This is an adapted excerpt from the August 10th episode of “Velshi.”
After months of criticizing President Joe Biden for his age and mental acuity, Donald Trump and his allies appeared to be taken by surprise when someone younger and sharper took over.
According to Trump, Americans are now being scammed because, listen, the campaign… stolen from Biden.
“The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m not a Biden fan. But I’ll tell you, from a constitutional standpoint, no matter which standpoint you look at it from, they took away the presidency… For a country with a constitution that we cherish — we cherish this constitution — it’s pretty serious, pretty terrible to do it this way. You would think they would have gone to a vote, they would have had a primary system, they would have done something, but to just take it away from him like he was a child…”
Hearing Trump say he cherishes the Constitution is pretty rich, but this isn’t the first time he’s made that claim. Trump posted on Truth Social that “the Democrats unconstitutionally chose a candidate … and then unceremoniously replaced him with a new candidate.” Team Trump has even likened the whole situation to a “coup.”
If you’re like me, you’ve seen versions of Trump’s lie all over social media. And maybe you’ve heard it from your conservative uncle who likes to pick fights at family dinners. I don’t want to believe every ridiculous claim Trump makes, but this one seems worth debunking.
So, to substantiate the facts, the presidency has not been taken from Biden. And Vice President Kamala Harris did not unconstitutionally strip Biden of the Democratic nomination. In fact, the U.S. Constitution does not address the issue of party nomination processes.
Here are some other talking points you can politely bring up with your extra-loud uncle: Biden won the overwhelming majority of Democratic delegates in the primary process and clinched the presumptive nomination in March. But he wasn’t formally the Democratic nominee — he was the likely nominee. This allowed him, after much consideration, to voluntarily step aside. He was not kicked off the party ticket, and while the whole move may have been a politically risky one, there is nothing illegal about it.
When Democratic primary voters selected Biden, Harris’ name was attached to his and they chose her as vice president — you know, the role the president takes over when needed. So the argument that the American public didn’t have a chance to vote for Harris is categorically false. Moreover, on November 5, they either get to vote for her or they don’t.
The Democratic Party has many rules for a situation as dire as a presidential election. There are rules for this exact scenario. In order to officially replace Biden on the ticket, Harris had to win the support of at least 2,350 Democratic convention delegates, including those who had already pledged their support to Biden, as well as elected officials, former presidents and other party stalwarts known as “superdelegates.”
And lo and behold, she did. The Democratic National Committee held a virtual roll call to make sure everything was in order, and it was announced that Harris had enough delegate votes to become the party’s nominee.
To avoid complications with the physical vote — the Democratic Party held a virtual appeal to ensure Harris’ name, along with that of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, could be printed on the ballots before the Aug. 7 certification deadline.
If the Democratic Party wanted to replace its nominee after the convention, that would be a different story. Although it still wouldn’t be unconstitutional, because the Constitution says nothing about party nominations. Anyone who tells you otherwise either woefully misunderstands the process or is being deliberately misleading.
As Steve Benen of MaddowBlog puts it:
“Biden was free to voluntarily resign; he was free to endorse his vice president as his successor; Harris was free to seek her party’s nomination; and Democrats were free to choose her to lead the party’s ticket. Not only did these events comply with federal election law, the idea that the U.S. Constitution somehow prohibits what happened is preposterous… What voters are confronted with, in other words, is a politician who seems to have convinced himself that ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘things that bother me’ are synonymous. They are not.”
But if Trump wants to talk about things that are unconstitutional and an attempt to steal the election from the people… I’d like to remind him of January 6th.
Join Ali Velshi, Rachel Maddow, and many more on Saturday, September 7 in Brooklyn, New York, for “MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024,” a first-of-its-kind live event. You’ll see your favorite hosts in person and hear thought-provoking conversations about what matters most in the final weeks of an unprecedented election cycle. Buy tickets here.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
