In Joe Biden’s letter announcing he is not running for reelection, he says,

And while it has [emphasis added] been my intention to seek reelection, 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.

Shouldn’t that be “had,” or is that a sly way of indicating that the Democrat operatives are booting him from the ticket against his will?  Regardless, there are now calls among prominent Republicans suggesting that if Biden is mentally unfit to run for reelection, he is mentally unfit to be president, and if he won’t step down willingly, he should be ousted immediately, say by the 25th Amendment invoked by Kamala Harris as vice president.  J.D. Vance:

If Joe Biden ends his reelection campaign, how can he justify remaining President?  Not running for reelection would be a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as Commander-in-Chief.  There is no middle ground.

Other Republicans with similar sentiments are House Speaker Mike Johnson (“if Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President”), Montana Senator Steve Daines, and South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace:

If Joe Biden does not have the cognitive ability to seek reelection, he does not have the cognitive ability to serve the remainder of his term. Tomorrow I will introduce a resolution calling on Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th amendment and assume the duties of acting President.

Now it may well be true that if Biden doesn’t have the cognitive ability for one, he doesn’t have it for the other.  But is publicly supporting his removal wise?  Regarding doing so through the 25th Amendment, I’ll reiterate what I said previously: If Biden attests he is fit, it takes the votes of two-thirds of both Houses to override his reinstatement, not a certainty by any means.  (According to sources, top Democrat operatives threatened Biden with removal from office with the 25th Amendment unless he stepped down from the ticket.  He could’ve called their bluff.  But maybe being removed initially would have been too embarrassing to his legacy and more than he was willing to bear.)  A similar argument can be made with regard to the impeachment process, which requires a majority in the House to impeach and then two-thirds in the Senate for removal.  Included in the uncertainty is that a subset of Republicans might decide leaving Biden in as president to finish his term increases Trump’s chances of winning in November, because a) the legal challenges arising in some states from a late candidate swap due to forcible removal may not present as much of a hurdle as a candidate making a late political decision to step down; b) it prevents Kamala from having the opportunity to appear presidential; c) it might (advantageously to Republicans) affect the makeup of the Democrat ticket; and d) a no-witted President Biden is safer for our country than a dim-witted acting President Harris.

Yes, if their actions result in Biden remaining as president, Republicans would be attacked—maybe from both sides—for a selfish position harming the country.  But a very defensible rebuttal might be that it is the Democrats, along with a compliant press, who installed Biden knowing he was mentally incapacitated, and until this was discovered by all at the debate, tried to sneak him through reelection.  The Republicans are merely maximizing the probability that Trump wins in November, because if not, there will be nothing left of our country to save.  They can say the cabal, which has been in charge up until now, will just have to remain in charge until January 20, and anything deleterious that happens in the meantime is its responsibility.

Maybe calling for Biden’s removal is a feint to score points now.  But then that would put pressure on other Republicans planning to vote against later.  I just hope the Republicans are thinking this through.

W.A. Eliot is a pseudonym.

Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr, unaltered.