When President Joe Biden announced he was ending his re-election bid, he emphasized his eagerness to focus on the job he was elected to do for the next six months.
The Democratic incumbent stated in a written statement, “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.”
Naturally, the news has triggered a multifaceted process, but it also raises a related question from his Republican critics, “Shouldn’t Biden step down now, rather than January?”
Sen. JD Vance, the vice presidential nominee for his party, made this argument on social media just yesterday, prior to 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 stating that Republicans are “laying the groundwork to pressure him to resign from office.”
It’s likely that voters will hear this argument frequently in the near future, and it might even seem superficially appealing to casual observers. If Biden isn’t fit to run for the presidency, is it unreasonable to question his ability to do the job in the coming months?
However, upon closer examination, this argument becomes more problematic.
First, few genuinely believe that the president is incapable of performing his duties between now and January.
Second, the argument that “if you can’t run, you can’t serve” is clearly flawed. As Vance likely knows, many members of Congress, including several of his Senate colleagues from both parties, have announced they will step down at the end of their current term. This is routine and doesn’t necessitate their immediate resignation from Capitol Hill.
Third, Biden will likely explain in the coming days that his decision is about the future, not the present. It’s one thing to assert that the Democratic incumbent is capable of doing the job in 2024; it’s another to suggest he will be equally fit in 2028.
If I were advising Biden on writing a speech about this, I’d likely suggest he 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.”
Lastly, it’s important to question the motivations of Republicans who are eager to push Biden out the door. The party seems to prefer running against an incumbent, and it’s also worth remembering that under the 25th Amendment, if the president steps down before his term ends, Harris would become president and could select a new vice president — who would then need to be confirmed by both the House and Senate.
The confirmation process in the Democratic-led Senate would probably be straightforward, but could the far-right Republican majority in the House handle such a task responsibly?
Perhaps Republicans are pushing for Biden to resign because they genuinely believe he can’t fulfill his duties, or maybe the party is aiming to create an election-season spectacle.