Suddenly, Donald Trump lost his opponent, and he didn’t like it very much, as the Republican presidential candidate, not known for his poker face, hinted on his social network TruthSocial.
“Okay, so we had to spend money and time fighting corrupt Joe Biden, he gets bad polls after a desperate debate and drops out of the race. And now we have to start over. Shouldn’t the GOP get its money back?”
No complaints were made to his staff or the party office, but the change was simply made. The ads against Joe Biden disappeared from the screens, replaced by ads against Vice President Kamala Harris, the new Democratic presidential candidate. She was lost, was the message: to hide the deplorable condition Biden was in, and the inflation and uncontrolled flow of asylum seekers that the presidential couple was bringing into the country.
Rearguard action
An easy turn to make, Republican strategists told US media. “If they put forward a Joe Biden 2.0 and take ‘Kamala the Laughter’ as their candidate, then we don’t care,” one of them told Reuters anonymously. A candidate from outside the government, such as one of the governors whose names have been circulating, would be more dangerous.
But it would have been even better if Joe Biden had remained the nominee, those strategists said. And in a rearguard action, Republicans opposed his resignation.
What they don’t particularly like is that Harris already has access to the millions of dollars in donations Biden raised when he was a candidate. Is that legal?, they ask. And among them, there is one who may actually have something to say about it: Sean Cooksey, chairman of the Federal Election Commission, the FEC. “Replacing a presidential candidate and handing over their committee’s money to someone else is unprecedented,” he said. Washington Post“That raises a lot of unanswered questions.”
It could make a big difference, because if Harris is required by law to raise funds on her own, Biden could give her exactly $3,000 from his massive campaign fund. The rest can only go to partisan organizations.
But if the ban is already in place, the FEC would be unable to do much about it. The committee is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans, and there is usually a tie vote. However, the Republicans could go to court. According to experts, this has little chance, because Biden and Harris have always campaigned together.
“There is no respect for one’s own voters”
According to them, it is also morally wrong that Biden, who won the Democratic primary without significant opposition, had to resign under great pressure. “The Democratic bigwigs have just shown that they have no respect for their own voters,” said House Republican leader Steve Scalise. “After lecturing others about democracy, they have dropped Biden as a candidate, dismissing the first choice of 14 million voters.”
While they have already begun to spread the message that Kamala Harris would be as bad a president as Joe Biden, Republicans at the same time seem to want her to be president tomorrow. “If Joe Biden is unfit to run a campaign, then he is unfit to be president,” said Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. “He must resign immediately. November 5 cannot come soon enough.”
The call, which would prompt an immediate follow-up from Harris, seemed more designed to rub salt in wounds than to provide a serious proposal.
But to be sure, one Republican representative said he doesn’t think that’s what’s best for the country. Pete Sessions of Texas told the BBC that Biden should stay so Harris has a free hand for her candidacy. “We can’t really use one person at a time campaigning for president and trying to be president.”
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