House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans are calling on President Joe Biden to resign, claiming the 81-year-old is not fit to finish his term.
Biden said on Sunday he would be abandoning his reelection bid, following up the announcement with a tweet endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
In a statement of his own, Johnson (R-LA) charged Democratic officials with essentially disenfranchising voters who participated in the party’s primary.
“At this unprecedented juncture in American history, we must be clear about what just happened. The Democrat Party forced the Democrat nominee off the ballot, just over 100 days before the election,” Johnson posted on X. “Having invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president, the self-proclaimed ‘party of democracy’ has proven exactly the opposite.”
He went on to criticize Harris, arguing that she was just as responsible for the Biden administration’s policies as the president.
“She has known for as long as anyone of his incapacity to serve. … If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough,” he added.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), former President Donald Trump’s running mate, expressed a similar sentiment earlier in the day before Biden dropped out of the race.
“If Joe Biden ends his reelection campaign, how can he justify remaining President? Not running for reelection would be a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as Commander-in-Chief. There is no middle ground,” Vance posted.
While Biden has been notoriously gaffe-prone and seemingly struggled with his memory on numerous occasions, the extent of his apparent cognitive decline took center stage following his disastrous debate performance last month.
Reports circulated in the following weeks amid growing calls from Democrats for Biden to drop out of the race that the president’s closest aides had been concealing from the public and White House staff how much the commander-in-chief had fallen off in recent years.
Trump took to Truth Social in the hours following the president’s announcement to highlight the seeming contradiction of being unable to run a campaign but being able to run the federal government.
“So, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after having a terrible debate, and quits the race. Now we have to start all over again. Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud in that everybody around Joe, including his doctors and the Fake News Media, knew he was not capable of running for, or being, President? Just askin’?” Trump posted.