Trump Has a Point
His rants about the new race are unhelpful but not unfounded.
Meridith McGraw’s POLITICO report “Trump tries to undermine Harris’ legitimacy as a candidate” sounds a familiar theme.
For former President Donald Trump, the 2024 race is a contest between him and Vice President Kamala Harris. And President Joe Biden.
During a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Trump repeatedly blamed Harris and Democrats for Biden dropping out of the race more than a month ago — undermining Harris’ legitimacy as a candidate and highlighting his one-time opponent.
He claimed, without evidence, that the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week is “rigged” because Biden isn’t on the ticket. He said Biden is a worse debater than Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke. And Trump accused the media of being biased in favor of the president.
“What happened to Biden? I was running against Biden and now I’m running against someone else,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Who am I running against, Harris?’ I said, ‘Who the hell is Harris?’”
On the one hand, it’s hilarious. He spent a whole lot of time and money running a substance-free campaign built on attacking his opponent for being old, and suddenly, it’s not only all for naught, but he’s now the old, inherent guy in the race. And his whining about it is just wildly counterproductive.
On the other hand, his feelings are justified. Democrats ran a primary designed to make it even harder than it would otherwise have been to replace the incumbent President, and Biden faced only token opposition. Despite being ahead in all the polls, he agreed to Biden’s impromptu taunt to hold the first presidential debate well ahead of the primaries and absolutely destroyed him in that contest.* He then survived an assassination attempt and further cemented in the public mind that he was virile and fit while Biden continued to embarrass himself in public appearances.
The primaries were over and the debate had signaled the official start of the general election campaign. And, suddenly, the Democrats simply get a do-over. Objectively, that’s just unsporting.
To be sure, politics ain’t beanbag. As a technical matter, Biden wasn’t the Democratic nominee until the yet-to-be-held Democratic convention formalized it. But, by any modern-era standards, that’s quibbling.
Now, the fact of the matter is that this is good for the country, which matters much more than what’s “fair.” As much as we treat Presidential elections as sporting events, they shouldn’t be judged by the same standards. A choice between a decent man who’s only occasionally lucid and a madman isn’t one that any country, let alone the preeminent global power, should be forced to make.
Indeed, I myself repeatedly called for Biden to step aside after the debate (and, frankly, before it), so I’m not complaining. While I would have preferred some process other than an instant rallying behind the unvetted Veep, she’s performed quite well on the stump in the early going and the party seems to have enthusiastically rallied behind her. But, for once, Trump’s grievance at least has real merit even if, as usual, his means of expressing it doesn’t.
Now, given that he tried to steal the last election—to the point of inciting a riot on the Capitol building to stop the legitimate counting of the vote—and is already setting the stage to declare a result other than a Trump victory illegitimate, my sympathy is decidedly muted.
*Granted, by any real debate standards, his stream-of-consciousness Gish gallop would not have been scored favorably. But Biden’s performance was almost universally seen, even by Democrats, as catastrophic.
By any measure, the nomination for the Party’s representative occurs during the convention. I don’t see that as quibbling. It’s the party that decides, and they make that decision at the convention.
Trump has no valid point, he just wants to bitch and moan.
(Assume that the contender for the party’s nomination (based on the state primaries), died before the convention. Donald would insist that he should be running against the dead guy.)
This is just senior citizen stuff. Basically, he’s holding a grudge against the local restaurant because the half-price dinner hour was moved from 5:30 to 6 and his time is 5:45.
Being this inflexible is a sign of aging.
Seriously though, any number of things could have happened that might have led to Trump running against someone else. Biden could have had a heart attack or (another) brain aneurysm. He could have been the one targeted at a campaign event. Any of those things may have resulted in a change in candidate. As it turns out, people can quit, including presidential candidates. Trump can’t have the race he wanted, he’s got to run the race he’s been given.
This is “old man yelling at clouds” stuff. Trump does not have a point, he has yet another grievance.
I have two things to say to Trump:
Cry harder.
Die mad.
