Conservative pundit Stephen Green wrote today that Donald Trump’s statement saying “….Out Loud What Everybody in Washington Is Afraid To” was a noble act. Green went quite a bit further, too, concluding,
“I don’t care who you are — Republican, Democrat, MAGA, progressive, NeverTrump, traditional conservative, or even a filthy communist — if, at this moment, you can recognize this simple truth about what Trump said today. It was noble. Biden was more than Trump’s political rival. He’s a man who has spent the last five years smearing Trump (and millions of Trump voters) as a racist, a phobic, a hater, a would-be dictator, an authoritarian, and worse. But now that Biden is as low as any president has been since Richard Nixon was forced out of office 50 years ago this week, Trump spoke the truth about what Biden’s own party did to him. If someone can’t recognize the nobility in that, then I still don’t care what they are because they’re a filthy commie at heart.”
Steve got just a teeny bit carried away. And I guess I’m a filthy commie, because I see nothing noble in Trump’s condemnation of Biden’s being pushed out. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there is plenty to condemn in the entire scenario. But Joe’s forced exit, when it finally happened, isn’t one of them. And while I’m ready to accept the possibility that Donald Trump may possess, somewhere, deep down and well hidden, the capacity for nobility, today’s self-serving statement wasn’t evidence of that.
Here’s what Trump said today during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida:
“I don’t know if [Biden is] happy about that decision. The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden. And I’m no Biden fan. But I’ll tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint, you’re looking at they took the Presidency away.”
Well.
1. I’ll get to “noble” shortly, but that statement is just plain wrong. No President has the right to be re-nominated to run for re-election. Biden was foolishly and corruptly enshrined as the presumptive nominee without having to face any real challengers who might have imperiled his nomination, and he allowed that. he deserves no sympathy for his eventual plight. There was nothing unconstitutional about Biden being told, as he undoubtedly was, that he had to drop out of the 2024 race or things would get ugly and embarrassing for him. That’s politics. Nobody complained that Richard Nixon being persuaded to resign rather than fight through an impeachment was unconstitutional, because it wasn’t. For leaders of the GOP to meet with Nixon and say, “Step down now, for the good of the party, the nation and yourself,” was responsible, and the only course available in a terrible situation. The same was true for Biden.
2. They didn’t “take the Presidency away.” Biden is still nominally President, and he was only nominally President anyway, whether he realized it or not. Maybe he was never really President at all, but that doesn’t matter now. Biden is as much President as he would have been if he had been allowed to proceed with a completely selfish, irresponsible, dangerous attempt to serve four more years. His tenure has just been mercifully limited. Good.
3. Trump wasn’t being noble to say what he said, he was just spinning events that he wishes hadn’t occurred. He thought beating poor Biden was going to be easy: now he’s forced to run against a candidate whom the news media is going to try to carry across the finish line as Obama the Lesser a cipher who’s young (er) and black (sort of), but also female, not Donald Trump (obviously, but that’s key), and will try to get elected without having to explain what she believes and what she would do as President, counting entirely on “Democracy is threatened!” and “Trump is a racist monster fascist dictator felon!” as the reasons to vote for her. Trump is furious at the Democrats for being able to weasel out of the mess of their own making, that’s all. Naturally he’s attacking them. There’s nothing noble about it.
4. The Democrats were unethical, dishonest, totalitarian and corrupt in the way they covered up Biden’s accelerating dementia, lied about it, and reckless planned on using him to win another puppet term in the White House. There was nothing noble about them bailing on their despicable plan when it was obvious to all that it would be a disaster, but you can’t condemn them for taking the only course left to them, which was making Biden quit the election campaign. His determination to run was, if not the result of his dementia, one of the most disgraceful, selfish and unethical positions any President has ever taken on any issue, under any circumstances. He had to be stopped. Trump is attacking the Democrats for doing the right thing for the country: it just wasn’t the right thing for him.
5. The rest of what the Democrats have done, in contrast, is undemocratic, and Trump (and everyone else) should shout it to the metaphorical skies. Messy as it would have been, the party was obligated to let the convention decide who would run against Trump. Instead it just anointed Harris, undoubtedly in terror of angering the party’s black, feminist base. But even this wasn’t unconstitutional. The Founders didn’t acknowledge the inevitability of political parties at all, and left the process of how people would run for President up in the air.
