The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Special Edition: President Biden Drops a Political Bomb: President Biden Makes History as He Withdraws from Presidential Race Just 100 Days Before the 2024 General Election

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 - 13:52)President Biden Drops a Political Bomb: President Biden Makes History as He Withdraws from Presidential Race Just 100 Days Before the 2024 General ElectionExit, stage left: In a stunning development President Biden leaves the race, but huge questions loom by WORLD Opinions (R. Albert Mohler, Jr.)Part II (13:52 - 18:00)Can Democrats Come Up with a Winning Campaign in 100 Days? Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party’s Unprecedented Challenge for the 2024 Presidential ElectionPart III (18:00 - 24:19)President Biden and the Democratic Party’s Vast Leap to the Left: The Progressive Legacy of President Biden and the Left’s Grip on the Democratic PartyPart IV (24:19 - 25:50)‘One of the Most Monumental Collapses in Political History’ — We Will Long Remember This Day in American HistoryBiden Drops Out of Presidential Race, Endorses Harris by Wall Street Journal (Andrew Restuccia, Annie Linskey, Catherine Lucey)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Monday, July 22nd, 2024. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is a special edition of the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, you're going to remember yesterday. It's going to be one of those days etched into the American historical memory, particularly as related to presidential elections. What took place yesterday, of course, meant that most Americans, some of them coming home from church, basically received the announcement via Twitter or X, that the president, of the United States was withdrawing from the race. Now, that is not completely unprecedented in American history, as we shall see, but it is unprecedented at this point in the calendar. President Biden released his statement on the 21st of July, and we're within about 100 days

of the national election, which will be taking place on November 5th. This leaves his party without a nominee, at least officially at this point, and it leaves the entire political class in this country scrambling. It's not that we'd didn't see this coming. It is now clear that something like a conspiracy marked to the team closest to the president in that they were hiding from Americans the true state of his condition. There were those internationally and domestically who knew at least a part of the problem, but the entire nation, indeed the watching world, found out in the debate with former President Trump held on June the 27th, they saw that what we are now seeing in the president is someone who is clearly

unable to project another four years in the White House, and frankly, arguably, is not competent to be in the White House right now. But the likelihood of Joe Biden being removed or displaced in any sense as president with the remaining months, so few in his presidency, the risk there is very low. But what did add up very quickly was the Democratic calculus that they were going to face an absolute debacle when the general election comes on November the 5th. as if adding to the president's situation, the fact that he came down with COVID and was isolated at his home in Delaware, just underlying the fact that he was not on the campaign trail, and there were those who doubted he would ever be able to come back in any energetic way to

the presidential campaign. Yet the announcement that came yesterday was a bolt out of the blue, and the indications of that are that members of the administration itself had been at least engaging the press as late as Sunday morning insisting that the president was not going to withdraw from the race. And at least what we're being told is that the White House kept a very tight lid on it. As a matter of fact, the president himself, we are told, Joe Biden himself, released the statement on Twitter or X and basically surprised many people even within his own administration. But we do need to face the fact that this means a reset of American political history and a reset of the 2004 presidential election.

When the president made a statement, he addressed himself to, quote, my fellow Americans, he went on, rather predictably, to make some political boasts, but then by the time he reached the end of the third paragraph, he declared, quote, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term, end quote. Now, just to set the issue clearly, this is the very statement that the same man had been insisting he would not make just a matter of days and hours earlier. So in all likelihood, this does mean that something changed, or to put the matter perhaps even more clearly, open threats are being made against the president by members of his own party, and then he was abandoned by the donors in terms of the political class. And it was very clear that the president was being abandoned by almost everyone, but his own.

