West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin penned an impassioned op-ed endorsing a shocking candidate to replace President Joe Biden before doing a bizarre somersault.
The 63-year-old writer bizarrely argued that Democrats needed to select a Republican candidate to defeat former President Donald Trump — suggesting that Utah Sen. Mitt Romney would be the perfect choice.
“When we nominate Romney, we are putting our money where our mouth is: clear and powerful evidence that this election is not about what elections are usually about, but about stopping a deranged man from seizing power,” Sorkin said. he wrote in an essay for the New York Times on Sunday.
“Mr. Romney could argue that Democrats are putting country before party and also announce his bipartisan Cabinet nominations at the convention.”
But after Biden, 81, announced a few hours later that he was dropping out of the race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Sorkin retracted his “pitch to the writers’ room.”
West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin made a bizarre suggestion about who should replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party nominee
“I take it all back. Harris for America!” Sorkin wrote in an email to West Wing star Joshua Harris, asking him to share the statement about X.
His publicist Jodie Oriol later confirmed to Variety that the statement was true.
But in his op-ed, Sorkin argued that “there is no Democrat doing significantly better in the polls than Biden.”
He compared Biden’s presidency to that of his fictional president, Jed Bartlet, who decides to run for re-election after it is revealed that he has multiple sclerosis and keeps it from the public. He also worries about Biden’s age and mental acuity.
However, if polls on the show showed that the president was in danger of losing on The West Wing to a “dangerous idiot with a manifestly mental illness” and a “dump truck of ignorance” — as Sorkin claimed Biden is — the writer would drop him from the race.
Sorkin suggested in an op-ed for the New York Times that Utah Sen. Mitt Romney should be the Democratic nominee
After Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, Sorkin withdrew his endorsement
Sorkin then outlined a scenario in which former President Barack Obama, who defeated Romney in 2012, took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to “loudly” support his former opponent and “remind us once again that we are not red states or blue states, we are the United States of America.”
“The choice is between Donald Trump and not-Trump, and the non-Trump candidate needs to meet only one qualification: He must win enough votes from the average American population to block the former president’s path back to power through the Electoral College,” Sorkin concluded.
The essay sparked heated reactions on social media on Sunday, with many people ridiculing Sorkin for suggesting that Democrats nominate a Republican.
Journalist Seamus Malekafzali claimed that the suggestion was “extraordinarily stupid, even by his standards,” and journalist Imani Gandy said that this is “the height of West Wing brain rot.”
Podcaster Stephen L Miller too called Sorkin’s Endorsement for Romney ‘Funniest F****** Thing Ever’ [to happen] in this whole ordeal.
“They demonized him, called him a murderer, brought in a debate moderator to help Obama and now they’re like, Yeah, we should nominate this guy.”
“God, this is so much fun.”
He compared real life to his TV show, in which a fictional president ran for re-election after it was revealed that he was hiding multiple sclerosis from the public.
But Biden surprisingly announced on Sunday that he is withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” the president wrote in a letter posted to his X account on Sunday.
“And while it was my intention to be re-elected,” he continued, “I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country that I step down and focus solely on fulfilling the duties of my president for the remainder of my term.”
He continued with recommend Haris to succeed him as the Democratic candidate to face Donald Trump in november.
Harris later released her own statement, appearing to accept Biden’s endorsement as a de facto primary victory and saying she would lead the party to victory in November.
“With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done his entire life: putting the American people and our country above all else,” she wrote hours after Biden ended his candidacy.
“I am honored to have the President’s support and it is my intention to earn and win this nomination,” she added, before listing her qualifications that had helped her boss.
“Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, speaking to Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election,” she wrote. “And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”
“We have 107 days until Election Day. Together we will fight. And together we will win.”
President Joe Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take over his position
In the aftermath, Democrats received a flood of donations from the grassroots
After the election, Democrats received a flood of donations from citizens.
Just an hour after Biden made his shock announcement, Democrats raised more than $5 million in donations, according to ActBlue.
By the end of the three-hour Sunday afternoon, the avalanche of donations had grown to nearly $16 million online, and more money was still coming in. In just 20 minutes, another $1 million was raised Sunday evening.
In just over four hours, the total amount raised had grown to almost $25 million. In six hours, it had reached $35 million. In seven hours, the amount had reached almost $50 million.
But the fact that Biden endorsed Harris to take his place does not mean she automatically gets the nomination.
Biden has not yet secured the Democratic Party nomination and there is little time left to replace Harris before the Democratic National Convention next month and avoid a public convention.
The party’s nomination event will take place from August 19 to 22 in Chicago, Illinois.
It now appears that Harris will top the Democratic ticket by the end of that week, after voters cast their ballots for Biden in the primaries.