This may be one of the stranger items to come out of an already hectic and bizarre news cycle this weekend. The GOP in general and specifically the Trump campaign have flushed countless millions of dollars into campaigning against Joe Biden, who continued to insist that he would be running for a second term. After he finally announced yesterday that he would be leaving the race, the entire picture changed. This led Donald Trump to take to his Truth Social media platform and posit a question. Should the GOP seek reimbursement for fraud after spending all of that money focusing on someone who clearly was not going to be serving a second term? (NY Post)

Former president Donald Trump took to Truth Social Sunday night to raise the question of whether his party should be "reimbursed for fraud" for the cash it's invested campaigning against Biden.

"So, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after having a terrible debate, and quits the race. Now we have to start all over again.

"Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud in that everybody around Joe, including his doctors and the Fake News Media, knew he was not capable of running for, or being, President? Just askin’?" Trump asked.

I'm going to assume that Trump was just saying this wistfully and/or looking to drive a few more headlines. I can't imagine any lawyer with an ounce of credibility agreeing to take up such a lawsuit. The entire proposition is patently ludicrous. If an incumbent president or leading candidate were to suddenly die shortly before the convention, their opponent wouldn't sue their family seeking reimbursement for all of the money they had spent running against them. If the assassin's bullet had truly found its mark on July 13, neither Biden nor Harris would be entitled to sue Trump's estate for the campaign money they have already spent opposing him.

Of course, in an attempt to give at least partial credit to Trump here, those situations are significantly different. An unexpected tragedy could befall anyone and it wouldn't be their own fault, so they shouldn't be held liable. Biden's situation was only "unexpected" because he remained in denial of reality for so long. It has long been obvious to nearly anyone with a pulse that Joe Biden couldn't do the job for four more years. Heck, he can't even do the job now. If I had a slightly more conspiratorial nature, I might begin suspecting that this was an intentional ploy to drain Trump's campaign resources and run out the clock until the Democrats were left with no other option than to quickly rush Kamala Harris in as Biden's replacement on the ticket. There is a high probability that this will likely be the end result anyway, but even I can't bring myself to believe that this was BIden's master plan all along.

One more interesting thing popped up yesterday in the wake of the Biden withdrawal news and I thought it was worth mentioning here. Did The Simpsons predict more than twenty years ago not only that Donald Trump would become the President, but that Kamala Harris might wind up taking his place later? Check this out.

The 17th episode of the 11th season of The Simpsons shows Lisa Simpson as the first female president of the United States, dressed similarly to Kamala Harris at Joe Biden's inauguration.

This episode, which aired in 2000, strongly suggests that real estate mogul Donald Trump… pic.twitter.com/zvFZ5RVLl8

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) July 21, 2024

That's simply bizarre, but then again, The Simpsons have wound up predicting all manner of amazing things that seemed ludicrous at the time but later wound up being true. They show an adult Lisa Simpson being sworn in as the first female president (dressed exactly like Kamala has for formal events) and include a reference to the terrible economy that "President Trump" left behind. This took place in the year 2000, four years before Trump's reality TV series "The Apprentice" kicked off. Trump was still primarily just a businessman then. But can you think of any other famous Trumps they could have been referring to? It's just very strange.