We who voted in the Democratic primary voted for a two-person ticket. Anything can happen between the primary and the convention. If Biden had keeled over from a stroke on July 21, the result would be the same, Harris for President.
Anyway, MAGA tears are so, so sweet.
Out of fairness, we’ll let Trump drop out too.
James, I’m really struggling with saying there is “merit” to the claim.
I agree that what has happened is a first in modern American politics (if American politics in general). However, I am really struggling with the idea that this is somehow “unfair.” The Democrats, as a political party, have the ability to determine how their candidate is selected and to change that procedure if they so desire.
Merit suggests an argument has legal or moral force. I just don’t see it here.
I guess the best I can offer is that if Trump’s case has “merit,” then so to is the argument that he should have been prevented from ever running for office again given his behavior in 2020 and his attempt to break our Country’s long history of a peaceful transition of Presidential power.
@Matt Bernius: You are 100% correct. There is no merit.
I gripe about the lost SC appointment by Obama for Garland. There was a norm and then a new rule created by McConnell that was incredibly full of BS. But he had the power and them’s the rules so my complaints have no merit in a legal or even moral sense. Though they are highly motivating for me to help Dems keep the Senate.
The rules for the DNC are open to anyone to read and have remained unchanged through this entire event. To whit:
1.) The DNC is an open convention, and delegates are not AND NEVER HAVE BEEN bound by the results of their state primaries. As per DNC Rule 13(j), the only requirement is that:
2.) Much like the general election is really about choosing electors, the primaries are really about choosing delegates, and the vote for a candidate is really just a shorthand for which slate of delegates get chosen.
3.) All of Biden’s delegates are attending the convention, they’re just no longer voting for Biden as the nominee.
4.) If anyone objects to any of the above, the arbiter of whether the rules are being followed is the DNC credentialing committee. Which last I checked, Trump is not a member of.
This is all just concern trolling by a Republican party so up its own ass that it’s come to believe that it’s the ultimate arbiter of who the Democratic nominee is.
@Stormy Dragon:
5) No one can be forced to run for president, If Biden no longer wants to, or decided he shouldn’t, he has every right to retire from the race.
Which creates a bit of a legal issue in that according to federal election law, only one person can be registered as candidate and the money donated to the Biden campaign isn’t legally available to Harris. After the nomination, at the convention, there is an exception for the official president/VP campaign.
Won’t matter for a few years as the challenges work through the courts. But then Alvin Bragg went after Trump for such shenanigans with campaign funds.
The only reason Trump and his entourage are complaining is because Trump will complain about anything.
“It’s not FAIR!!!” Says the Toddler-in-chief who will argue no matter what just so that he can get what he wants. If we’re talking about sportsmanship, what about Trump’s complete inability to accept that he lost the election in 2020? Before griping about the Biden-Kamala handoff, maybe the Republicans and their supporters should demonstrate that they will at first stop being such sore losers when the vote goes against them?
@Tim D.: Yeah!! That’s fair! Good idea!
“Trump has a point.”
Oh, reeeeaaaaalllllyyyyyy? Nope, IMO the point is that the voices in his head aren’t telling him what he wants to hear.
@JKB:
As always, you and I profoundly disagree on what reality is. But as always, bless your heart.
Both parties have rules governing how to replace a candidate before the convention.
This is the general rule for the primary involving an incumbent President. The last time an incumbent President faced a serious challenge was in 1992.
Moreover, a serious candidate is unlikely to challenge an incumbent in the primary. It is not worth it. The President is the de facto head of the party. No one with Presidential aspirations wants to come at the King and miss.
“Waaah.”
really james.
Things change. Biden decided to step down. He gets to do that. Unless Trump can point to a violation of law, or even D Party rules, he’s got nothing. He’s a WATB.
@JKB:
Here comes JKB, coming with his bullshyt.
Trump should be running on his policy prescriptions and how they are better for the country than Democratic policies. But since his and his party’s policies are outlined by the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership document, he can’t campaign on those loser policies. So all he had was his personal attacks on Joe Biden, and now on Harris. It’s no one else’s fault but his own that he’s got nothing the majority of Americans want.
