In comments from the Oval Office on Monday evening, President Biden lashed out at a Supreme Court decision in Trump v. The United States that he said essentially lifted any constraints to presidential power by making it much harder for Congress to challenge extravagantly broad claims of executive privilege or outright immunity like those made under former President Donald Trump.
In a brief speech, Biden laid out his concerns before walking away from the press without taking any questions.
“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,” Biden said.
The decision by the Supreme Court extends a wide measure of immunity to a former president for official acts during his term, but excludes unofficial deeds from this protection.
The Court, in a 6-3 ruling, did not directly answer the question of whether former President Trump has immunity against criminal prosecution based on an alleged role he played to overturn election results.
Biden then went on to call for an assessment of whether Donald Trump is “unfit” for the presidency, referencing his actions January 6th.
“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.
The president also evoked George Washington’s view of power as fallible, rather than infallible.
Finishing his brief comments, Biden left suddenly, declining to take any questions about whether he would drop out of the presidential race after sharing the debate stage with Trump.
“Today’s Historic Decision by the Supreme Court should end all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the New York Hoaxes – The Manhattan SCAM cooked up by Soros backed D.A., Alvin Bragg, Racist New York Attorney General Tish James’ shameless ATTACK on the amazing business that I have built, and the FAKE Bergdorf’s “case.” PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social.
Trump was indicted in August 2023 by Special Counsel Jack Smith on charges that he colluded to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.
