(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he expects President Joe Biden to remain in the race for the White House, despite growing calls within Biden’s own Democratic Party for him to step down to a younger man. Nominee.
Trump, 78, said on Monday that Biden, 81, would refuse to drop out of the campaign because of his ego, noting that the president had a lock on the Democratic nomination by winning all the convention delegates in the Democratic primaries earlier this year.
Biden has repeatedly said he will remain in the race.
“What’s interesting is, he has a lot of power because he has representation. You know, when you have representation, unless he says, ‘I’m going to quit,’ there’s nothing else but the 25th Amendment,” Trump said on Fox News told interviewer Sean Hannity in a phone interview that aired.
The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows the Vice President and Cabinet members to declare that the President is unable to perform the powers and duties of the President and transfer the duties to the Vice President as Acting President. There is no indication that Vice President Kamala Harris or top Democrats have raised the option.
“He’s egotistical and he doesn’t want to quit. He doesn’t want to do this. In my opinion, that’s what he wants,” Trump said of his rival who campaigned to oust the former president. .
The interview comes as the Democratic Party is in disarray after Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump on June 27, prompting growing calls within the party for him to withdraw from the race.
Trump’s interview contradicts recent casual remarks captured on film when Trump falsely told supporters at one of his golf courses that he had kicked Biden out of the race.
“He’s withdrawing from the race…I asked him to withdraw,” Trump said in a video released by The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