@JKB:
What’s “fair” in some abstract sense can turn out to be very subjective. And “unfair” things happen to ordinary people all the time. Furthermore, when one is in a fight, one’s enemy will seek to be as “unfair” as they possibly can. My expectation is that a Commander-in-Chief will spend very little time whining about “unfairness” and much more time on adapting to changes and overcoming obstacles.
Meanwhile, the only people who might have a legitimate beef are those people who voted for Biden in the primary.
They ain’t beefin’.
A man who’s only occasionally Lucid could not possibly engineer a high stakes multi-level hostage exchange involving multiple countries including a hostile enemy. But I understand the pundit class’s inability to do much more than lazily regurgitate obviously stupid right-wing propaganda.
@JKB: As I have pointed out to you before, that argument is unlikely to hold, as the Biden/Harris campaign is incumbent.
If this had been an open year, with no incumbent on either side, then there would potentially be an issue.
He may not have a point, but not one can question his convictions.
@ James
Trump did not “destroy” Biden in the debate. Biden self-destructed. Big difference.
Also Trump, to the evangelicals: “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.” Also Trump, on Truth Social: “We need to terminate the Constitution to get me back in power.”
He’s talking about ending democracy.
I’m so beyond tired of any talk of Giving A Theoretical Intellectual Point to Trump. The precondition for that — and this thread — is the notion that Trump believes in the same concept of representative democracy. He does not, and if you “think” he does, you are a liar, because you know he does not.
Trump deserves no consideration, period dot, full stop.
Trump does not have a point.
“They say George Washington’s yielding his power and stepping away
Is that true?
I wasn’t aware that was something a person could do
I’m perplexed, are they going to keep on replacing whoever’s in charge?
If so, who’s next?”
This plays in my mind every time TFG whines about it.
@Bobert: @Matt Bernius: My argument really hinges on the debate. Trump and everyone else had every reason to see that as the kick-off of the general election. Instead, it was a “heads you win, tails I lose” situation. Had it been Trump who did poorly, Biden would have stayed in the race. Instead, Biden fell on his face, cementing Trump’s lead in the polls, and then got pushed out three weeks later. It was the right thing for the country but unsporting.
@Jen: @Mikey: I do think dying or being physically unable to run would have been the same result, but not the same reaction. The fact that he hasn’t resigned the presidency adds to the sense that this was simply a do-over rather than a necessity.
@Mikey: And, I’m sorry, but nobody was voting for Harris. She was foisted upon us and the choice in 2020 was Biden/Whomever and Trump/Whomever. The choice in the 2024 primaries was Biden/Whomever, Tweedledee, or Tweedledum.
@DK: It wasn’t the right wing who forced Biden out of the race. The fact that his administration can function without him is a sign of his having picked a good team, not that he’s fit for the job now.
@James Joyner:
This shameful and rather dumb rightwing propaganda is not a “fact.” Reporting on the hostage deal showed Biden vigorously working the phones with partners in multiple countries. That is not something someone who is only occasionally lucid can do. The notion that hostage deal happened “without him” is evidence-free mollycoddle.
And, you also know Democratic power players did not push out Biden because they think he can’t president. They pushed him out because they thought he might lose, which is not the same thing.
And, yes, it’s a problem that many on the center and left who should know better frequently buy into and peddle rightwing nonsense. It’s a major reason the unqualified and unfit Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
@James Joyner:
It was also “unsporting” to hold up A Supreme Court Nominee over a “rule” they would crap on the very first chance they got. Can we do away with the crocodile tears? Give the level of criminality of the Trump administration and some of the other issues with candidates in the republican party, “unsporting” is as close to legitimate as one typically gets in US politics.
@James Joyner: Even political candidates for President have free will. What you seem to be arguing is that Biden could not/should not have been able to determine for himself that he was “physically unable to run.” Ultimately, this was Biden’s decision.
For example, if Biden had received a poor medical diagnosis in July and was advised that a rigorous campaign would harm his health, how would anything be different? He could step down from the campaign but still be able to serve out his term.
