On New Year’s Day, President Biden sent this text to Vice-President Kamala Harris:
“I quit.”
Vice-President Harris has been scammed many times by TikTok/Chinese pranksters and Russian misinformation, so she wasn’t especially concerned. She thought, “I won’t call him now because he’s on the beach. But I do need to call to get the FBI on this scam.”
Later, she called and Jill told her that, no, Joe was serious, and Joe explained why:
South Carolina Congressman Jeff Duncan had told him to.
In a pre-Christmas Facebook post, the Laurens, South Carolina, lawmaker wrote:
“Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas refuse to enact policies that solve the invasion at our southern border. On Monday, 12,600 illegals tried to get across our border. Since Joe Biden took office, over 6.2 million illegal border crossings occurred at just the southern border. Biden and Mayorkas have failed to uphold their Constitutional obligations and must resign today!”
(Source cited: Fox News)
The post was brought to the President’s attention (because he doesn’t spend time on Facebook) and he stewed about it all through Christmas dinner. Finally he had resolve, “I’m not going to stay where I am not wanted.”
People around the dinner table tried to talk him out of it, but the President knows that Duncan is chairman of a powerful House energy subcommittee and Joe’s rationale was if he has lost the energy community, he has lost the country.
No reason to seek re-election.
No reason to go through impeachment.
The decision had to be announced soon because people in South Carolina who want to vote in the Democratic Presidential Preference Primary have until JAN. 4 to make sure their voting registration is in good order for the First in the Nation Democratic Presidential selection. There might be some people who would just NOT VOTE if Joe Biden dropped off the ticket, and there might be some other Democrats who would be energized to know he was stepping aside (and then there was going to be that third Jan. 6 third anniversary thing).
He was stepping aside. So Mrs. Harris could become the President. In their discussion, Mr. Biden and Mrs. Harris talked about the new line of succession: Mike Johnson becomes Vice-President, Lauren Bobert becomes Speaker of the House. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts remains as third in line to become President of the United States. If that happens, Clarence Thomas steps up to become Chief Justice.
“See,” the President told her, “everything is taken care of - the job of Democracy grinds on.”
“No, Mr. President,” she counters, “this is going to throw everything into chaos.”
“Kamala,” he counters, “I thrive in chaos.”
Vice-President Harris really doesn’t want the job, seeing how she’s going to have to take the red-eye from California to Washington to get sworn in, but Joe is dead-set (oww, sorry, not a good analogy for an 80 year old) and, besides, the beach is too comfortable to leave now, after the start of winter.
Plus, nobody was really getting him any more -- unemployment at 3%, inflation coming down after the inevitable post-COVID spike in prices where every company in the country is trying to recover its 2020, 2021 and 2020 earnings (and then some), multi-billionaires making money had over fist and none of them spending it on - uh, I mean, contributing to - Democrats. Who needs it?
“Nah, Kamala, I’m really sorry, but Hunter needs me now. We have a legal team to put together and $400,000 a year just ain’t cuttin’ it.”
So this is President Biden’s 2024 New Year’s message to all of us:
“Good Luck.”
Vic MacDonald is Editor of The Clinton Chronicle. In June, 2025, he will observe his 50th year in community journalism. Reach him at 864-833-1900.
A Presidential Visit here.
