Hawley called on Biden to resign Sunday. But it’s not the first time he’s said that
It only took six minutes after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign before Sen. Josh Hawley called on Biden to resign.
He issued his declaration in all caps.
“Then RESIGN your office,” Hawley wrote above Biden’s letter on social media. “If you can’t run a mere political campaign, you can’t be President.”
It marked the third time Hawley has called on Biden to resign – the latest example of how the Missouri Republicans wields calls for resignation in his rhetorical toolbox as a simple, direct way to voice outrage in a heightened media cycle.
Over the past four years, he has called for Biden to resign after 13 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan and after a special prosecutor declined to pursue charges over his handling of classified documents.
It isn’t just Biden, it’s his administration too. Hawley has called for the resignation of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the director of the Secret Service, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But this time, he wasn’t alone.
Across the board – from back bench conservatives in Congress to the campaign of former President Donald Trump – Republicans almost uniformly issued statements on Sunday calling for Biden to resign. If he wasn’t capable of running a political campaign, they claimed, he wasn’t capable of being president.
Democrats weren’t moved.
“He is perfectly capable of leading our country,” said former Rep. Nancy Boyda, a Douglas County Democrat, “That’s just nonsense.”
Boyda, who is running in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, called on Biden to drop out the day after his disastrous June debate against Trump. In an interview with the Star, Boyda said her concern after the debate was about electing Biden to another four years in office, not whether he could continue to serve out his current term.
“I believe that going in and asking him to do four more years was not a good idea, which is why I called for it,” Boyda said. “But the man is certainly capable of making the decisions we need to make to keep our country safe.”
Instead, Democrats have been treating Biden’s decision to step aside as political — not physical. While donors, lawmakers and political operatives appeared divided over the past few weeks about whether Biden was too old to run, the question mostly focused on whether he would be able to serve another four years, not another five months.
Republicans and age
Hawley first called for Biden’s resignation eight months into Biden’s presidency.
As U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan, a suicide bomber took advantage of the chaos and killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 100 Afghan citizens. Hawley, outraged at the botched withdrawal, immediately called for the resignation of top military officials and Biden himself – while attempting to slow down Biden nominees from being approved by the Senate.
Nearly three years later – Hawley renewed his call after Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges against Biden over his handling of classified documents.
While there was some evidence Biden may have willfully disclosed classified documents, Hur wrote in a searing report, he did not believe he would succeed in convincing a jury that Biden had broken the law beyond a reasonable doubt – arguing Biden’s defense would likely paint the president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The report caused immediate outcry among Democrats – claiming Hur took a political shot in a legal document – and prompted Biden to hold an angry press conference denouncing the report. As he left, he took a question from a reporter where he referred to the President of Egypt as the President of Mexico.
“The Special Counsel’s report and Biden’s embarrassing press conference last night make clear: He should either resign as unfit or face criminal prosecution,” Hawley wrote on social media at the time. “Can’t have it both ways.”
Hawley’s reaction to the special counsel report fit into the larger message Republicans have pushed about Biden since he became the oldest person to ever hold the presidency.
Conservative lawmakers have regularly questioned whether Biden is the one making the decisions in the Oval Office and Republican staffers have clipped hundreds of videos where the 81-year-old appears lost or frail.
As Trump launched his third bid for president, his campaign made Biden’s age a central tenet. Over the past few months his campaign has presented Trump as a strong leader and Biden as a frail old man – an image reinforced by Biden’s weak debate performance and Trump’s staunch defiance after facing legal trouble and an assassination attempt.
Biden’s campaign was able to do little to quell the narrative. While he stepped up his public appearances and appeared more willing to sit down with the press, those interviews seemed to affirm voters’ impressions that the 81-year-old was too old and frail to be able to last.
“It’s not a new thing to say Biden’s not capable,” said Patrick Miller, a political science professor at Kent State University.. “But you’ve had an event here that raises concerns about his age and his ability to forward. So like anything in politics, any event, you try to spin it in a way that advantages you.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, took the call for Biden to step down a step farther on Monday – writing a letter to the members of Biden’s cabinet calling on them to invoke the 25th amendment. The amendment allows members of an administration to remove the president if they do not believe he is fit to serve.
Schmitt has been a frequent surrogate for Trump on the campaign trail and is on the short list to serve as Attorney General in a Trump administration.
It’s unlikely that Democrats will remove Biden from office. But Miller said the rhetoric wasn’t about actually getting Biden removed from office – it was about keeping the conversation on Biden’s health and questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’ judgment as Democrats appear to be lining up behind her as the likely Democratic nominee.
“Republicans have been having a few good weeks,” Miller said. “And if I were them, I’d want to keep milking that cow a little more.”
The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed reporting
This story was originally published July 23, 2024 at 12:54 PM.
