When President Joe Biden announced that he was ending his re-election bid, he specifically referenced his eagerness to do the job he was elected to do for the next six months. “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” the Democratic incumbent said in a written statement.
The news, of course, has touched off a multifaceted process, but it will also generate a related question from his Republican critics: “Shouldn’t Biden step down now, rather than January?”
Sen. JD Vance, his party’s vice presidential nominee, made this pitch via social media just yesterday, ahead of Biden’s announcement:
“Everyone calling on Joe Biden to *stop running* without also calling on him to resign the presidency is engaged in an absurd level of cynicism. If you can’t run, you can’t serve. He should resign now.”
This coincided with an Axios report, which added that Republicans are “laying the groundwork to pressure him to resign from office.”
I don’t doubt that voters will hear this argument quite a bit in the very near future, and it might even have some superficial appeal to casual observers. If Biden isn’t up to seeking the presidency, is it unreasonable to think he isn’t up to doing the job in the coming months?
The closer one looks, however, the more problematic this argument becomes.
First, few seriously believe that the president is incapable of performing his duties between now and January.
Second, the “if you can’t run, you can’t serve” argument is plainly wrong. Indeed, as Vance probably knows, plenty of members of Congress, including several of his Senate colleagues from both parties, have announced that they’re stepping down at the end of their current term. This is routine, and it doesn’t mean they have to resign from Capitol Hill.
Third, it stands to reason that Biden will explain in the coming days that his decision is about the future, not the present: It’s one thing to say that the Democratic incumbent is up to the job in 2024; it’s something else to say that he’ll still be equally fit in 2028. If I were helping Biden write a speech on this, I’d probably encourage him to say something like, “Lately, I’ve had two jobs: running the executive branch and running for a second term. Going forward, I’ve decided to focus all of my energies on the job Americans hired me to do, and leave the second job to others.” Finally, it’s probably worth questioning the motivations of Republicans who seem a little too eager to show Biden the door. Not only does the party seem to like the idea of running against an incumbent, let’s not forget that under the 25th Amendment, if the president were to step down before his term ends, Harris would assume the office and have an opportunity to select a new vice president — who in turn would have to be confirmed by the House and Senate. The confirmation process in the Democratic-led Senate probably wouldn’t be too difficult, but would the House’s far-right Republican majority handle such a task responsibly? Maybe Republicans will push for Biden to resign the presidency because they genuinely believe he can’t fulfil his duties, or perhaps the party is looking for an ugly election-season spectacle.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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