This is on the media's midweek podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Breaking news right now, President Biden has decided to step out of the race for the White House, a short time later,

endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take the top of the ticket.

Moments after Biden exited the race on Sunday afternoon,

GOP leaders rushed to tug at any loose threads in his

withdrawal. Their biggest complaint? It's an affront to democracy and

possibly illegal. The idea of selecting the Democrat Party's nominee

because George Soros and Barack Obama

and a couple of elite Democrats got in a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard,

that is not how it works. That is a threat to democracy.

Now they've nominated, anointed, crowned their nominee without one single vote from the electorate, from the people.

Republicans are threatening legal challenges over President Biden's decision to drop out of the race.

Just before the President made the announcement, House Speaker Mike Johnson had said a withdrawal

would raise legal issues.

I think there's both a legal argument and a political argument.

Rick Hatson is a legal scholar and law professor at UCLA.

He recently wrote a piece for Slate called, Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden is not anti-Democratic.

The legal argument is that somehow replacing Biden

would come too late or would mean that Democrats wouldn't have a candidate on the ballot in some states.

That is not a very strong legal argument as we can discuss.

And it was made primarily before Biden decided to withdraw I think as a deterrent so that he wouldn't withdraw.

How much juice is in that legal argument?

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