you think that I have Republican bias I would also point out that presidential wannabes Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio also fail to meet this higher standard of citizenship. Their campaigns were fraudulent and in clear violation of the U.S. Constitution.”

The 12th Amendment requires vice-presidential candidates meet all of the eligibility criteria for president.

A number of constitutional scholars believe the “natural born Citizen” clause to mean, “born in the country to parents who are citizens” and have rejected the contemporary interpretation that simply “born in the country” is enough to satisfy the Framers’ intent.

Neither of Harris’s parents was a U.S. citizen when she was born in Oakland, CA in October 1964. Her father was born in Jamaica and her mother in India, meeting when were attending the same university on student visas in the early 1960s.

There is evidence that only Kamala’s father, Donald Harris, naturalized, though long after Kamala and her sister Maya were born. According to documents obtained from the U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Service (USCIS), Shyamala Gopalan Harris became a U.S. permanent resident in April 1968.

Harris did not respond to early inquiries from The Post & Email about her eligibility or lack thereof, though she addressed the “conspiracy theory” put forth in an August 12, 2020 Newsweek editorial by Trump supporter and then-Chapman University Professor of Law John Eastman.

“The fact that Senator Kamala Harris has just been named the vice presidential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some questioning her eligibility for the position,” Eastman began his column. “The 12th Amendment provides that ‘no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.’ And Article II of the Constitution specifies that ‘[n]o person except a natural born citizen…shall be eligible to the office of President.’ Her father was (and is) a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalized U.S. citizen at the time of Harris’ birth in 1964. That, according to these commentators, makes her not a ‘natural born citizen’—and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president.”

According to Brooke Singman of Fox News at the time while referencing an interview between Harris and “The Grio,” “Harris is a United States citizen born in California in 1964, making her eligible to serve as president or vice president under the U.S. Constitution.”

As with many media, Fox substituted “United States citizen” for “natural born Citizen” despite acknowledging Eastman’s use of the proper term.

Harris claimed Republicans’ ruminations about her eligibility amounted to “lies” and “deception.”

The “X” (formerly Twitter) account held by “kancelkamala” has released a considerable amount of documentation about Harris’s background, including that of her parents, revealing that Shyamala Gopalan Harris might never have become a U.S. citizen.

According to “538,” which is now owned by ABC News, as of the morning of June 30 Harris’s approval rating was 39.4%, a number slightly higher than in January but approximately ten percentage points lower than in 2021.

Also today, the same source showed Biden’s approval rate at 37.7%, indicating a sharp decline from when he took office in January 2021.

According to then-chief of staff to U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, commentator and author Mark Levin on his Sunday evening show, “Life, Liberty & Levin,” “the media” is responsible for “bringing the nation” to the point where a presidential candidate is “unfit for office” by “lying” about Biden’s capability.

“It is the same media which is now advocating for Biden’s removal,” Levin told his audience, a move he said which would prove constitutionally unsound because it would “disenfranchise” every voter who cast a ballot for Biden during the primaries.

“The media are about power,” Levin contended.

An article in Time Magazine Friday echoed Levin’s observation that Democrat primary voters overwhelmingly cast ballots for Biden, earning him the nomination, and that the most likely way he could be replaced is if he voluntarily withdraws at some point.

After finishing his monologue Sunday, Levin asked former 2024 Republican presidential candidate, attorney and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for his thoughts on the media’s sudden about-face to now replace Biden. In contrast to Levin, Ramaswamy opined a “switch” “is now likely” which he predicted will result in the presidential candidacy of Michelle Obama.

“It’s a Democratic machine that we’re up against,” he told Levin. “…I think this is our moment to step up and say, ‘We are restoring our constitutional republic.'”

“Our country cannot survive with a media like this,” Levin concluded the program.

According to an interview between Reuters‘s Jeff Mason and DNC member, author of a book on political primaries and Brookings Institution senior fellow Elaine Kamarck, “Right now, the process largely depends on Biden. He would have to agree to step down or face a challenger this late in the process who would try to force him to do so. So far Biden has shown no indications of wanting to step aside and no opponents have challenged him directly.”

As to who might take his place, Kamarck observed that a change in presidential candidates would largely depend on a decision by Biden to leave the race.

“Vice President Harris would almost certainly be at the top of the list, but she has had her own problems after a rocky start in the job and poor polling numbers,” Kamarck said. “The U.S. Constitution dictates that the vice president becomes president if the president dies or becomes incapacitated, but it does not weigh in on an inter-party process for choosing a nominee.”

According to NBC News on Sunday morning, the Bidens were meeting with advisers to “discuss the future of his re-election campaign with family at Camp David, Maryland, on Sunday, following a nationally televised debate Thursday that left many fellow Democrats worried about his ability to beat former President Donald Trump in November, according to five people familiar with the matter.”

The Biden campaign refuted the report, and on Sunday night, multiple media reported Biden’s family advised him to “stay in the race.” According to CNN, quoting a Biden advisor, the Bidens were “clearly frustrated with the team that prepared President Biden ahead of his alarming debate with former President Donald Trump – discussed whether any of Biden’s top advisers should be fired and whether campaign staffing changes should be made.”