Former President Trump is drawing concern from critics as he claims that Vice President Harris’s nomination as the Democratic nominee is somehow unconstitutional, with some warning he could be laying the groundwork to challenge an election defeat as he did in 2020.
Trump has repeatedly tried to portray Harris’ candidacy as the Democratic nominee to replace President Biden as a nefarious move, likening it to a “coup” and saying in recent days that it could be unconstitutional because she did not lead in primary votes.
Biden and other Democrats, as well as some Republican critics of Trump, have suggested that the former president’s rhetoric was aimed at casting doubt on the November results if Harris wins.
“We know one thing for sure. Trump never loses. And so if he’s not the winner in 2024 like he was in 2020, it’s certainly because he was treated unfairly, again,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton told CNN.
“That’s why people need to start thinking more now about how to prevent Trump, the day after the election, if he loses, from trying to throw the process into chaos again,” Bolton added.
Biden announced on July 21 that he would not seek reelection. Democrats quickly rallied behind Harris, who was officially certified as the party’s nominee this week after delegates voted.
Trump, who was leading Biden in the polls and appeared on track to win in November, has repeatedly said the president was forced to resign and called it a “coup.” More recently, he has questioned whether Democrats’ replacement of Biden with Harris somehow violated the Constitution, especially after recent polls showed Harris closing in on him.
In a post published this week on Truth Social, Trump claimed that Biden’s presidency was “unconstitutionally STOLEN” from him.
“From a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint, they took away the presidency,” Trump said at a news conference Thursday.
Asked for his analysis of why the measure was unconstitutional, Trump pointed to the lack of support Harris enjoyed in Democratic primaries, including when she ran in 2020.
“The fact that you can get no votes, lose in the primary system – in other words, you had 14 or 15 people, she was the first one out – and then you can be chosen to run for president. That actually seems unconstitutional to me. Maybe it’s not,” Trump said.
David Axelrod, a former senior White House adviser under Obama, said on X that Trump was “setting the stage for a rejection of the results of an election he now fears he will lose” with his comments.
Some Republicans suggested in July that any attempt to replace Biden on the ballot could be subject to legal challenge, but experts said such an effort would be unlikely to succeed in court.
The Canton Repository reported this week that an Ohio man who said he would vote for Trump has filed a lawsuit to block Harris from replacing Biden on the ballot. But the Ohio Secretary of State’s office said parties have until Sept. 1 to nominate their candidate.
Sonia Gipson Rankin, a law professor at the University of New Mexico, said Trump was alluding to the idea that since voters voted for Biden in the primary process and he won’t be on the ballot, they have no say.
She noted that Democratic delegates never formally endorsed Biden as the party’s nominee in a roll call vote, and his name was not placed on any ballot.
“Another question will be who has standing to sue, and the RNC or former President Trump will have to decide whether they want to devote resources to that issue during this condensed campaign period,” Rankin said. “Federal courts have particularly strict standing requirements, while state courts have their own rules, which often ensure that major-party candidates automatically appear on the ballot.”
Trump’s rhetoric will be closely watched in light of what happened after his 2020 election loss. Trump spent much of 2020 casting doubt on the reliability of mail-in and absentee ballots, and he spent the weeks after Election Day claiming the outcome was fraudulent or rigged. He launched numerous legal challenges, including all the way to the Supreme Court, but they were rejected for lack of evidence.
Trump’s accusations culminated in the January 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol, when protesters violently clashed with law enforcement and stormed the building in an attempt to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory. Trump has been criminally charged for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
The former president said during the 2024 cycle he would accept the results if he deemed the election “honest.”
“Of course there will be a peaceful transfer, and that was the case last time,” Mr. Trump said Thursday. “And there will be a peaceful transfer. I just hope we have an honest election.”
Biden, in his first interview since opting not to run for re-election, said he was “not at all confident” there would be a peaceful transfer of power next January if Trump loses.
“If Trump wins, no, I have no confidence in myself. I mean, if Trump loses, I have no confidence in myself,” Biden told “CBS Sunday Morning,” initially mispronouncing the sentence before correcting himself.
“He means what he says,” Biden added. “We don’t take him seriously. He means it.”
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