Dave Weigel: What If Biden Quits?

Dave Weigel discusses Biden's decline and the possibility of replacing him on Just Asking Questions.

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Dave Weigel: What If Biden Quits?

HD Video Download

What if President Joe Biden drops out? Just asking questions. 

Biden is facing increasing pressure from his own side to drop out of the 2024 race, which nearly every poll taken since his disaster debate performance last week shows him losing. The latest RealClearPolitics average has him down by about 3.5 percentage points nationally. Several Democratic congress members have called for him to step aside. So have Democratic megadonors. Much of the national press, once dismissive of those pointing out Biden's mental deterioration, has turned on him. 

So where do we go from here?

To help us begin to answer that, Just Asking Questions invited David Weigel, a political reporter for Semafor, and previously for The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Slate, and Reason.

Weigel talked with Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe about the media's slow acknowledgment of Biden's deteriorating condition, Biden's turn against the Democratic "elite," getting "coconut-pilled" on a Vice President Kamala Harris candidacy, and what a contested Democratic primary might look like.

Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.

Sourced referenced in this conversation:

1. 1. 2024 General Election: Trump vs. Biden Polls | RealClearPolling
   2. The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden | New York Magazine
   3. Trumpworld Trots Out Another 'Cheap Fake' Video of President Biden | The Daily Beast 
   4. Biden described by a special investigator as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" in February 2024
   5. Replacing Biden: How it would work | Semafor

 

Timestamps:

• 0:00 - intro
• 1:28 - How bad is Biden losing?
• 4:58 - How long has Biden been cognitively impaired? 6:58 - How much medical info should the White House release?
• 11:46 - Why didn't the DC media say something sooner? 32:06 - Media gaslighting Biden's decline as "cheap fakes"
• 39:10 - The media has turned on Biden
• 48:13 - How does Zach feel about voting for Biden?
• 50:35 - Biden's pushback to the press and the Democratic "elite"
• 56:41 - Why Democrats are turning on Joe Biden
• 1:05:26 - Getting "coconut pilled" on a Kamala Harris candidacy
• 1:15:00 - How would removing Biden actually work?

 

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

Doesn’t matter anymore. Trump is going to win.

[Roberta]

No, it still matters. We already know Biden's a narcissist jerk. But if Biden's delegates don't revolt, it shows the voters that the Democrats on the national scene are full of jerks whose only virtue is loyalty...to a jerk. That image will stick with the Democrats for generations. And it will, because they won't.

[I, Woodchipper]

god you are so clueless

[JFree]

You're right that it matters. If Biden stays the nominee, it will obliterate down-ballot D's this year. It will gut the party and force the D's to deal with a long delayed generation transfer. Until they do deal with it, D's in power are tarred. But it won't be some generational lag. D's in power will die because they're old and the younger D's who aren't in power aren't tarred because they're not in power. My guess is there is an inner inner circle of White House/Biden people who have cocooned him. The media and D's are likely livid at - not loyal to - that group. So sharpen the knives.

Biden has managed to publicly shut up D's in office. For now. Biden is still prez - and he's now angry and stubborn and not listening and possibly demented. 25th amendment sec4 is clearly not designed for this. Now that he has immunity, he can do anything he fucking wants to someone who challenges him. The quote rephrased from Machiavelli is something like - If you attack the king you better not miss because he will exact vengeance if he can. But it's more like Plan B is next - not loyalty to Biden.

The next couple weeks are going to be interesting behind the scenes. Maybe a good book at some point. But whatever is public is not necessarily every thing there is.

[Warren]

My god Weigel's gotten fat.

[Rick James]

Sitting around all day making journolists doesn't lend itself to much physical activity.

[Fetterman's Hump]

Isn't Weigel's Irish grandmother named Jorn O'List?

[Rick James]

Dave Weigel is the Matt Yglesias of Reason.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Sarc is the Jennifer Rubin of Reason.
Jeff is the John Griffin of Reason.

[Idaho-Bob]

This didn't age well.

“I think President Biden is demonstrating—everyone knows he’s old—but that he’s more than capable of not only conducting a vigorous campaign but governing the country. And one reason why I think he’s rising in the poll is we’ve seen more of Donald Trump. Every time Donald Trump uses up the oxygen in the room and demonstrates how nuts he is … I think people remind themselves that Donald Trump is kind of a bad guy. In some ways, the more Donald Trump is out there, the better Biden does.” - Jennifer Rubin

[mad.casual]

"coconut-pilled"

In this world where I wake up under a coconut tree... does pizza have pineapple on it or no?

[Rick James]

Ok that link was pretty funny.

[Fetterman's Hump]

Has anybody seen the movie that spawned the memes?

I missed it, or maybe it hasn't been released, but I would like to see it. Is the title "Civil War"? Is it on Netflix or Youtube?