his inner circle and his family, and perhaps a few others who were at least not willing to publicly declare themselves in favor of the president withdrawing from the race. When he did make the announcement, it hit like a political bomb. Now, just to remind ourselves, if we go back to that debate on June the 27th, the Biden campaign had insisted on that early debate, unprecedented in terms of the schedule, because they thought it would serve the president's prospects for re-election. Instead, it was a debacle. It was, a collapse. It amounted to a catastrophe. In retrospect, it is really hard to imagine how any candidacy could survive the mental lapses and collapse that took place in that presidential debate. But, of course, what then ensues is everyone pulling tape with every faux pa of the president,

every faltering word, and there were so many of them, and for that matter, every sign of the advanced age of the president, many of those too, they all began to be repeated. over and over again. At some point, the grandees, the leaders of the Democratic Party had to come to the conclusion that Biden at the top of the ticket meant that they would be on the bottom of the electoral results. Other reports became a little more specific, indicating that there were particular people the president felt had betrayed him and represented a real threat to his ability to continue as the Democratic nominee. Number one, Barack Obama. The president of the United States that Joe Biden had served as vice president, Obama very clearly had been indicating to Biden and his team

that the time to come for him to exit the race. Now, what makes that particularly interesting when it comes to Joe Biden is that Joe Biden was basically a washed up political figure when in 2008 Barack Obama asked him to be his running mate. And that was clearly in order to add some age and ballast. Biden had already served 36 years in the United States Senate and at least some credibility in foreign policy, the experience of which Barack Obama had absolutely zero. But there was also no doubt that within the Obama administration, Obama and his team were the cool kids, and Joe Biden and his team were the decidedly uncool kids. And then adding insult to injury, when Joe Biden was determined that he would run to succeed Barack Obama in 2016, Obama did not support him and instead gave active public, eager support to Hillary,

Clinton, whom Barack Obama had defeated for the nomination in 2008. In other words, Joe Biden was looking to be elected president not only because of his political ambitions, but in order to get even. Biden's perception that Obama wanted him to leave the race was probably a motivation for Biden to remain in the race. But the other significant figure here is Nancy Pelosi, who served for so many years as the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, the liberal San Francisco had basically face to face with Biden indicated that she thought he needed to re-evaluate whether he should stay in the race. But sources very close to Pelosi indicate that she was ready to go to the president sometime early this week to make very clear that those who were determined that he

drop out of the race were about to start playing hardball. And hardball in this sense means playing with the verdict of history. And in all likelihood, Joe Biden and his family and his closest team decided that it would be better to go out by withdrawing from the race than by losing with absolutely evaporating democratic support. And this is the way the machine works, the way a political machine works. It was working against Joe Biden demanding that he leave the race and talking about what a liability he was and how he was endangering his place in history. Once he made the announcement to the delight of the democratic political class, they came out one by one and then in unison, crying out what a glorious presidency. Joe Biden had been exercising for the last four

years and how glorious he was going to be remembered in history, how successful he was. The accolades just kept coming and they will keep coming. That's the payoff for the president withdrawing from the race. In the mechanics of the electoral process, the big issue was probably the money. Because the donor class cutting off the money, and we're talking about turning off a faucet that needs and eight-figure sum virtually every week, the turning off of that faucet, as the donors decided he should withdraw from the race, it basically spelled his doom.

And that's the reality when you have political campaigns, and conservatives have been very big on private funding of political campaigns. The downside is, if the donors abandon you, you're broke. And if you're broke, you're basically out. But, you know, thinking as Christians, trying to understand this in the context of history, requires us to perhaps rethink a bit of,

of history. And here's something very interesting. If you look at the withdrawal of Joe Biden from this race, you're looking at a man leaving the race who was born in the year 1942. So right in the midst of World War II. By the way, another major American political leader, and that would be current Senate Majority Leader now retiring from that role, Mitch McConnell, also born 1942. Very interesting political class. But then you look to the year 1946. Why 1946? Well, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, 1942. In 1946, no less than three presidents of the United States were born. One year, 1946. First came Donald Trump born June the 14, 1946. Then came George W. Bush, July the 6th, 1946. And then Bill Clinton, August the 19th, 1946. One year, three presidents. And frankly,

