Kyle Brosnan, Chief Counsel for the Heritage Oversight Project explains the legal and logistical challenges of replacing President Biden on the ballot if he were to drop out of the presidential race. Get the facts first on Morning WIre.
Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit.
The prospect of Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race at this late date has leaders in both parties scrambling to figure out what it means logistically and legally. With this potential crisis looming, the Heritage Oversight Project has been busy studying election laws in all 50 states to gauge what would happen across the country. In this episode, we talk with Kyle Brosnan, Chief Counsel for the Oversight Project about what comes next in this unprecedented moment. I'm Daily Wire, Editor-in-Chief John Bickley, it's Friday, July 5th, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire. College is expensive, but being a man shouldn't be. Score 60% off Jeremy's razors one year of shaving and dominate campus life. While others can form, you'll stand out. Clean shaving and unapologetic. The Precision 5 delivers an exceptionally smooth and close shave, designed with a precision trimmer for keeping your edge in an ergonomic handle for superior control. Major in masculinity@jeremiserazors.com today. Joining us now is Kyle Brosnan, Chief Counsel on the Heritage Oversight Project. Welcome, Kyle. So your project today, a survey of election law across all 50 states to gauge what would happen should President Biden drop out and be replaced. So first, how do the mechanisms for replacing a presidential candidate on the ballot vary by state and what challenges might arise from these differences? Right, so it's important to remember that elections in the U.S. are very decentralized. Each state has different rules on substituting candidates, when that substitution can occur, and why that substitution can occur. And so really an important date in the calendar is the Democratic National Convention. And so if Biden were to drop out before the convention, you know, in the vast majority of states, whoever gets the nomination out of the convention will be able to proceed. However, in some instances, there are ambiguities in the statutes of various states that can pose potential legal challenges to Biden dropping out even before the election. But if we get, and Biden is a nominee and then drops out post-convention, excuse me, then it's illegal quagmire and we're off to the races for potential litigation. Some of these statutes are decades old and are ambiguous in terms of what they mean in the 21st century, in the current political climate. And that things that used to be well settled in how elections are how there are no longer the case here. And so you have a old series of law in a sort of 21st century unprecedented election cycle. And when those two forces meet each other, you have the potential for widespread litigation across several states that could decide potentially who the president is. And that sort of takes it out of the voters' hands and can certainly be troubling. So there really are a lot of unknowns. If it's after the convention and he drops out, you're saying legally, there starts to be real complications. That's right. So once the convention happens, Biden is the nominee and his name is printed on ballots and several states have particular reasons for dropping out. So once Biden is the nominee and in Wisconsin, for example, he can only be dropped for death. Other states expressly prohibit removal from the ballot for political reasons and others require incapacitation. And other states have hard deadlines. So some states have mid-August deadlines for removing a candidate from the ballot. That also takes us post-convention as well. The complexities, the ambiguities in the various state laws means that if the Democrats do try and dump Biden post-convention, there will be many opportunities for litigation across the country. The House has really zeroed in on special counsel Robert Herr's report, which highlights President Biden's memory issues. Do you believe that the audio, which has yet to be released to the public, is influencing the conversation around the president's age? I think so. And we at the Oversight Project are also in federal court seeking the release of the audio taped under the Freedom of Information Act. And so late last week, we followed a brief demanding the release of the audio tape challenging the president's assertion of executive privilege. We got a declaration from former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who walked through how Attorney General Garland's application of a memo hero back in 2008 is improper and that the president's implication of executive privilege over the audio tapes is unlawful. And so we have been in court for months on trying to get the audio tape out. We should be done in the next six weeks or so, and it'll be in the judge's hands. We are very aggressively litigating our rights over the Freedom of Information Act to get those tapes out. And we are very optimistic in our belief that the American public deserves to hear what the president told special counsel her. We've seen a real shift in tone from the media in the coverage of Biden and his family following this disastrous debate. Does that change the equation for how the Democrats approach the coming weeks? I think so. If you look at polling that's come out post debate, you're seeing a shift in the electorate as well. And so this is obviously going to be a close race. Last week's debate was not good for the president in terms of the public's perception of his mental acuity. And you're starting to hear chatter behind the scenes of sort of alarm bells going off amongst Democratic circles. And the left wing media is starting to turn on the president. And I think that is certainly part of the calculation of how the party wants to proceed moving forward here. How does Hunter Biden's legal issues affect all of this? Does it influence the president's decision to run or not? Well, I think we all read the reporting in the New York Times about how the president leans heavily on the advice of his son, Hunter, and that Hunter has been advocating for him to stay in the race. I think it's in Hunter's interest that his father remains the president, given the fact that he's already a convicted felon in Delaware, and we'll go on trial for another series of felonies in California in September. And so I know the president has said he won't pardon his son. I don't believe him, but that remains to be seen with it is certainly in Hunter Biden's best interests that his father remain the president remain in the race. There's been a lot of concern about election integrity on the right for good reason. Do you feel over the last few years that we're in a place going into this election where we can be more confident about how the vote is handled in various states or less confident? So I think we focus a lot on the oversight project and the implementation of executive order 14019, which we have found has been the mobilization of the federal government to basically support the president's reelection efforts. And that is deeply troubling where you see government agencies teaming up with left-wing non-government organizations to target almost exclusively voters who vote one way. And in our research, we've sent about 1,500 for a request of various federal agencies about the implementation of the executive order. And it is in every single government agency pushing the president's reelection efforts. And we've seen fights from the Biden administration and congressional Democrats to oppose any attempt at transparency and how this executive order is being implemented. And I think that's really disconcerting to people that do care about election integrity when you have the weight of the federal government being pushed to support one candidate over the other. Final question. In the coming weeks, what do you think are some of the key developments or issues that Americans should be aware of as we're in this, again, unprecedented moment? I think you need to, in terms of key events, you're looking at the convention. Do the Democrats ditch Biden before the convention? If they do, then it's off to the races because then you are going to have, I assume, multiple candidates into the race, you need to fundraise, set up on our ground operation and everything that comes with running a national presidential campaign. At a personal level, I think here in Washington, we see the president on TV every day and at the oversight project, are engaged in multiple Freedom of Information Act lawsuits about things like special counsel, her and other records disputes that focus on the president's mental capacity. But I think putting it on the world stage like that in the debate to where the entire country was paying attention is the president up to the job mentally and physically. And if the polling will indicate that the American people have significant questions about that. And so, as the president's continued to climb, brief confidence in how he's doing his job and his ability to run the country, even now given the amount of worldwide threats we face. Certainly lots to keep our eyes on in the weeks ahead. Kyle, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Sean. That was Kyle Brosnan, Chief Counsel for the Heritage Oversight Project, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wine. (upbeat music)
Kyle Brosnan, Chief Counsel for the Heritage Oversight Project explains the legal and logistical challenges of replacing President Biden on the ballot if he were to drop out of the presidential race. Get the facts first on Morning WIre.
Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit.
