Seymour Hersh: Obama and Kamala threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment on Biden before he dropped out

Biden engaged in a debate with former President and GOP nominee for president Donald Trump on June 27. It was so bad that almost instantly Democrat leaders and pundits were looking for a way to get Biden off the ticket. They could see that there was very little chance that Biden, in his diminished state, coudl beat Trump at the ballot box. The party elite were aghast and worked hard both in public and private to oust Biden. While much of that played out in leaked rumor, speculation, it turns out, per Hersch, that what was going on behind the scenes was a kind of coup, complete with threats from the Obama Kamala team.

"By Saturday, July 20," Hersch writes, "former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden. It was not clear whether Biden had been examined or just what happened to him in Las Vegas. 'The Big Three,' the official said, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, continued to be directly involved. 'On Sunday morning,' the official told me, with the approval of Pelosi and Schumer, 'Obama called Biden after breakfast and said, ‘Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.' The amendment provides that when the president is determined by the vice president and others to be unfit to carry out the powers and duties of his office, the vice president shall assume those duties."

"'It was clear at this point,' the official said," per Hersch, "'that she would get the nod'—that is, the support to run for the presidency in the November election. 'But Obama also made it clear,' the official said, 'that he was not going to immediately endorse her. But the group had decided that her work as a prosecutor would help her deal with Trump in a debate.'"

On July 26, the Obamas, both Barack and Michelle, did endorse Harris. The phone call during which they offered her their backing was filmed, the call on speaker, while Harris held the phone to her ear. A mic could be seen pinned to her blazer. "The official, who has decades of experience in fundraising, told me that Obama emerged as the strongman throughout the negotiations. 'He had an agenda and he wanted to seek it through to the end, and he wanted to have control over who would be elected.'"

It had been rumored that Pelosi and Schumer wanted Biden out. It had been rumored that Obama had given Hollywood A-lister George Clooney the go-ahead to write his op ed in The New York Times calling for Biden to step aside. It was rumored, too, that if Biden didn't step down his legacy would be at stake. Once Biden's letter withdrawing from the race was posted to X, with the endorsement of Harris shortly afterwards, party leadership all began oohing and ahing over Biden's "selfless" decision to step aside and praising his decision to nominate Harris. Jeffries and Schumer began claiming that Harris' candidacy was coming from the "grassroots" and not from the "top down."

If Hersch is right, however, it becomes apparent that Biden did not step down "selflessly" but was forced out lest he lose his presidency altogether, and it becomes further obvious that Harris was installed by top party brass and not, as they'd like Americans to believe, by the grassroots. To date, Harris has not received a single vote.