you're just talking about one year, 1946, and you're talking about June, July, and July. and August. So they were the baby boomer presidents. And if Donald Trump is reelected and is not only the 45th, but the 47th president of the United States, we're still going to have a president born in 1946. But at this point, we are not going to have a president born in 1942. So when you look at Joe Biden, you're looking at the last president even to have been born in the course of World War II. Then you look at presidents Trump, Bush, and Clinton. Well, those three were born the year after America and its allies won World War II. You fast forward to anyone else being president of the United States,

and you're likely to jump, indeed almost assuredly going to jump, something like a generation. And in American presidential politics, once you make that jump, you almost never jump back. We're also looking at a big differential in terms of experience. Joe Biden served in the United States Senate for 36 years before becoming vice president under President Barack Obama. Looking at Kamala Harris, she served in the Senate just four years before becoming

vice president to Joe Biden. And you're looking at, for example, right now, someone like J.D. Vance serving thus far less than two years in the United States Senate before being tapped to serve or at least to run as vice president with former president Donald Trump. So you're really looking not only at a generational shift, you're looking at a change in the demographic profile, certainly when it comes to legislative experience. Now, that doesn't mean, by the way, that 36 years in the United States Senate is preferable to a shorter amount of time, because if anything, Joe Biden is a creature of Washington politics.

Arguably, he's virtually never had a job, a full-time job in his adult life, certainly after you reach the age 30, that wasn't on the federal payroll. And so you really are looking at a product of Washington versus a sea change, not only in terms of the generational profile, but also the experience profile itself. But then we also need to understand some other patterns in history that certainly are going to come into play here. For one thing, on March the 29th in 1952, then-president Harry S. Truman, who was eligible, the last one, by the way, eligible before the 25th Amendment would kick in. Harry S. Truman withdrew from the race in 1952. He did so on March the 29th.

And that required an entire reset on the Democratic side. The same thing happened, and this was during my lifetime, on March the 31st in 1968, when President Lyndon Baines Johnson was addressing the nation in a controversial address on the Vietnam War, when he came to the end of his address, he announced that he would not seek nor accept the nomination of his party to serve another term as president of the United States. That completely astounded the nation. it caught the political class, as Joe Biden did today, by surprise, and it also was clearly a turning point in history. I was nine years old at the time. My father and I were watching this unfold on

television. My father lit me in the face and said, in a way, I remember even now, you will remember this night for the rest of your life. He was actually right. I do. I remember it right now. Something else to keep in mind, however, is that Presidents Truman and Johnson, both Democrats, they withdrew from the race for their party's nomination when everyone knew they could have it if they wanted it, but they didn't believe that they would be able to win the election. Here's the other thing to remember. Neither of their parties was victorious in November. And they made those announcements in the month of March.

It's just almost inconceivable to understand how the Democrats can coalesce around a new nominee and come up with a winning campaign in a matter of something like 100 days. But you can count on them trying. and furthermore, the tipping point came when the leaders of the party came to the conclusion that attempting that kind of campaign was likely to be more successful than staying with the candidate that is Joe Biden. But even as this crisis unfolded for the Democrats, basically after the June 27th debate disaster, even as it was unfolding, the obvious question is if Joe Biden isn't the nominee for the Democratic Party, then who will be? And at this point, it became very clear

that the path of least resistance of the Democratic Party, and if anything, that's an understatement, is nominating Biden's vice president, the current vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, as the next nominee of the Democratic Party. Of course, that opens the question as to the vice presidential nominee, but let's not go there. We can't go there yet. At this point, Kamala Harris does not have the nomination wrapped up, but it was very telling. And this indicates some advanced work without question. It was very telling that by the end of the day yesterday, the chairman of the Democratic parties in the various states, and by some claims, all 50 states, had indicated their open, unqualified support for Kamala Harris. Most importantly,

