Republicans allege Harris "coup" after swift candidate swap

Driving the news: The Trump campaign filed a complaint Tuesday over the Biden campaign's transfer of its massive war chest to Harris, alleging a "brazen money grab" that violates federal campaign finance law.

Zoom in: Even before Biden dropped out, the Trump campaign was laying the groundwork to challenge the legitimacy of a new Democratic candidate.

• "This is nothing more than an attempted coup by the Democrat Party," Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita told Politico on the sidelines of the GOP convention last week.
• "They are actively engaged in an attempt — in my view, and a lot of people share this view — in deposing the president of the United States," he argued, claiming Biden could not step aside due to "cognitive" issues while still serving out his term.

Other Republicans — ranging from conservative influencers to elected members of Congress — have echoed that language over the last two days.

• "Joe Biden succumbed to a coup by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hollywood donors, ignoring millions of Democratic primary votes," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted.
• "Y'all can argue over the word 'coup,' but Biden stepping aside is the American equivalent of all those people accidentally falling out of windows in Russia," wrote conservative radio host Erick Erickson.

The big picture: It's undeniable that Biden was nudged out of the race primarily by Democratic elites and donors, and that Harris never won a vote in the presidential primary. But ruthless party calculations aren't the same as a national "coup."

• For one, Biden is still the president — and plans to remain in office until Jan. 20, 2025, when he has promised an orderly transition of power to whomever wins the election.
• Even before he dropped out of the race, Biden was only the presumptive Democratic nominee. There's no legal precept by which the candidate who wins the primaries must be nominated; that's just how parties have chosen to run things since the 1970s.
• Plus, an AP-NORC poll after his debate performance found 65% of Democrats wanted Biden to withdraw. 90% of Democrats approve of Biden's decision to end his campaign, according to a new CNN poll.
• More than 2,800 delegates — grassroots Democrats who represent primary voters — have now pledged their support for Harris. They'll make it official at the convention in August, and the full American electorate will vote in November.

Between the lines: Some more conspiratorial-minded Republicans and large X accounts have tied Harris' quick nomination to baseless claims about Biden's health, even suggesting that Democrats are concealing his death.

• "I demand proof of life from Joe Biden today by 5:00pm," Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted Monday. "He needs to get in front of some camera and discuss if he's aware that he dropped out."
• Venture capitalist David Sacks — who addressed the RNC last week — promoted a video Tuesday suggesting that Biden's call into Harris' first meeting with campaign staff was generated by AI.

Reality check: Biden was seen traveling back to D.C. on Tuesday after recovering from COVID at his house in Delaware. He plans to give a prime-time speech about his decision to withdraw on Wednesday night.

What they're saying: "Donald Trump's GOP pushes conspiracy theories because they have no solutions, their candidate is an aging criminal who attempted a coup, and they are running on a dangerous Project 2025 agenda that is deeply unpopular," Harris campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement.

The bottom line: Republicans are seeking to turn the tables on Democrats after three years of being attacked as an anti-democratic party for denying the results of the 2020 election.

• "Having invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president, the self-proclaimed 'party of democracy' has proven exactly the opposite," said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
• But there's little sign that Democrats — who have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Harris campaign and other Democratic causes over the last 72 hours — see themselves as victims of a coup.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to note that Biden is slated to leave office in January 2025, not 2021.