President Donald Trump on Sunday again asked Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to issue a list of potential Supreme Court nominees and answer questions about whether or not he would pack the court.
“People have long been voting but Joe Biden has still not released his Supreme Court List of Radical Left Judges that he would like to put on the Court,“ Trump wrote on Twitter. ”Also, is he going to Court Pack? He thinks he can bluff his way through these two important questions. Can only vote against!!!”
Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), have long evaded questions on whether they would expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court. Biden most recently said he would let the American voters know his position on packing the court before the election on Nov. 3. Harris dodged two direct questions on the matter during her debate with Vice President Mike Pence.
Biden has likewise not responded to Trump’s repeated calls to release a list of prospective nominees to the Supreme Court. Trump did so during the 2016 race and has again in 2020.
Trump during his first term successfully appointed three justices to the court, shifting the balance of the bench in favor of conservatives for possibly decades to come. Democrats have vowed to retaliate by expanding the size of the bench should they win the majority in the Senate in 2020.
The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Senate Republicans confirmed Trump’s recent nominee to the court—Justice Amy Coney Barrett—on Oct. 26. Democrats decried the confirmation as rushed and said the winner of the presidential election should be the one to make the nomination.
During Barret’s confirmation hearings, Democrats focused the bulk of their criticism on how she might rule in a consequential case concerning the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.
Biden mirrored that criticism in his most recent remarks about the Supreme Court.
“Trump and the Republicans just jammed through a Supreme Court nomination and we know why: to try and destroy the Affordable Care Act again,” Biden said at a rally in Detroit.
“If they get their way, 100 million Americans will lose protections for preexisting conditions, including more than 4 million here in Michigan.”
Barrett declined to give an answer on how she would rule on the lawsuit concerning the ACA. The Trump administration is seeking to overturn the entire law. The legal challenge focuses on whether the absence of the individual mandate, which the Republicans removed, renders the entire law unconstitutional.
Trump, on the other hand, has suggested that Biden would end the private health insurance industry, which serves 180 million Americans primarily through employer-based plans. Biden said does not plan to end private health insurance. The former vice president has instead argued for expanding the ACA by adding a Medicare-like public option for small businesses who can’t afford a plan, employees who don’t have a plan through their jobs, and people who can’t afford insurance.
Biden’s running mate, Harris, has formally co-sponsored the Senate Medicare for All bill by socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Medicare for All outlaws virtually all private health insurance coverage, with fringe exceptions like cosmetic surgery.