the president of the United States also very eagerly appointed, anointed, endorsed Kamala Harris's vice president to be his successor as the Democratic nominee. Very shortly after withdrawing from the race, President Biden went on to say, again, on Twitter or X, quote, my very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice president. And it's been the best decision I've made. Today, I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. The president then concluded that statement by saying Democrats, it's time to come together and beat Trump let's do this." End quote. Well, without doubt, that is what President Biden wants to see happen, and he probably sees his vice president becoming the presidential nominee is something of a

validation of his administration and his place in Democratic Party history. But of course, there's more to it than that. When you're talking about Kamala Harris, the current vice president, you're talking about someone who was actually a disastrous candidate in her own right for the Democratic nomination back in the 2020 cycle. Kamala Harris began with a lot of money. She began with a lot of political profile, but she ended, even before the Iowa caucuses, she ended without earning a single delegate to the Democratic National Convention. So it's actually asking the party a whole lot to decide to put all of its eggs in the Kamala Harris basket, so to speak. But that's exactly where the party's lining up. And in order to understand that, you have to see the rules of the Democratic Party that puts this decision in the hands of the delegates. And then you understand how complicated that's going to become.

Because the Democratic National Convention meets just within about 30 days. And as the Democrats gather in Chicago, how likely is it that if there isn't an overwhelming leader going into that event, they're going to come out with any kind of unity within just a matter of weeks left before the election? The other big thing in play here is that when you are looking at the delegates who will be going to that convention, they were chosen as a lot of. loyalist for Joe Biden precisely because Joe Biden had insisted he was going to run and was going to win a second term. So it's going to be very interesting to see. And then also remember one other

strange twist. That twist is that in order to get around a law in a single state, and that has been remedied, by the way, the Democrats decided they were actually going to toll or poll count the votes and the delegates and basically take the legal maneuvers to appoint a nominee. thinking it was Joe Biden, they intended to do that days and potentially at one point even weeks before the convention itself. So this puts the party in a very difficult position. And the Democrats are going to have to think fast and they're going to have to lawyer up because this could become an issue in terms of ballot contests in at least some of the states. Then again, the big question is simply going to be, does Kamala Harris get the nomination? And if she does, what does that mean for the

Democratic Party, who would she choose as a vice presidential candidate? In this sense, we need to look at what took place yesterday, and again, the most shocking thing after the president's announcement, was his endorsement of Kamala Harris, and then the coalescing it appeared of the party's leaders behind her, you're likely to start hearing some very different messaging and at least some open questions being asked as to whether or not Kamala Harris is going to be able to pull this off, and if so, what it will mean for her party. And let's just remind ourselves that Kamala Harris, the 40 ninth vice president of the United States. Again, she served four years as the United States Senator from the state of California. She had served as the 32nd Attorney General of California

before that was a prosecutor. But the fact is that Kamala Harris represents a position, at least in terms of her political career, which is to the left of Joe Biden. And here's the big thing. Here is the biggest lesson in all of this. Joe Biden was the figurehead for a transformation of the Democratic Party, away from not only the generation of Joe Biden, but also the political profile of Joe Biden. Joe Biden hitched his wagon to a very liberal trend, a liberal ideology, the leftward not only drift, but surge of his party, and he now becomes the transition figure. And if indeed Kamala Harris is the next nominee, you're talking about a vast leap to the left in terms of political ideology. And behind Kamala Harris,

are those even further to the left. When it comes to Kamala Harris, an issue. And it comes to Kamala Harris, in issues, just remember the fact that President Biden, very publicly with a lot of flash, announced that she was going to be the administration's point person on immigration. Her score on that has to be an absolute F. And that's not something that she's going to be able to build upon. It's another glaring problem for the Democrats, because when it comes to voter priorities, immigration is right up there as issue number one or number two on most lists. The second thing you need to keep in mind about Kamala Harris is that on the issue of social concerns,

and in particular, let's take the issue of life, the issue of abortion. She is far to the left. And as a matter of fact, even as President Biden very disingenuously said that his goal was to see Roe legislated, in other words, Roe reversed by the Supreme Court, he said he wanted to see the same policy basically put in legislation. That was never honest. The Democratic Party will never be satisfied. even with the deadly impact of Roe. They're going to demand not only less restrictions, if not no restrictions on abortion. They're openly in their platform going to demand taxpayer funding of abortion. But nonetheless, so long as Joe Biden kept saying over and over again that he wanted to see Roe put into law, well, Kamala Harris had to say basically what the man at the top said.

