CNN's Tapper Rips Apart Top Biden Staffer Over Biden's Refusal To Answer Court-Packing Question
During a campaign stop at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Thursday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was asked by a reporter whether he supports “packing” the Supreme Court — increasing the number of justices from the nine seated since 1869 in order to dilute the impact of those with different political views.
His reply? He will tell voters after the November election.
“You will know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over,” Biden said. “The moment I answer that question, the headline in every one of your papers will be about that rather than focusing on what’s happening now.”
This is an astonishing answer from any politician.
One day later, the former vice president said voters didn’t deserve to know his view on expanding the court.
CNN’s Jake Tapper was taken aback by Biden’s refusal to reveal his position on such a consequential issue. In a Sunday interview with Biden campaign spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield on his show, “State of the Union,” he pressed her on it, surprisingly hard — while she tried to blame Biden’s (and her own) refusal to answer on President Donald Trump.
Tapper rightly believes that voters deserve to know where every candidate stands on the issues.
“It’s a simple question, and it’s one, frankly, that Trump did not invent,” he told Bedingfield. “It came from the progressives in the Democratic Party, and I thought it was odd when Vice President Biden said the other day in response to a reporter’s question that voters do not deserve an answer on this. Of course, voters deserve an answer on his position on every issue.”
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Bedingfield dodged and weaved, saying, “Well, we’re not gonna play their game. He’s given an answer. He’s answered the question — I mean — he has probably answered this question 15 times over the course of the last week.
“The answer is, I am not going to play Donald Trump’s game. I am not going to allow the terms of this debate to shift to a hypothetical that assumes, by the way, that we, the Democrats, are gonna lose here. I mean really, that’s what’s at the core of this argument they’re making.”
What?
She continued to babble on nervously.
No, Kate, what’s at the core of this argument is that answering this question puts your candidate in a lose-lose situation. If Biden disavows stacking the court, he risks losing the support of the radical left wing of his party. If he confirms his plans to expand the court, he could lose some moderates and independents.
To his credit, Tapper didn’t let her off the hook.
“I think a serious policy question is not a game,” he said. “I don’t think it’s Trump’s game, but Kate Bedingfield, we always appreciate you coming on the show and answering the questions or deftly side-stepping them.”
Biden campaign refuses to say whether or not Biden will pack the Supreme Court. Tapper is right, voters deserve to know where he stands.
“I thought odd when… Biden said the other day… that voters do not deserve an answer on this. Of course, voters deserve an answer.” pic.twitter.com/fSwZwtSsgF
— Abigail Marone ?? (@abigailmarone) October 11, 2020
In the previous segment, Tapper questioned Bedingfield about the Biden campaign’s portrayal of the nomination and confirmation process of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the next Supreme Court justice as “unconstitutional.”
Again, Bedingfield failed to tell Tapper how exactly this process is unconstitutional. (It isn’t.)
“Voters are being denied their constitutional right to have a say in this process. The Republicans are trying to ram through a nominee who, by the way, is going to change the makeup of the court, and we see time and time again, poll after poll shows that most Americans vehemently disagree with this,” she said.
Tapper stopped Bedingfield, saying, “That is not what the word ‘constitutional’ means. ‘Constitutional’ doesn’t mean ‘I like it or don’t like it.’ It means it’s according to the U.S. Constitution. There’s nothing unconstitutional about what the U.S. Senate is doing.”
BRUTAL. Tapper takes Biden’s deputy campaign manager to task on Biden’s accusation that filling a judicial vacancy is ‘unconstitutional’
“That’s not what the word constitutional means. [It] doesn’t mean I like it or don’t like it. It means it’s according to the US Constitution.” pic.twitter.com/8mYgmo9sit
— Abigail Marone ?? (@abigailmarone) October 11, 2020
America is a democratic republic. Voters choose their leaders based on candidates’ positions on an array of issues that, if elected, they are likely to face.
I’ve never heard of a candidate declaring voters don’t deserve to know what he stands for or against — especially when his position could potentially politicize the one branch of government that was intended by our Founders to remain apolitical.
Will moderate Democrats and independents really allow Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, to avoid answering this critical question?
If Democrats win the presidency, flip the Senate and keep their House majority, they will hold full control of the federal government and will be free to reshape the country as they please.
And, unlike the opposition President Franklin Roosevelt faced from members of his own party in 1937 when he tried to pack the court, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would strongly support such a measure.
Do Americans truly understand the consequences of stacking the Supreme Court? By adding a sufficient number of radical justices to the highest court in the land to ensure liberal rulings for years to come, justices would become politicians in robes.
Yes, Republicans could add justices to the court to reverse the damage done the next time their party holds the White House and majorities in both the Senate and the House. However, if the Democrats were able to enact their entire agenda — which would likely include abolishing the electoral college, granting statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, ending the legislative filibuster and more — the Republican Party likely would never get the opportunity.
Up until now, most politicians have opposed stacking the court. As late as July 2019, Biden himself spoke out against this action in an interview with The Iowa Starting Line. “No, I’m not prepared to go on and try to pack the court, because we’ll live to rue that day,” he told a reporter.
Moreover, many of us have seen the clip of Biden calling Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the court a “bonehead idea” in 1983.
But Biden, never one to shy away from a flip-flop, appears to be under the control of the Democratic Party’s far left wing now. In order to win the nomination, he made a deal with the devil, giving power to leftists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. They are now helping to set the campaign’s agenda.
Do moderate Democrats and independents comprehend the gravity of a vote for Biden? Do they understand the chain of events a Biden win would trigger? A Biden/Harris administration would destroy the country from within. Aided and abetted by the corrupt mainstream media, which have become about as truthful as China’s state media, President Biden would preside over the decline of a once-great nation.
Trump must force his opponent to take a position on the issue of court-packing. In his final debate with Biden, the president needs to keep pushing on this issue so that voters understand what the Democrats’ endgame is.
The Trump campaign must hammer this subject in the next three weeks — relentlessly. It needs to saturate the airwaves with warnings about it.
Every conservative should take the time to educate his or her uninformed friends about the stakes America is facing and explain the urgency of this election and the importance of every single Trump vote we can muster.
A Democratic victory in three weeks would be a death blow to America as we’ve known her.
The Democrats’ four-year war against candidate and then President Trump has weakened him. But a full-court press by his supporters can help mitigate that effect.
This is a call to action.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