6. If Trump wants to hammer on how undemocratic, cynical, cowardly and hypocritical the sequence of events that led to the Harris-Walz ticket, fine, the Democrats deserve every bit of it. But noble?
Come on.
Ethics Alarms 
Who is President?
It sure as hell isn’t Biden. What’s constitutional about that?
Jeez, focus. That’s irrelevant to the post.
You wrote: Biden is still nominally President, and he was only nominally President anyway, whether he realized it or not. Maybe he was never really President at all, but that doesn’t matter now.
Which part of that is consistent with either the intent or spirit of the Constitution? It very much matters — Biden was unconstitutionally deposed, just like Trump said.
All Presidents are nominally President, as well as in other respects. That doesn’t breach the Constitution at all. Biden was only nominally President—some, like me, believe with considerable justification— since he became too mentally compromised to do the job (again, as many believe), which creates a Constitutional problem, but Trump wasn’t talking about that. Nor was Biden “deposed,” and Trump wasn’t talking about that either: he was referring only to Biden being forced/bullied/extorted/persuaded to withdraw from running for re-election. He still signs or vetoes bills. He still lives in the White House. Kamala Harris has no presidential powers, which is why she is free to go all over the country making vague, boilerplate speeches.
Don’t waste my time. If you want to argue about whether Biden is or was really President, fine: there’s an open forum for that. The post is about Trump claiming that Biden being forced to quit the race, not being forced to resign as President. Biden’s status has not changed as far as being President is concerned since Trump debated him or before.
“It doesn’t matter” refers specifically to the issue under examination in the post. “Now” refers to the time Trump is bitching about having to deal with a new opponent. Obviously it matters if the elected President is really President, but there is no new evidence on that issue, and again, that isn’t the topic of the post.
Yeah, noble?
He is attacking the actions of his political opponent. That is just politics.
He is right to call out the shadiness of the turn of events, but, still, that is hardly noble.
-Jut
We need to be careful that the noble claim came from someone other than Trump himself. Throughout the read I kept feeling that Trump was being condemned for the noble assertion even though the post was clear who actually made the claim and that was Steven Green.
The definition of noble (according to Merriam-Webster) is “possessing, characterized by, or arising from superiority of mind or character or of ideals or morals.”
By the standard of that definition, President Biden is not noble, and Stephen Green was entirely correct in his assessment of the President’s almost completely ignoble tenure as Commander-in-Chief.
By the standard of that definition, President Trump is not noble, either, because “superiority of mind” assumes command of the facts and command of reality. In speaking of the Democratic Party denying the President Biden the presidency, he has command of neither facts nor reality. If Trump would have said the Party was denying Biden “the opportunity to be President again,” that would have been factually correct and more noble. Any reference to the Constitution as it relates to campaigning is just ignorant and therefore, not noble.
President Trump is in a unique position of facing an opposing Administration with a record of success that is not only pathetic, it’s nearly non-existent. Yet his bombastic behavior serves as the torpedoes for his own campaign boat.
The better response for President Trump – and isn’t it remarkably funny (or not funny) how often we correct the former President with phrases like “the better response” or “what he should have said” or “why didn’t he just” – would have been to simply say something like, “What the Democratic Party did to President Biden – not just in July but over the last five or six years – has been despicable. But then, that Party doesn’t care about President Biden…and it doesn’t care about VP Harris, or Mr. Walz, either. It doesn’t care about the citizens of this country except for how they can serve as slaves of the Party. The Democratic Party cares about one thing: power – obtaining power, maintaining power, and perpetuating its own power…forever. If it has to throw aside Joe Biden, no problem…it will and did. If it has to throw aside Kamala Harris, trust me, it will. And it will throw the citizenry aside, too. Whatever their power requires.”
And President Trump should let it be known he is willing to debate VP Harris…any time, any place. He should suggest an outdoor debate and some random location…say…Butler, PA. That would be more along the lines of the definition of “noble.”
If that happens and the outcome is similar to what happened with Joe Biden’s debate, I wonder how long it will be until we hear the calls for VP Harris’ replacement.