But now that she is likely to become the Democratic nominee, you're going to see the Democratic Party, I think lurch even further to the left on abortion. Another indication of that is that President Biden has basically given to her for the period after the Dobbs decision in 2022, the role of being the Democratic Party's point person in terms of unqualified support for abortion. So we really are going to look at a clash of worldviews. Just to take one issue. And again, I am very disappointed in President Trump's insistence that he would not support federal legislation to protect the sanctity of human life. But even as that's a disappointment, I realize it's going to be now contrasted with the fact that Kamala Harris is going to run on a platform of legislating abortion rights, a liberal position on

abortion, a nearly unrestricted position on abortion. So you're still going to be looking at a colossal chasm between the two parties and the two nominees. When it comes to the question of the vice president, if indeed Kamala Harris is going to be the party's nominee for president, it's very likely that someone with a more moderate political reputation and voting records likely to be chosen, someone representing a swing state. Critical swing states include states such as New Mexico, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and most importantly for the Democrats, Pennsylvania. And then add to that, very interestingly, the state of North Carolina,

where it is at least hoped by some Democrats that they can win. that historically Republican state in recent cycles. So with all of this calculus kind of rolling around, it makes no sense that Gavin Newsom, the liberal governor of California would be her running mate. You're not going to have two candidates, both the president and the vice president from a state like California, and Newsom would have other liabilities as well. It's unlikely that, for instance, Governor Pritzker of Illinois be chosen because the Democrats are going to carry Illinois. So you're really looking at Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, and Mark Kelly, United States Senator from Arizona, and particularly, and this is what's new and interesting,

Roy Cooper, the Democratic Governor of North Carolina, those three are probably the three most likely candidates. One of them is likely to be chosen to be vice president. And at least in terms of some prognostications, it may well be Mark Kelly, because he's a former astronaut, former military pilot, current United States Senator, husband to former Representative Gabby Giffords. He comes with a pretty interesting story, and the Democrats may decide that, at least with a very short campaign before them, they need someone who could be introduced very quickly. All this just underlines the fact that we are looking at the 2024 election and virtually at every level. You're talking about state, local, and of course, national electoral results. You're looking at the fact that

vast worldview issues are implicated. For Christians, this has to most importantly get to issues such as the integrity of the family, the entire structure of morality. and the sanctity of human life. And just to take those issues by themselves, and they're not the only issues, but just to take those issues by themselves, there's going to be a vast chasm between the two parties. And again, many of us are disappointed that the Republican Party is less explicit in some of these affirmations than it was before. No hiding that disappointment. But we are looking at the fact that with Joe Biden coming out of the race, Biden was bad enough. But now when the party is going to lurch to the left, well, we are given advance warning of the fact that

the stakes just got hotter and they just got higher. But as we conclude this special edition of the briefing, I want to go back to the fact that as my father said to me that night in 1968, son, you'll remember hearing this. You'll remember this happening with you watching. That's the way Americans should consider. American families should have discussions about what we all observed and saw unfolding yesterday. The Wall Street Journal ran an article in which it declared the Biden withdrawal as, quote, marking one of the most monumental political collapses in American history. End quote. And if the day represented nothing, it represented at least that. One of the most monumental political collapses in American history. Most days, even days with some historical import,

we quickly forget. But I'm going to predict that this day you will remember. And for good reason. Thanks for listening to the briefing. You'll find today at World Opinions, an article I wrote on this development entitled Exit Stage Left. In stunning development, President Biden leaves the race, but huge questions loom. For more information, go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on Twitter or X by going to Twitter.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsknotes.edu. For information on Bois College, just go to Boiscollege.com. I'll meet you again very soon for the briefing.