“I disagree!”
President Joe Biden was offering a dramatic and direct response to a landmark Supreme Court ruling that could give presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump a pass to unchecked power if he wins a second term.
But Biden’s defiance also conveyed a poignant image of a president who refuses to be sidelined from the biggest political stage after a disastrous debate performance revealed the ravages of age.
Biden appeared Monday night (1) in the majestic surroundings of the cross hallway just outside the White House, with the presidential seal behind him and marble pillars on either side. But his argument — that presidents are not kings — was the opposite of regal. Biden said the high court’s ruling on Trump’s sweeping claim to be shielded from prosecution for his attempt to steal the 2020 election — concluding that presidents are immune from official acts — was dangerous and unprecedented.
“Now the American people will have to do what the court should have been willing to do and failed to do: The American people will have to render judgment on Donald Trump’s behavior,” Biden said.
His speech was both a momentous moment in the institutional history of the presidency and a calculated political move — the first step back after a horrific and humiliating weekend filled with calls for him to abandon his presidential campaign.
In four minutes, Biden, 81, summed up the two increasingly serious and urgent choices voters faced in November.
— Will the country once again turn to a 78-year-old former president with authoritarian instincts who believes the Constitution gives him absolute power?
— And does Biden, slowed by the inexorable march of time and facing an existential personal political crisis, have the strength to be the last barrier to Trump’s autocratic ambitions?
Biden’s first attempt at recovery
The president’s appearance on Monday night came after he returned from Camp David, where he had been staying since Saturday, surrounded by family and plagued by speculation about his political future. Biden is braced for polls that will show whether his already rocky path to reelection has been further compromised by his hard-to-follow struggles on the debate stage.
As a piece of political theater, the speech did nothing to allay concerns about Biden’s health, mental capacity and age, raised by a painful debate appearance in CNN in Atlanta on Thursday (27), when he seemed vague at times and occasionally incoherent. Whether because of the setting or a different kind of makeup on television, he looked tanned and rested on Monday, rather than pale and aged as he did in the debate. But despite reading from a teleprompter, the president’s words were rushed, as they sometimes are with older people.
And when he was done, the president ignored questions from the press. His delicate — almost staggering — walk back to the Blue Room underscored a loss of mobility that only reminds voters of his advancing age. Biden will require a greater volume and pace of public events and a level of energy and engagement week after week to try to dispel the frightening images of a president open-mouthed and seemingly confused at last week’s debate.
Yet the forceful quality of Biden’s speech and the content of his words in the speech left no doubt about his convictions — even in circumstances far more manageable than a debate against the ferocious Trump. Monday’s appearance was a classic example of how to use the imagery and rhetoric of the presidency.
The court concluded that for “principal” presidential activity, Trump has the absolute immunity he sought from a lawsuit stemming from his 2020 election interference case. The conservative majority said Trump’s conversations with the Justice Department, efforts to get officials to join his push to overturn the election, were covered by absolute immunity — a factor that critics say could give him an opening to use the department to seek retribution against his personal enemies if he wins another term.
For other official actions and more routine powers held by the president, the court said there is at least some immunity and largely deferred to lower courts to decide the scope.
But Biden defended the presidency within the confines of a constitutional system designed to restrain executive power, not unleash it. The irony of a president warning that the power of his own office must be circumscribed was consistent with the views of all but a few U.S. presidents, who understood that the integrity of the public trust they held and American democracy depended on their restraint.
Biden invoked George Washington, the first president who established the tradition of voluntarily and peacefully surrendering power that Trump abused four years ago, to argue that executive power is “limited, not absolute.” Presidential speeches don’t have to be long to resonate.
“The American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s attack on our democracy on January 6th renders him unfit to hold office in the highest office in the land,” Biden said. “The American people must decide whether Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide whether they want to entrust the… presidency… once again… to… Donald Trump, now knowing that he will have more courage to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”
Trump fumes over ‘stench’ of Biden’s ‘hoaxes’
Biden’s measured reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision contrasted with his predecessor’s triumphant outburst.
“THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IS MUCH MORE POWERFUL THAN SOME EXPECTED. IT IS BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN AND WISE, AND IT CLEANS THE STINK OF BIDEN’S TRIAL AND SCAMS, ALL OF WHICH WERE USED AS AN UNFAIR ATTACK ON JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL OPPONENT, ME,” the former president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “MANY OF THESE FAKE CASES WILL NOW DISAPPEAR OR WITHER INTO OBSCURRENCY. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
Trump’s capital letters, self-obsession and false claims that he is a victim of politicized justice have only reinforced Biden’s arguments about the dangers he poses to democracy. But Trump’s skill as a demagogue has convinced many of his supporters that Biden, not the former president who refused to accept the results of an election, is the real threat to democracy.
Trump has never hidden what he would do with the strengthening of executive power. After all, he has called for the abolition of the Constitution in a social media post. During the 2020 pandemic, Trump falsely declared: “When someone is the President of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it should be.” In his social media campaign, apparently aimed at influencing the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ahead of the trial, the former president has repeatedly said that without immunity for all acts, the presidency could not function. And he has left no doubt that he would use a second term to seek personal revenge.
Those statements take on new meaning given Monday’s decision.
“This wasn’t the grand slam that Trump was looking for, but it was damn close,” said former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, a senior law enforcement analyst at the CNN CNN’s Kaitlan Collins told “The Source” on Monday.
“The definition of immunity is so broad…that with the addition of the elimination of the use of any official conduct as evidence in a prosecution targeting unofficial conduct, it really creates a tiny area of prosecution for any president or former president.”
That reality appears to give Trump even greater latitude for his expansive interpretation of presidential powers if he wins in November — a factor Biden is imploring voters to consider. He pointed Americans to the opinions of liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who issued a scathing dissent against the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision.
“I agree with Justice Sotomayor’s dissent today. Here’s what she said… ‘In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law. Out of fear for our democracy, I dissent,” end quote. So should the American people.
“I disagree,” Biden said.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
