Politics

Joe Biden: Voters ‘Don’t Deserve’ To Hear Position On Court Packing Before Election

Joe Biden speaks during the Democratic debate hosted by ABC on Sept. 12, 2019. (YouTube/Screenshot)

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Friday that voters do not deserve to hear his position on expanding the Supreme Court before the head to the polls next month.

“No, they don’t,” Biden responded to a reporter when asked if voters have a right to learn his position on the hot-button issue.

While the former vice president has repeatedly refused to say whether he supports expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court, his remarks Friday appear to be his most pointed rebuke of voters who care about the issue.

“This is the number one thing that I’ve been asked about from viewers in the past couple of days,” KTLV anchor Ross DiMattei said to Biden of the court packing issue at a campaign stop in Las Vegas.

“Well, you’ve been asked by viewers who are probably Republicans who don’t want me to continue talking about what they’re doing to the court right now,” Biden shot back.

“Sir, don’t the voters deserve to know where you stand…,” the reporter began to ask.

“No, they don’t deserve,” Biden began, before trailing off. “I’m not going to play his game,” he said of President Trump.

Biden has accused Trump of using the court packing question to distract from the Republican effort to vote on Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court justice before the election. But liberals in the Democratic party have led the push to pack the court.

Groups like Demand Justice, which was founded by a former press secretary for Hillary Clinton and Sen. Chuck Schumer, began calling for Supreme Court expansion during the Democratic primaries.

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Biden asserted that Trump and Republicans have broken new ground by holding a vote on a Supreme Court justice just before the election.

“He’s about to make a pick in the middle of an election. First time it’s ever been done,” Biden claimed.

Trump has defended the decision to vote on Barrett’s confirmation, noting that he has the constitutional authority to nominate a justice during his presidential term.