President Biden claimed this week that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity “undermines the rule of law of this nation,” just one month after he said the justice system and its decisions “should be respected” and bragged about the high court not being able to “stop” him from carrying out his agenda.
“This decision today has continued the Court’s attack in recent years on a wide range of long-established legal principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and civil rights to taking away a woman’s right to choose to today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this nation,” Biden said in a brief address from the White House on Monday.
Biden’s remarks on the ruling came less than a week after his disastrous debate with former President Trump, who he insisted would be “emboldened” by the court’s ruling should the former president win back the White House in this year’s election.
“The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the presidency to Donald Trump once again. Now knowing, he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,” Biden said.
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The comments from the president struck a different tone from that which he used in May, when he claimed the justice system “should be respected” and that it was “reckless” for Trump to claim that the verdict in his New York City criminal trial was “rigged.”
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said in response to Trump’s remarks about the NY v. Trump verdict, which found the former president guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election.
“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America. Our justice system, that justice should be respected. And we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that,” Biden added at the time.
Biden’s remarks on the Trump ruling in May came just two days after he bragged to his supporters at a rally in Philadelphia that the Supreme Court ruling his student debt relief plan was unconstitutional did not “stop” him from canceling student loans.
“The Supreme Court blocked me from relieving student debt, but they didn’t stop me,” Biden said in a speech at Girard College in May.
That same message was shared by the president in a post to X on May 29.
In Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office but not for unofficial acts.
In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
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“This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States. The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone,” Biden said Monday.
Prior to ending his speech and dodging questions from reporters, Biden spoke about the character of the nation’s first president, George Washington, and how he believed power was limited, not absolute.
Biden, like several other Democrat and Republican presidents throughout history, has taken aim at the Supreme Court for a number of rulings they have made during his tenure in the White House.
During his State of the Union address in March, Biden took direct aim at the justices and insisted they had underestimated the “electoral and political power” of women in their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. During an interview with MSNBC about his remarks directed at the justices, Biden said, “Look, I think they made a wrong decision, think they read the Constitution wrong, I think they made a mistake.”
Biden made similar comments on how the high court’s ruling “didn’t stop” him from canceling student loans in February while speaking at the Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, California.
“Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt,” Biden said at the time. “Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled in debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”
Last June, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that federal law does not allow Biden’s Secretary of Education to cancel more than $430 billion in student loan debt. Biden promised at the time that his administration would continue to push for his student debt relief plan.
Shortly after the court’s ruling, Biden said, “I think the court misinterpreted the Constitution.”
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Earlier this year, Biden announced the Savings on Valuable Education plan that cancels debt for enrolled borrowers who have been in repayment for at least 10 years and hold $12,000 or less in student loan debt. Those with larger debts will receive relief after an additional year of payments for every additional $1,000 they borrowed.
In a statement to Fox News Digital last month, Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said, “Expressing disagreement with a Supreme Court decision — as all Presidents do — is not the same as attacking the rule of law and undermining our judicial system.”
Fox News’ Stepheny Price and Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
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