Biden urges respect for legal system after Trump conviction while publicly flouting SCOTUS rulings
Fox News
President Biden said on Friday that the justice system “should be respected” and that it was “reckless” for former President Donald Trump to claim that the verdict in his New York trial was “rigged,” just days after he told his supporters the Supreme Court could not “stop” him from carrying out his agenda.
“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 the former president’s remarks about the NY v. Trump verdict, which found Trump guilty Thursday 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.
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Biden’s remarks came just two days after he bragged to his supporters at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 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 Wednesday from Girard College.
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.
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“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.”
Earlier this year, Biden announced the Savings on Valuable Education (SAVE) 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, 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.”
Following the verdict in Trump’s trial, Biden took to social media on Friday to claim, “No one is above the law.”
He has also used Trump’s remarks to raise funds for his re-election campaign, claiming in another post on X that Trump “questioned our judicial system.”
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“Donald Trump is threatening our democracy. First, he questioned our election system. Then, he questioned our judicial system,” Biden wrote Friday.
Biden said Friday that Trump, who is the first president to be convicted of a felony, will “be given the opportunity, as he should, to appeal” the conviction.
Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.