[NoVaNick]

Dems are fucked right now either way. Whoever else they may nominate (Harris, Whitmer, etc) will have the stigma that they threw a poor old man under the bus in a very undemocratic way. The only way they can win is through massive voter fraud, which we know they would never do, right?

[Ben of Houston]

Harris is the only one that can do it with minimal backlash. She was elected as vice president, so there is a veneer of authority there, and she's the logical choice

If anyone else is put forth, the "Democrats cancelled the election" accusations will have more sting.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

It's fun trying to guess how the Dems get themselves out of this mess.

First step: Get rid of Joe. My guess (which I don't care is right or not) is several leaders give Jill an ultimatum: withdraw or we use the 25th Amendment and trash Joe's legacy, and that corrupt doctor is in our pocket too, ready to release his real medical report to a Senate committee.

Second step: Get rid of Kackles. This is pretty easy -- just make sure Joe's statement says he is releasing his delegates to vote for anybody. Kackles' reaction would be so over-the-top bad that she'd guarantee not being the nominee.

After that, I don't have any guesses who they'd pick.

One of the scenarios from Asimov's Foundation Trilogy was that a strong emperor can't abide strong generals, because weak emperors are soon replaced by a strong general. The problem for the Dems is they've intentionally stifled all competition. The GOP's strong emperor still has plenty of strong generals who could step in if Trump had a stroke or something. The Dems have nobody.

[Alberto Balsalm]

"The Dems have nobody."
This is the truth. Their bench is stacked with losers. The best outcome would be a third party victory that severely damages the dem/rep stranglehold on power. This will never happen because we don't live in a democracy. The two parties have total control of the country and have metastasized into all aspects of society. Sad.

[NoVaNick]

A third party could win if Taylor Swift or Oprah were leading it.

[CE]

Or Mark Cuban, before he became a Democrat.

[Alberto Balsalm]

Oprah for sure. T Swift would just write vindictive songs about Putin. Liz Cheney would also probably win if she had the courage to run.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Oh no, not Oprah.

Remember she faded from the scene when it was noted she was bringing young actresses to Weinstein. She sure as hell doesn't want that rehashed.

[Mickey Rat]

Third party victories are almost always unlikely given the nature of representational democracy. That the choice is relatively binary is a feature of democracy, not a bug.

[sarcasmic]

“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

The latter also tends not to vote. For reasons that are obvious to anyone who isn't a Republican or a Democrat.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Do you ever read anything longer than a single quote? Just curious.

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

Now we know that RAH.com is operational.

Did bastiat.com ever get back up and running?

[Alberto Balsalm]

Huh? There are many examples of representational democracies that are not "binary". Most European democracies, for example, have significant representation by more than two groups.

[CE]

Or they realize any named replacement Dem candidate will be unlikable or unknown, and unelectable in either case. So they stay with Joe on the ballot, fortify the outcome, then have him drop out between Election Day and the day the Electoral College votes. With Joe dropping out then, the Electors can pick anyone they want, and leave Harris as VP as an anti-impeachment policy. They may even be legally required to leave Harris as VP, since the Electors are pledged to vote for her as VP. Call it the "December Surprise" package.

[NoVaNick]

Don’t think they can do that. As soon as Joe croaks or resigns, Harris is president until after the EC votes. There is no way they can then demote her to vp.

[mad.casual]

It’s fun trying to guess how the Dems get themselves out of this mess.

So, one of the other articles had me thinking:

George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Matthew McGonaughey, Chris Evans... in an 11th-hour-emergency, woe-is-me, outsider, your-savior-has-arrived, Hail Mary campaign could probably win. Especially with some ballot-drop secret sauce on top.

The only minor hurdle, maybe, would be to pick someone who doesn't have a #MeToo Frankenstein's monster in his closet waiting to leap out and strangle him.

[JFree]

25th amendment sec 4 does not work for a contested power struggle. That scenario requires more political unanimity than a constitutional amendment (which hasn't happened since before Biden became a senator) or an impeachment (which has never succeeded). Not gonna happen.

And now that the king has immunity - who will the military obey - and which part of it?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""And now that the king has immunity ""

If that's true, why can't Biden just shoot Trump and call it a day?

I question your understanding of the immunity ruling.

[JFree]

You fail to understand the immunity ruling.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

You failed to understand his comment about how you failed to understand the ruling. If you had, you would have answered it rather than insult him.

[JFree]

You can’t answer someone else’s failure to understand something that they won’t even bother to read.

Sotomayor addressed that question directly – Prez can use Seal Team Six to assassinate a rival.

Roberts said in reply – Well that’s an extreme hypothetical. So his answer was basically – That’s not likely to happen. Oh – OK.
Not – that’s way outside the scope of any immunity.

[Longtobefree]

Joe will have his 'slip and fall', or small stroke, or whatever it is the dems have cooked up to force him out, but not now; they will wait until the republican convention is under way, to steal as much coverage as possible.

