Weeks Where Decades Happen: Three Dramatic Developments in US Presidential Race

In a recent article in CounterPunch Dr. Jack Rasmus writes that “any number of crises on the foreign policy front” are possible as US President Joe Biden can be seen as a "lame duck." The "neocons running US foreign policy and US wars the past two years may now run amuck,” he claimed.

On Thursday Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program sat down with Rasmus, an author and professor of economics at Saint Mary’s College in California with a PhD in political economy. Rasmus said “three bombshells have gone off” in less than a month in the US presidential race.

“[During] the June 27th first presidential debate the general public got to see what the insiders had been looking at for well over a year and keeping quiet, and that was the obvious deterioration, mentally, of President Biden,” Ramsus said. “That was the first thing that got set off.”

“And then the second, of course, was the botched assassination attempt of former President Trump or candidate Trump, whatever you want to call him, and obviously, very, very lax Secret Service coverage."

“People are aware that the Trump campaign's been asking for a long time for better coverage from the Secret Service, but the Democrats have been preventing it,” Rasmus claimed. “And then the third one was this abrupt turnaround after weeks and months saying [Biden is] not going to leave, he's in good health and all the Democrat media and politicians pretty much confirming that. Then, all of a sudden Biden says, ‘I'm gone.’”

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Rasmus said the donors to the president’s campaign were the force that very clearly kicked off an effort to drive him out and that politicians joined the effort afterwards. The author remarked that it was strange to hold a presidential debate in June, more than four months out from November's election.

“Why did we ever have a presidential debate in June? I can't remember any time we had one in June,” Rasmus said. “Why in June? To me that means that the money bags, the donors, and their political leadership in the Democratic Party knew this guy was having problems and they just wanted to see whether he could weather them publicly. And, of course, he couldn't. He failed.”

“But that gave them plenty of time to do what they just did, which is to get him out of there before the convention that comes up in August,” he added. “So bottom line: that means that the money bags, the donors manipulated the leadership of the party, who manipulated this guy, both in the election and when he got elected back in 2020.”

Sputnik’s Wilmer Leon asked the show’s guest for his take on Vice President Kamala Harris’ likelihood of becoming the Democratic nominee. Following his exit from the race, Biden threw his support behind Harris and moved to transfer campaign funds to her new team.

“Several days ago I would have said it's up for grabs," Rasmus claimed. "It all depends on whether the donors actually come back or not. If they didn't come back, then it would really be up for grabs. But it seems that a lot of them have come back, and now they have the holdouts, which of course were Obama and Pelosi.”

“Pelosi has joined back and said she's our candidate and then, of course, we've got Obama, who's getting closer to the absolute announcement that he's for it, if he hasn't already done it before. So I think they are now coalescing around Harris."

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Former President Barack Obama is reportedly planning to endorse Harris’ presidential bid, Politico reported. The former president holds powerful sway over the Democratic Party faithful and was a staunch supporter Biden's aborted campaign. Obama was recently criticized by activists from the group ‘Black Men for Harris,’ who claimed it was insulting that the former president has yet to endorse the Vice President.

“The chance of another alternative in the convention, that possibility, has declined – significantly so," said Rasmus. "It looks like she will be [the nominee], although it's still an open possibility. But the top-down controls that party. The leadership is so strong in the coalition with the moneybags that if you challenge it, you're out.”

Democrats reportedly plan to hold a virtual roll call vote to confirm their nominee as early as August 1 and no later than August 7. The Democratic National Convention will begin August 19.

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