Trump’s railing against the “unfairness of it all” because he had been leading and now he’s not. That’s it. He wanted to coast–a reminder that he hates hard work–and now he’s flailing, trying to figure out how to campaign without paying all of his past-due bills at event venues and screeching about the unfairness of it all, and just using this as a new path to more “rigged election” BS.
He is a lazy, self-absorbed, liar, who is now running around calling the nomination of the current President’s VP a “coup.”
Putting the shoe on the other foot, if Mr. Fit of Pique decides he’s had enough and quits next week, are you suggesting that he not be allowed to quit?
Life happens. Candidates drop out all the time, for a variety of reasons. Trump does not have a point, but it appears as though he’s decided to keep railing about this instead of talking about his policy proposals…whatever they are.
All this Republican whining and hand-wringing neglects a very, very important point.
Harris came into this race with a HUGE disadvantage.
She had no campaign staff, no structure, no policy framework, and she was at least 1 year behind on name recognition and momentum. Further, she had to claim legitimacy as a nominee from a man who went out as an American hero, putting his country ahead of himself and his aspirations.
Even with all these disadvantages, she leads in the polls.
No wonder Trump is being a whiny bitch about it (like usual). Imagine if she had time to build out a proper campaign!
Trump should be delighted that the Democrats were in disarray and had to replace their candidate. His inability to take advantage of the situation reflects on his poor, weak abilities as a candidate and a leader.
@Tony W: Honestly, Trump is so wildly unpopular that pretty much any Generic Democrat could have beaten him. A lucid Biden would have mopped the floor with him. But an 81-year-old who can’t make it through a softball interview session, much less a hard-nosed debate, was a liability.
@James Joyner: Nonsense. She’s the incumbent VP. Her name was on the ballot next to Biden’s. Unless you think it was somehow plausible for Biden to dump his incumbent VP and run someone else, Harris was the only choice.
2020’s Democratic primary may have been “Biden/whomever,” but 2024 is most assuredly not.
This is the problem with the “nobody cares about the VP” or “the VP choice doesn’t matter” statements. There is always, always, always a chance that the VP will become POTUS, and with Biden’s age in 2020, this 100% should have been a consideration.
That some *choose* to ignore the possibility is an odd argument. When you vote for a ticket, you are absolutely voting for both. That’s literally the point of a ticket. This is even more the case in a year like 2024 when it was not an open seat, since the incumbent was qualified to run for a second term.
Back when I was in Missouri politics, one of our sitting members of congress died in June. This was before the primaries (which were in August) but after filing had passed. Because he was the incumbent, the only people who had filed for the primary were the um, “less conventional” Republican candidates. The congressman’s widow got appointed by the local Republican committee to fill out the remainder of his term, and because she was blocked from running as a Republican for the seat for the new term, she ran as an independent. I should mention that his death was not unexpected, he’d been battling cancer. I’m sure that the candidates who were on the ballot didn’t care for this turn of events, but frankly they were cranks and probably would have lost the seat for Republicans.
These things happen.
@James Joyner:
Obamas first debate with Romney was pretty bad.. which I guess they blamed on the altitude? Or maybe just overconfidence. Was it as bad as Biden’s performance? Of course not. But Obama was certainly much younger and still did pretty badly.
@James Joyner:
A) Politics is not a sport nor a game.
B) I know of no sport or game where the players are entitled to no surprises.
C) There are contests (e.g. football, war combat) where surprise is normal.
He chose to quit after having been intensely lobbied to understand his predicament.
Not golf, no issue of mulligans being a problem.
@Assad K:
I recall Obama saying something about this. Something like, in 2008, he was looking forward to the debates. But in 2012, after 3+ years in office, he just wanted to get it over with so he didn’t prepare as diligently.
@James Joyner:
Trump’s complaint that the Democratic Party bypassed a normal political convention process to annoint Harrris is very cool, especially in light of the fact that Trump more-than-routinely ignore norms, rules, and legal requirements.
So, I have no reservations at all in refusing to grant Trump the point here.