Democrats push back on Trump’s claims of ‘coup’ to oust Biden

President Biden and his allies are pushing back strongly against the claim from former President Trump that Democrats engaged in a “coup” when they urged Biden to step aside, resulting in a change in candidates atop the party’s ticket.

Trump has for weeks likened the series of events that led to Biden’s exit from the 2024 race and Vice President Harris becoming the Democratic nominee to a “coup” and suggested it may somehow be unconstitutional. The claims have been a topic of questions for those in Chicago this week for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

“His stability is still in question,” Biden said Monday when a reporter raised Trump’s “coup” comments.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a top Biden ally, was asked during a Fox News appearance Monday about a New York Times column by Maureen Dowd titled “​​The Dems Are Delighted. But a Coup Is Still a Coup.”

The senator called the premise of the column “literally ridiculous.”

“This was the president’s decision. He and he alone had to make that decision one way or the other … The president looked at the polls, he listened to friends and colleagues and he made the decision to step aside,” Coons said.

“Two weeks before President Biden gave his inaugural speech, an angry mob stormed the Capitol — I was there — in an attempt at stopping the peaceful transition of power. That was the one attempted coup that happened in my lifetime was January 6.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), an outspoken Trump critic who will speak at the Democratic convention, was also asked during a CNN appearance Tuesday about Trump’s “coup” claims. The former congressman argued there was no comparison between Democrats replacing Biden with Harris and the efforts to undermine the 2020 election results.

“The only person in that equation that ever attempted a coup was Donald Trump. A coup by definition is trying to overthrow the outcome of a government, put a different outcome in place, that’s what he did,” Kinzinger said.

“But what happened is every one of these voters that voted for Joe Biden in the primary also voted for Kamala Harris,” he added. “So the idea that there’s some coup underway, it goes to show … just a real desperation by Donald Trump and how he’s trying to get his footing. He can’t find his footing and he’s flailing for anything he can think of.”

Trump has for weeks fumed over the change atop the Democratic ticket, which has upended the presidential campaign. Trump led Biden across national and battleground state polls and appeared on track to win in November. But Harris’s entry into the race has rejuvenated Democrats, and polls have shown her erasing Trump’s lead.

The former president has frequently suggested that Democrats’ switch of candidate was akin to a “coup.”

Trump during a Monday event in Pennsylvania accused the party of “an overthrow or a coup on Joe Biden.” During a press conference last week in New Jersey, Trump called Democrats a “threat to democracy.”

“It was a coup by people that wanted him out and they didn’t do the way, not the way they’re supposed to do it,” Trump said.

Trump has at other times claimed Harris’s candidacy may be unconstitutional because she was not atop the ballot in the primary process. 

Trump’s rhetoric will be closely watched in light of what happened after he lost the 2020 election. Trump spent much of 2020 sowing doubt about the reliability of mail-in and absentee ballots, and he spent the weeks after Election Day claiming the result was fraudulent or rigged. He pursued numerous legal challenges, including up to the Supreme Court, but they were rejected for lack of evidence.

Trump’s claims culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol, where protesters violently clashed with law enforcement and stormed the building in an attempt to stop the certification of Biden’s victory. Trump has been criminally charged for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.

The former president has said during the 2024 cycle that he will accept the results if he deems the election to be “honest.”