From the nuclear codes to weighty war decisions, President Biden’s decision to end his campaign while remaining in the White House has sparked pointed questions about whether he should keep his presidential powers.
Mr. Biden was pushed out of the 2024 race by his own party leaders amid questions of mental capacity, capability and competence. In an open letter, Mr. Biden said he would drop out to “focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”
Republicans said that’s an untenable balance: If he is too incapable of running a political campaign, he can’t run the country from the White House.
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who is second in the line of presidential succession behind Vice President Kamala Harris. “Nov. 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”
Other Republicans put the issue more pointedly.
“If the president is mentally unfit to campaign, he is mentally unfit to have the nuclear codes,” said Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The decisions facing a president are myriad, but some of the big ones looming for Mr. Biden include how Ukraine can use U.S. military assistance to strike inside Russia and what sort of assistance to release to Israel in its war with Hamas.
Mr. Biden hoped to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to the U.S. to speak to Congress this week. The president is recovering from COVID-19.
The president must also work with Congress on the annual spending bills, which are due by Sept. 30, though a stopgap measure is likely.
On social media, some of Mr. Biden’s supporters said they were hoping to have a president unshackled by politics and ready to tilt further to the left. They pointed to a recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity as a road map for some actions Mr. Biden might now take without having to worry about political consequences.
The White House was silent Sunday on how the president would approach his situation, though Mr. Biden’s campaign has recently argued that the presidency is essentially a committee operation, with his wife, Jill Biden, and Ms. Harris playing prominent roles in setting the direction.
Mr. Biden has been out of the public eye since Wednesday as he recovers from the coronavirus.
Lame-duck presidents aren’t unusual in American politics, and there have even been instances of presidents withdrawing from reelection races amid party disunity.
That was the fate of President B. Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
Mr. Biden, however, stands alone in being discarded by his own party after the primary process played out and amid questions of mental fitness.
The campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said it creates an impossible situation.
“Joe Biden cannot take himself out of a campaign for president because he is too mentally incompetent and still remain in the White House. Biden is a national security threat in great cognitive decline and a clear and present danger to every man, woman, and child in our country,” said senior aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.
Democrats, though, saw no tension in Mr. Biden’s decision.
“He made the right decision to spend the remainder of his presidency implementing his landmark achievements rather than fighting a campaign against Donald Trump,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Democrat. “I am encouraged that President Biden can devote his full attention to this work.”
Many Democrats described Mr. Biden’s decision as “selfless” and hailed him for prioritizing defeating Mr. Trump over his hopes of a second term.
For many of those Democrats, the matter is personal. They were worried that Mr. Biden would lose in an electoral landslide and Mr. Trump’s coattails would deliver control of the Senate and expand majorities in the House to Republicans.
Mr. Biden’s mental acuity has been under question for months, but it was his rough debate performance last month that began to topple the dominoes on his five-decade political career.
Republicans vowed to dog Democrats with questions about how the White House allowed Mr. Biden’s situation to grow so tenuous. The party signaled Sunday that Ms. Harris would take the brunt of those questions.
“She owns all of these failures, and she lied for nearly four years about Biden’s mental capacity — saddling the nation with a president who can’t do the job,” Sen. J.D. Vance, the newly minted Republican vice presidential nominee, said on social media.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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