Former President Donald Trump alleged that Joe Biden was replaced by an inferior candidate, claiming the Democratic Party orchestrated a coup.
Trump, who has previously accused former President Barack Obama of orchestrating Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, told Fox News that senior Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, convinced the 81-year-old Biden to leave the race due to low poll numbers.
“They staged a coup against the President of the United States,” Trump said in an interview with Laura Ingraham. “They went in and they told him ‘you’re leaving, you’re way down in the polls’, 17 points, I think.”
“It’s like you’re in a fight with somebody, and you’re really winning, and they take him out and they put somebody else in,” Trump continued. “Nobody ever heard of this before. This is a coup.”
In an interview with the New York Post last month, Trump claimed that Obama “can’t stand” Biden and played a key role in forcing him out of the race.
“They all dumped him, and they said, ‘Either you get out nice or we’re going to go after you.’ And that’s what happened. And he had no choice. There’s no question about it,” Trump told the newspaper.
Biden announced his withdrawal on social media while quarantined at home with Covid-19. He did not appear in public until three days after the announcement and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his stead in a brief post on X (formerly Twitter).
“I would rather run against her than him,” Trump told Ingraham. “I think she’s easier than he is. I always felt he was incompetent but he had a certain base, and no matter how bad he was, people were going to vote for him. She doesn’t have that base.”
Harris ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019 but withdrew from the primary race that year with less than 900 popular votes and low poll numbers.
Despite being an unpopular vice president, Harris is currently polling better against Trump than Biden was before his withdrawal. However, analysts have warned that she is likely benefiting from a temporary boost in enthusiasm that will subside as the campaign progresses.
Trump has focused his attacks on Harris’ liberal record and her role as Biden’s “border czar,” blaming her for record levels of illegal immigration since 2021. He has also made personal attacks on Harris, telling a panel of black journalists on Wednesday that she promoted her Indian heritage until “she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black,” and telling Ingraham that she has “the laugh of a crazy person.”