GOP lawmakers, right-wing influencers, and far-right supporters of former president Donald Trump immediately claimed that President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election was the result of a coup perpetrated by Vice President Kamala Harris and other members of the Democratic Party.
In the days and weeks leading up to Biden’s announcement, right-wing politicians had already started pushing the narrative that efforts being made to persuade Biden to withdraw from the race were undemocratic. In the hours after Biden officially withdrew on Sunday, those accusations exploded online, according to a WIRED review and data provided by Advance Democracy, a nonprofit organization that conducts public interest research.
Many of these baseless accusations were posted on X. House Speaker Mike Johnson, along with at least a dozen Republican members of Congress, claimed that Biden had been forced out in what amounted to a coup. “The Democrat Party forced the Democrat nominee off the ballot, just over 100 days before the election,” Johnson said in a post on X, in which he falsely claimed Biden was already the official Democratic nominee.
“Joe Biden succumbed to a coup by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hollywood donors, ignoring millions of Democratic primary votes,” Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas wrote on X.
“The coup is complete,” wrote Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona.
Johnson has been promoting the idea for the past week that replacing Biden could be illegal in certain states. This isn’t a coup, as legal experts have pointed out that the Democratic Party’s nominee has yet to be decided and the final decision will be made at the Democratic National Convention, which takes place next month. “If your lawyers are telling you that they can prevent the DNC from nominating its candidate of choice, they are idiots,” Marc Elias, a lawyer specializing in elections, wrote on X in response to a post by Johnson.
Biden’s decision to announce his withdrawal on X was hailed by X owner Elon Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino as evidence that their platform was “where history happened.” But in reality, as has been seen countless times since Musk took control of X, the platform quickly became ground zero for conspiracies and disinformation about the news—with Musk playing a central role.
In a reply to a post from a known promoter of QAnon conspiracies, Musk pushed the narrative that Biden’s withdrawal was orchestrated by Democrats working secretly in the shadows. “I heard last week that he would resign at this exact time and date. It was widespread knowledge in DC,” Musk wrote on X. “The real powers that be are discarding the old puppet in favor of one that has a better chance of fooling the public.”
Biden has been “deposed in a coup,” wrote venture capitalist David Sacks. “A coup before our very eyes,” wrote right-wing commentator Mike Cernovich on X. Far-right influencer Milo Yiannopoulos responded to Cernovich, writing: “When, if ever, do you think they will tell him.”
Many other right-wing accounts online compared Biden’s resignation to the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. “For anyone who still believes January 6th was a coup, take notes. You just witnessed a real one. July 21st,” the far-right troll account End Wokeness wrote in a post on X that has been viewed 1.5 million times.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. added to the conspiracies, claiming without evidence that the decision to position Vice President Harris as Biden’s likely replacement was rigged. “Many Americans fear that the same DNC elites are about to rig the nominating process again to get a monumentally unpopular vice president to step into President Biden’s shoes,” Kennedy wrote on X.
GOP representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia went even further, claiming the coup against Biden was orchestrated by the “deep state,” a well-known trope from conspiratorial movements like QAnon.
“There’s a soft civil war happening in the deep state and the elites in power,” Green wrote on X. “The Democrats, the IC [intelligence community], and their activists in the media have been lying to us saying there’s nothing wrong with Biden for years. Next, they start a coup against him demanding he drop out of the race when they couldn’t hide it anymore.”
Other conspiracy theories also sprang up, including baseless claims that Biden had been paid to drop out, was forced to sign his statement by the “deep state,” and that his withdrawal was part of efforts to cover up who was behind the assassination attempt on Trump.
On Truth Social, Trump fueled these conspiracies, claiming without evidence, “Biden never had Covid. He is a threat to Democracy!”
In more than half a dozen angry posts on Truth Social, Trump railed against having to restart his campaign against a different opponent. Reporting over the past month has shown that Trump’s campaign team has been entirely focused on beating Biden and are likely not as prepared to fight Harris or other Democratic opponents.
Donald Trump Jr. also pushed conspiracies around Biden’s withdrawal. “This morning, Joe Biden was running according to his campaign co-chair,” he wrote on X on Sunday evening, in a post that has been viewed 1 million times. “What did they bribe Joe with or more likely what did they threaten him with that he would change his mind in a few short hours and just walk away?”
Greene also claimed that Biden and his family had been bribed to withdraw from the race: “The Biden’s [sic] must have gotten the price they demanded for the presidential library that will pay the entire family for years to come.”
This was an accusation also repeated by Representative Claudia Tenney from New York, who is cochair of the Election Integrity Caucus. “Biden’s resignation from the ticket likely happened due to an inside deal from Democrat puppet masters to the Biden crime family,” Tenney wrote on X. “Biden and his family have benefited financially from Biden’s various political jobs for over 50 years. Watch Hunter and Biden get away with everything in the next several months. Watch Jill and Jim continue the grift.”
On the same platform, Representative Jim Banks from Indiana wrote: “What comes first, The Hunter Biden pardon? Or Joe Biden’s bank account breaking $50 million??”
Phillip Buchanan, a far-right troll known as Catturd, framed Biden’s withdrawal as further evidence for the baseless conspiracy that the assassination attempt against Trump last week was orchestrated by the Biden administration. “Joe dropped out because Democrats were desperate to change the Trump surging news cycle and the truth coming out about the obvious inside job assassination attempt,” Buchanan wrote on X.
In a direct response to Biden’s post announcing his resignation, far-right influencer Laura Loomer wrote: “Now you all see why they tried to assassinate Donald Trump. This was all planned.”
Some posters on far-right forums pushed the conspiracy that Biden’s withdrawal was orchestrated so the Democrat Party could more easily rig the election in November.
“This is all about finding someone who is close enough in polling that the steal can be believable to the public,” wrote a member of the pro-Trump message board The Donald. “Biden’s dementia was too naked and his failures too many. He was going to lose in a landslide. Now they just need someone the American people can plausibly believe eeked [sic] out a close win.”
This view was echoed on the Great Awakening, another pro-Trump message board. “The left had no possibility to cheat with Biden leading the ticket,” one user wrote. “This is not good news for us. Don’t forget that they fabricated an extra 20 to 30 million votes for Biden in 2020 and they will do the same now.”
As Republican politicians and influencers panic and spread conspiracies about Biden’s withdrawal and the Harris campaign, Democrats are already throwing themselves into organizing, hosting massive Zoom calls and donation campaigns. “Small-dollar donors raise over $27.5 million on ActBlue in the first 5 hours of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign,” ActBlue said in a statement on Sunday.