[I, Woodchipper]

People vastly under-estimate how much the normie dems hate trump. They genuinely think he is the end of democracy, a new coming hitler. They would vote for satan himself before they vote for trump or stay home and let Trump win.

The only way Trump wins is if a few hundred thousand people on the margin vote for him instead of Biden and that is not a given.

[sarcasmic]

Dude, Trump is going to win. If the election results say anything different then that's proof of fraud.

[Roberta]

Even though he was already president, and none of that happened?

[sarcasmic]

Funny how supporters of asshole presidents use the limitations of the office as a defense. Yes, boaf sidez.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Funny how some push fearmongering in a manner greater than what the limitation of the office allows.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Trump can't bring the end of democracy for example. He can't suspend Congress. It would be hard for a president to suspend an election.

The closest tool he would have to do that would be using EOs to run around those we elected to represent us. Yeah, boaf sidez are good at that.

[JFree]

It would be hard for a president to suspend an election.

But not impossible and Trump already went down that path. And the tool he and his advisors talked about was martial law - which was to be invoked in the disorder of Jan6.

Trump - and his advisors - and the MAGA crowd on Jan6 that understood the purpose - went down that path already. It was only every living SecDef and every service Chief of Staff who stopped the Prez CinC connection to troops who would go along with martial law.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Thanks Ms. Maddow.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Giving an example of a failure isn't convincing me of the possibility of success.

[JFree]

Nothing will convince you of the possibility of a successful overthrown election until - it happens. You are not the sort who holds anyone accountable

[Ben of Houston]

Trump didn't cancel the election. He claimed there was widespread fraud and filed legal challenges. Some of these succeeded, as numerous election changes were found to violate state and local laws. Many didn't, but most of those failed after investigation, and many items were famously not investigated. If there was as much fraud as Trump clearly thought there was, then these challenges would be absolutely necessary. So calling the challenges an attempt at cancellation is an outright lie.

On the other hand, Biden just effectively cancelled the primary election. If anyone is nominated other than him, it will be with zero input from voters.

So to recap, on one side we have wild speculation about how Trump will cancel elections despite actual experience to the contrary, and on the other, Biden did cancel the election.

[sarcasmic]

Again, boaf sidez.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Sure.
But I haven't seen this much fearmongering against anyone else in my lifetime. Some people are so fearful they are causing themselves mental harm. I live in NYC and work for a progressive leaning company and I am watching the destruction around me.

Wizards Rule #1 applies. Sadly.

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

I mean it was just a couple of months ago sarc was calling Trump Hitler. But he is totally rational. Alluding to it again even yesterday.

[I, Woodchipper]

Ummm that's exactly how he won the first time. You are so fucking clueless it's amazing to watch.

[JFree]

The D strategy re Trump is to undermine his GOTV. His base is not gonna walk on fire to vote for Trump as long as the attention is on Trump's dumbass shit. Only if they are able to see Trump as victim and they can own the libs will they do that.

The R strategy re Biden is to undermine his GOTV. Which is really easy because Biden is undermining his own base's inclination to vote for Biden. If Biden leaves, then R's have to have a strategy.

Neither side is reaching out to get voters from anywhere. It's only about the turnout of the already committed.

My guess is that it's too late for D's to defeat Trump. Trump has obviously learned how/when to keep his mouth shut at times. It's not too late for D's to take the House and prepare the way to take the Senate in 2026. But only if Biden is not the nom

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""The only way Trump wins is if a few hundred thousand people on the margin vote for him instead of Biden and that is not a given.""

Another way is if people refuse to vote for Biden when turnout for Trump remains high. I think a little of both is the way Trump wins. You will hear a lot of dems saying staying at home is a vote for Trump.

I still think the race is a toss up, a lot can happen between now and November.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

My current belief is Biden wants to hang and win the election. Then he steps down and let's the VP take over. A VP taking over in this manner looks more legit. First female of color president taking over due to a president stepping down for the good of the country has a better historical ring than the first female of color to take the presidency 25thed the president in order to rise to power. I'm sure the dems don't want the circus of delegates selecting someone else before November either. That risks greater fragmentation which makes people not vote.

[Uncle Jay]

" What If Biden Quits?"

1. I doubt Biden will quit. His monumental ego demands he stays in power for as long as he can...and don't even get me started on how Dr. Jill wants him in power to remain the FLOTUS.

2. If Biden quits voluntarily, which is doubtful, then the US will have Heels up Harris as the POTUS, although there is a nasty rumor she's a naturalized citizen, making her ineligible for the presidency.
Plus, if you liked Biden, then you'll just love Heels up Harris.

3. Let's see now.
Who do the democrats have to offer?
The wicked witch Whitmer?
Gruesome Newsom?
Fat Boy Pritzker, or some unheard of closet totalitarian that is willing to tow the democrats' line of quiet fascism?

[LIBtranslator]

Zack and Squeaky taking time out from attacking libertarian candidates?!