President Joe Biden criticised the Supreme Court’s ruling giving former President Donald Trump legal immunity for many of his actions leading up to the January 6, 2021, insurrection, saying that now, “there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.”
“Any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law,” Biden said after returning to the White House on Monday from Camp David, the presidential retreat where he met with family to discuss his reelection campaign.
He called the ruling “a fundamentally new principle and a dangerous precedent” and vowed that he wouldn’t be one to break the law in office.
In a controversial 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative justices ruled that Trump enjoys complete immunity for his presidential actions that were “official” in nature, but not for those that were “private.” The high court sent the case back to a lower court to determine which actions alleged in the indictment may fall somewhere in between, such as his pressuring of state-level officials to create fraudulent slates of Electoral College electors in states he had lost in the 2020 election.
The ruling effectively makes a trial on Trump’s election subversion charges impossible before the November 2024 election.
In a fiery dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority opinion “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”
“The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding,” she added.
Biden’s remarks at the White House on Monday evening come amid intense scrutiny regarding his political future. The 81-year-old president’s lethargic performance at last week’s debate against Donald Trump in Atlanta has generated a wave of soul-searching in the Democratic Party about whether he should continue to seek reelection or step aside for a younger candidate like Vice President Kamala Harris.
Although many leading commentators and newspaper editorial boards have called on Biden to withdraw, elected Democratic officials and members of his family maintain that he should stay in the race.
Some Democrats have urged Biden to make less-scripted public appearances and do press interviews in the coming days to reassure the public of his ability to do the job. The president is scheduled to attend several public events at the White House this week, including a Medal of Honor ceremony and a July Fourth holiday barbecue.
In his address on Monday, Biden warned about what returning Trump to the White House would mean for American democracy “knowing he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.”
“The American people will have to do what the courts should have been willing to do but will not, the American people have to render judgment about Donald Trump’s behaviour,” Biden added, referring to the November election. The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable.”