(Headline USA) Top Democrats reportedly threatened to use the 25th Amendment to remove President Joe Biden from office if he did not end his reelection bid, according to the New York Post.
The intense “palace coup” began weeks before Biden finally dropped out of the race on Sunday, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his spot at the top of the Democratic ticket.
It started with the June 27 presidential debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump, during which Biden appeared confused and frozen. Democrat leaders actually expected Biden’s poor performance, according to one source, and said it was a “set-up to convince Democrats that he couldn’t run for president.”
Top Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., then began meeting personally with Biden to urge him to consider what his poor poll numbers could do to down-ballot candidates in November.
Biden continued to resist them, arguing he was still the best chance Democrats had at beating Trump in November.
Party bigwigs escalated their threats, warning Biden that they would get his Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to forcibly remove him.
After Biden finally acquiesced to their demands on Sunday, Republicans blasted the Democrats for throwing out the presidential ticket that the vast majority of Democratic primary voters supported during their states’ elections.
“What is going on in this country is absolutely disgraceful,” said Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s running mate.
“The idea of selecting the Democrat Party’s nominee because George Soros and Barack Obama and a couple of elite Democrats got in a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard, that is not how it works,” Vance added. “That is a threat to democracy.”
The Democratic Party will now move into an open convention in August, but Harris will more than likely have the nomination locked up before then.
