Normally wrong Newsmax pundit Dick Morris has been weirdly prescient of late, though it doesn’t exactly take Nostradamus to make his predictions. As he hyped the idea of J.D. Vance being named Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate a couple days before it happened — he is a Trump adviser, so he likely had some inside information — Morris spent a July 19 column demanding that President Biden drop out of the election and resign from the presidency:
If rumors are confirmed and Joe Biden has decided to pull out of the race for president but will remain in office until his term expires on Jan. 20, 2025.
America could be left in an enormous lurch.
That is, a potential massive disaster.
If Biden is too diminished mentally to be a candidate for president, he must resign the office immediately.
With Russia and China circling the ship of state like hungry sharks, we dare not leave America in the hands of someone who is too mentally hindered, to run for president.
Translation?
If he can’t run, he shouldn’t serve.
This is not a matter of politics, it’s the ultimate question of our national security.
Morris then whined about Kamala Harris likely taking Biden’s place on the Democratic ticket:
Politically, we cannot permit the Democrats to manipulate the current crisis to regain their footing and start a whole new election with a whole new candidate.
This is not the Roman Empire searching for a new ruler, following an emperor’s death.
Its an American constitutional democracy.
Morris rehashed this argument with a pro-Trump spin in a July 20 TV appearance:
Personal animus against Republican nominee Donald Trump used to surpass his popularity on presidential performance, but pragmatism now reigns: He is now even more popular than his positively rated job performance, according to Dick Morris on Newsmax.
Trump’s presidential campaign is so effective, even Democrats now fear President Joe Biden cannot win and must step aside for a potential Plan B to help them keep power — a political “cannibalization,” Morris told “Saturday Report.”
[…]Ultimately, Biden might be too powerful and selfish to listen to even Democrats jumping ship, forcing a potential exercising of the 25th Amendment to remove a sitting president, Morris warned.
When Biden did, in fact, drop out a couple days later, Newsmax led with wire article, which was quickly followed by a barrage of partisan attacks on both Biden and Harris:
- Trump: Biden ‘Only Attained’ Presidency ‘by Lies, Fake News’
- GOP Speaker Johnson: Biden Must Resign ‘Immediately’
- Blagojevich: Obama Used ‘Chicago’ Way to Take Down Biden
- Dem Consultant Epstein to Newsmax: Party Has ‘Lied to American People’
- RFK Jr. Reacts: Dems Blocking Me Led to This ‘Crisis’
- Pro-Trump PAC Ad: Harris Was ‘Covering Up Biden’ Mental Decline
- Republicans Join Vance, Johnson in Call for Biden to Leave Office
- Rep. Nancy Mace: Invoke 25th Amendment
Like WorldNetDaily (though not as conspiratorial), Newsmax tried to make a big deal out of the Obama not immediately endorsing Harris and “instead calling for an open convention to decide on a new nominee.” This was followed by a bit of self-aggrandizement with an article claiming that “Newsmax was the first to report on President Joe Biden’s decision not to run for reelection” (by having Mark Halperin as a guest making that claim a few days earlier, citing anonymous “multiple sources”).
Newsmax finished out its July 21 coverage with, yes, Morris turning his attention to attacking Harris:
Speaking to Newsmax shortly after President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he would not be seeking his party’s nomination and that he would support Kamala Harris as his party’s nominee, Dick Morris suggested that now’s the time for Harris to name her running mate.
The campaign adviser to former President Donald Trump said, “I think that Kamala Harris now has to name a vice president.”
“And that’s going to give her an enormous political plum to hand out. And I think she’ll, if she has half a brain, she’ll use that to secure the loyalty of the party. And she’ll make clear that anybody that doesn’t come out for her in the next five minutes is not going to be on the list for vice president. And then, one after another, you’ll see all of the Democrats lining up to run.
“Not that they believe she can win, not that they believe they’ll ever be vice president, but because it’s the next step on the escalator and gives them an advantage in 2028.”
There was never any need for Harris to immediately name a VP candidate — she had more pressing priorities, given that she had just been put in position to win the presidential nomination — but it was in Morris’ partisan interest to apply some disingenuous pressure on her (not that she needed to take his advice).