The Democratic camp had increasingly called on US President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race over the past few weeks, but the outgoing president unwittingly found unexpected allies in the inner circle of his Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Four days before the solemn announcement of Biden's withdrawal, on Sunday, July 21, the head of Trump's campaign team, Chris LaCivita, denounced an "attempted coup" against the White House occupant on the sidelines of the inaugural convention in Milwaukee.

And with good reason. The June 27 debate, a disaster for Biden, had enabled the former president to appear, on the contrary, in full possession of his bearings, even before his spectacular reaction after an assassination attempt against him on July 13. During this debate, the contrast with the exchange that pitted the two men against each other during the 2020 campaign was striking. Four years ago, during a single confrontation between them, Trump deployed irrelevant aggressiveness. After a particularly laborious speech by the Democrat on the issue of immigration, Trump settled for a cruel observation: "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either," he jabbed.

In the weeks that followed, marked by the incumbent president's difficulty demonstrating his ability to campaign with the necessary energy, Trump maintained an unusual reserve. Democratic divisions over the legitimacy of Biden's candidacy did his job for him.

On Sunday, the Republican candidate refrained from hailing Biden's historic decision, even though it marked the end of an exceptionally long political career. Mitt Romney, Republican senator from Utah and one of the last vestiges of the Grand Old Party before its total takeover by Trump, was one of the few in his camp to greet him warmly.

True to his style and rhetoric, Trump declared on his Truth Social account: "Crooked Joe was not fit to run. [...] and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was," he posted, a week after briefly appealing for unity in the country, in the wake of the attack on him.

This line of attack was scrupulously repeated by other Republican officials in the hours that followed. "If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough," said Mike Johnson, Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. In the coming days, the Grand Old Party is expected to step up its accusations against the Democratic Party, which it claims has concealed the reality of the outgoing president's state of health.

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