Former Vice President Joe Biden vowed to enact legislation codifying Roe v. Wade if Republicans install Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court and strike down the landmark law protecting abortion rights.
Biden fielded a question about abortion rights Monday night at an NBC town hall from a young woman who called access to abortion and brith control ‘imperative,’ and wanted to know his plans for protecting reproductive rights amid President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
‘Number one, we don’t know exactly what she will do, although expectation is that she may very well move to overview – overrule – Roe,’ Biden said, days after it was revealed that Barrett had signed onto an ad in 2006 that called the law ‘barbaric’ and a ‘raw exercise of judicial power.’
Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would seek to turn Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections into law if a conservative Supreme Court strikes it down
‘And the only thing, the only responsible response to that would be to pass legislation making Roe the law of the land. That’s what I would do,’ he said.
Biden didn’t follow up with a second point in his answer, and host Lester Holt then went to commercial.
Any legislative move enshrining abortion rights into law would be certain to meet a Republican filibuster in the Senate, even if Republicans lose control of the chamber.
However some Democrats are pushing their party’s leadership to act to end the filibuster in order to allow Biden to ram through his agenda without it falling prey to obstruction.
If that were to happen, under a scenario where Democrats seize control of the Senate, the majority could push through a whole range of Biden action items on abortion and other issues.
If the Senate confirms Barrett to fill the seat of the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, conservatives would have a 6-3 majority on the court, even if Biden were to capture the White House.
Senate Republicans are pushing ahead with their plan to try to confirm Barrett before the November 3 elections, despite three Senate Republicans testing positive for the coronavirus.
The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is set to kick off four days of hearings Oct. 12, just weeks before the election.
Biden made a similar vow during the primaries, as a series of states have sought to chip away at abortion rights through their own laws.
Earlier in the town hall in Florida, Biden called out President Donald Trump’s family for opting to take off their masks at last week’s presidential debate in Cleveland – while blasting a ‘macho’ attitude that avoids mask wearing.
Biden spoke Monday night just minutes after Trump left Walter Reed medical facility to reenter the White House – taking off his own mask to be photographed and then reentering the White House.
Biden said he was not worried about himself having contracted the coronavirus from Trump, who debated him on the same stage in Cleveland on Tuesday, when the president may have already been infected with COVID-19.
Biden spoke about Judge Amy Coney Barrett and predicted she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. The White House event where Trump announced her nomination featured a raft of guests who later tested positive for the coronavirus, raising the possibility it was a superspreader event
He told NBC’s Lester Holt he wasn’t worried about his own safety. ‘I’ve been fastidious about the social distancing.’
But he did take to task the president’s family. Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Lara Trump all took off their masks inside the debate hall.
‘It was a little disconcerting to look out and see that his whole section no one had masks on,’ he said.
‘You could see people coming in and a lot of people didn’t have masks on,’ Biden explained – but did not identify Trump’s family members by name specifically.
Biden spoke after President Trump’s dramatic return so the White House while still infected with COVID-19
The president left Walter Reed hospital and flew to the White House after spending three nights away getting treated for the coronavirus
epa08707093 Members of the Trump family (L-R) Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Tiffany Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in the audience shortly before US President Donald J. Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden participate in the first 2020 presidential election debate at Samson Pavilion in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 29 September 2020. Biden said he could see them without their masks from the debate stage
It was revealed Wednesday that members of the Cleveland Clinic, who cosponsored it, offered the Trump family members masks inside the event venue but they declined.
With Trump revealing early Friday that he tested positive for COVID-19, he may well have been exposed during the debate.
Later during the town hall, Biden teed off on people who don’t wear them. ‘Now what is this macho thing I’m not going to wear a mask,’ he said.
Biden was on stage for the town hall format just days before he is scheduled to debate Trump October 15th in Miami for the second presidential debate – which will feature a similar format.
It was arranged in an outdoor venue that featured occasional traffic noise, and the candidate couldn’t always hear his masked questioners.
He told a voter he’s ‘not putting up with it’ if Trump goes after him again. She said she was concerned the president bullied him.
Monday’s event took place outdoors with undecided voters. Biden was seated in a chair feet away from host Lester Holt.
He called last week’s debate ’embarrassing for the nation.
Biden said he himself ‘would communicate the right lesson to the American people’ and said emphatically that ‘masks matter.’
Asked about Trump’s photo-op return from the hospital, Biden said: ‘I hope no one walks away with the message thinking that it’s not a problem. It’s a serious problem. It’s an international pandemic and we have 4 percent of the population and 20 percent of the deaths.’
But he declined to go after Trump’s medical team for holding back information.
He said that ‘moment to moment I’m not sure that that is an absolute requirement’ to reveal all information about the president’s health. He said it had national security implications.
‘You cannot mislead about certain things,’ Biden said.
After blasting Trump on a variety of issues during the pandemic, Biden said: ‘I’m not being critical of the fact that every single detail was not released.’
That came despite a media pile-on for White House physician Sean Conley’s refusal to divulge critical information about the president’s condition, including the state of his lungs and precise levels of oxygenation while he battles the coronavirus.