A new Substack post by Seymour Hersch suggests that former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, threatened sitting President Joe Biden with the potential invocation of the 25th Amendment if he didn’t drop out of the presidential race and cede the spot to Harris. This implies that not only did they force Biden out of the race, but that the Democrats are aware Biden isn’t fit to serve out the rest of his term, yet are comfortable letting him continue as a figurehead to retain power for the party.
Following Biden’s debate with former President and GOP nominee Donald Trump on June 27, which went poorly, Democratic leaders and pundits immediately began seeking ways to remove Biden from the ticket. They saw little chance that Biden, in his diminished state, could defeat Trump. The party elite were alarmed and worked hard both publicly and privately to oust Biden. While much of this played out in leaked rumors and speculation, Hersch’s account suggests a more orchestrated effort behind the scenes, involving threats from the Obama-Harris team.
“By Saturday, July 20,” Hersch writes, “former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden. It was not clear whether Biden had been examined or just what happened to him in Las Vegas. ‘The Big Three,’ the official said, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, continued to be directly involved. ‘On Sunday morning,’ the official told me, with the approval of Pelosi and Schumer, ‘Obama called Biden after breakfast and said, ‘Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.’ The amendment provides that when the president is determined by the vice president and others to be unfit to carry out the powers and duties of his office, the vice president shall assume those duties.”
“It was clear at this point,” the official said, “that she would get the nod—that is, the support to run for the presidency in the November election. But Obama also made it clear that he was not going to immediately endorse her. But the group had decided that her work as a prosecutor would help her deal with Trump in a debate.”
On July 26, both Barack and Michelle Obama endorsed Harris. The phone call during which they offered her their backing was filmed, with Harris holding the phone to her ear and a mic visible on her blazer.
“The official, who has decades of experience in fundraising, told me that Obama emerged as the strongman throughout the negotiations. ‘He had an agenda and he wanted to see it through to the end, and he wanted to have control over who would be elected.'”
Rumors had circulated that Pelosi and Schumer wanted Biden out and that Obama had given Hollywood A-lister George Clooney the go-ahead to write his op-ed in The New York Times calling for Biden to step aside. It was also rumored that if Biden didn’t step down, his legacy would be at stake. Once Biden’s letter withdrawing from the race was posted to X, with Harris’s endorsement shortly afterward, party leadership praised Biden’s “selfless” decision to step aside and support Harris. Jeffries and Schumer began claiming that Harris’s candidacy was coming from the “grassroots” and not from the “top down.”
If Hersch is correct, it becomes clear that Biden did not step down “selflessly” but was forced out under the threat of losing his presidency altogether. It also suggests that Harris was installed by top party brass and not by grassroots support, as the party claims. To date, Harris has not received a single vote.