A news report Monday said Democratic Party leaders have been threatening to forcibly remove President Joe Biden from office and even used his debate against former President Donald Trump last month to set him up for failure to help speed the process along.
The report in the New York Post quoted a source “close to the Biden family” as saying the “well-orchestrated ‘palace coup’ to stop the faltering president from seeking re-election had been in place for weeks, but stubborn Biden fought it every step of the way.”
As the president dug in his heels and refused to yield, “party bigwigs” threatened to employ the 25th Amendment, which describes the succession of power in case the president dies, resigns or is removed from office, the report said.
That amendment would allow the vice president and the Cabinet “to declare the president unfit to serve and force him to step down,” the Post noted.
The June 27 debate “was a set-up to convince Democrats that he couldn’t run for president,” the source told the outlet.
During that debate, the 81-year-old Biden made several notable gaffes and struggled to give coherent answers.
Even before that event, conservatives had been pointing to the president’s declining mental and physical abilities and calling for him to resign — or at least drop out of this year’s presidential race.
Until the debate, the White House vehemently denied there was anything wrong with Biden and claimed the criticisms were “cheap fake” videos deceptively edited to make the president look bad.
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Liberal media commentators played along, with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who said he has spent hours talking with the president, insisting just a few months ago that Biden was “better than he’s ever been, intellectually.”
“This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever,” Scarborough said during a March program.
But after the debate, many liberals joined the chorus of voices calling for the president to step aside.
Even liberal news outlets, including The New York Times editorial board, called for him to leave the race.
The Post’s story about the “palace coup” seemed to confirm what many observers had theorized.
Philadelphia talk radio host Rich Zeoli said as much in a July 12 post on social media platform X.
“The debate in June was a setup,” Zeoli declared. “It was a setup to show everybody how bad Joe Biden is because Joe Biden’s going to lose to Donald Trump in a landslide, and they need him out of the race.”
The debate in June was a setup by the Democrats to show how bad Joe Biden is. Here’s why they’re trying to replace him:
Visit the link below to watch the full show!https://t.co/3sPqQYw23b pic.twitter.com/g5ggG8924m— Rich Zeoli 🇺🇸 (@Richzeoli) July 12, 2024
The Post’s source described Biden as displaying “anger, paranoia and frustration … as the party elite circled around him and piled on the pressure.”
After the debate, the president’s son, Hunter Biden, “suddenly became more involved in his father’s day-to-day business and insisted upon attending every official and unofficial meeting,” according to the source.
“Hunter felt he [Joe Biden] was being set up and he was very concerned about his father,” the person said. “These people, these officials were not on Joe’s side.”
The source said Biden’s White House staff members “did not have any forewarning about the bombshell decision to pull out of the race, which was known since at least Tuesday.”
The person confirmed that the president’s decline has been noticeable for a long time.
“When I saw him a couple of years ago, it was frightening,” the source said. “He was just repeating slogans and had no idea who I was.”
