Debunking a Republican fantasy about Joe Biden

Secret plot!

On Monday, Nikki Haley suggested that there is a secret plot to replace President Joe Biden happening right under our noses.

She told CBS’ Ed O’Keefe that Democratic party leaders are “scrambling to figure out” who the presidential nominee will be this fall because it’s “not going to be Joe Biden.” Added Haley: “They've got to figure out what’s next, who’s next.”

This is far from the first time that Haley has suggested that Biden will not be on the ballot.

Earlier this month, Haley sounded a similar note about Biden. She said:

“My bet is 30 days from now, I don’t think Joe Biden’s going to be the nominee … You look at, one, the report that came out, then he does the press conference where he was angry and then he has another confused moment. Then he doesn’t do the interview today that’s awarded to every president for 25 minutes before the Super Bowl, and you see the Democrats starting to melt down. I wish Joe Biden well, I really do. But the Democrats in the best interest of their party and our country, they need to find a new nominee.”

Donald Trump, too, has suggested as much.

“I personally don’t think he makes it,” Trump said of Biden in a Fox News interview in December 2023.

Later that same month, Trump told Breitbart this of Biden:

“All you have to do is look at his credentials. When you compare him today to 15 or 20 years ago, he's a different kind of a guy. The guy can't talk. The guy can't put two sentences together. So I do think this: I cannot believe he's going to be the nominee. I hope he is. But I can't believe he's going to be the nominee.”

And then there’s Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who, aside from Haley, has been perhaps the most vocal about the idea of a secret Democratic plot to replace Biden on the ballot.

“So here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous,” Cruz said on his podcast last fall. “In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama. I view this as a very serious danger.”