President Joe Biden on Monday sharply rebuked the Supreme Court’s ruling on Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claim, in remarks that departed from his relative silence on his election rival’s ongoing criminal cases.
In a brief speech delivered from the White House, Biden said the court has done “a terrible disservice to the people of this nation” with its ruling that grants Trump some immunity from prosecution in his federal election interference case.
“No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Biden said. “With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all — for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what the president can do.”
He called the Monday ruling a continuation of the Supreme Court’s assault “on a wide range of long-established legal principles in our nation,” including on voting rights and abortion rights. Biden framed the decision as one that increases the high stakes of this election.
“The American people must decide if they want to entrust the president — once again, the presidency — to Donald Trump now, knowing he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,” he said. Biden’s brief remarks come as he faces intense pressure from some Democratic donors, strategists and lawmakers to step down after last week’s disastrous debate performance. The president has largely steered clear of commenting on Trump’s criminal indictments — though he has called Trump a “convicted felon” after the presumptive GOP nominee’s conviction in New York in May. Still, Trump attacked his Democratic rival in a series of Truth Social posts on Monday night, claiming that Biden’s speech was an attempt to “deflect from his horrible campaign performance.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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