Joe Biden appearing in a Pro-Trump ad asking if he has dementia (YouTube screenshot)
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden contended in an interview Wednesday that Republicans are "violating the Constitution" by moving to nominate and confirm a Supreme Court justice before the election.
Biden was asked to explain his statement during an interview with WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.
"The Constitution says that the American people – I taught constitutional law for over 20 years – says the American people get an opportunity to choose who they want on the Supreme Court by who they pick as their senator and their president," he said.
He said a president is allowed to make a nomination, "except once an election has started."
The nomination to fill the vacancy created with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg should await the results of the election, he said, and "I should get to pick that nominee."
Just the News said Biden "might want to take a refresher course [on the Constitution] himself."
"In Article II, Section 2, the Constitution states that the president, with the 'advice and consent of the Senate,' shall pick Supreme Court justices," Just the News pointed out. "In fact, until the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1917, Americans didn't even pick their own senators, each state's legislatures did that."
Ginsburg herself, in 2016, confirmed that the president is elected for four years, not three, meaning a sitting president could nominate a justice even to the point of his departure from office.
Trump explained his position in nominating Amy Coney Barrett, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals: "We won the election. Elections have consequences. We have the Senate, we have the White House, and we have a phenomenal nominee respected by all. We won the election and therefore we have the right to choose her, and very few people knowingly would say otherwise. And by the way, the Democrats, they wouldn’t even think about not doing it. The only difference is they’d try and do it faster."
Biden made the claim Wednesday that Republicans were violating the Constitution when he once again refused to answer whether or not he favors "packing" the Supreme Court if his party gains control of the Senate and White House, adding additional justices to the bench.
"That's exactly what they want me to talk about so we don't talk about how they're violating the Constitution now," he told the Pittsburgh station. "And I'm not gonna play Trump's game."
Biden refused to answer the question during the debate Tuesday.
When Trump pressed him on the issue, Biden said, "Will you shut up, man?"
The post Biden flubs Constitution: Contends president can't nominate justice during election appeared first on WND.
