Biden promises to stack the Supreme Court, if elected, with leftists | Eastern NC Now

Newsweek is reporting:

President Joe Biden has suggested he will appoint progressive justices to the Supreme Court if he wins a second term in the White House in November.

"The next president, they're going to be able to appoint a couple of justices... Look, if in fact we're able to change some of the justices when they retire and put in really progressive judges like we've always had, tell me that won't change your life," he said during a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The conservative justices appointed by his rival, former President Donald Trump, are "already gutting voting rights, overturning Roe, decimating affirmative action, and so much more," Biden said. "Are we going to let that happen? We can't."

Newsweek has contacted the Biden and Trump campaigns for comment via email.

The comments serve as a warning about the high stakes of November's election, given Trump's appointment of three justices in one term in office cemented the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority.

Two of the court's conservative justices—Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—are in their seventies, while Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, will turn 70 next month.

If Biden wins in November and has the opportunity to nominate justices to replace any who retire, his appointments could affect the country for decades.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has promised to appoint more conservative justices if he wins back the White House.

"You know many presidents never get the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice. I had three, they are gold," he said at an event in 2023. "And maybe we'll get three or four more. Can you imagine? Let's have seven. Let's have seven or eight or maybe even nine."

Biden's comments on Wednesday were part of a renewed effort to mobilize Black voters ahead of November's election. Black voters helped secure Biden's 2020 win, but some polling has suggested Biden is losing support among the key demographic.

At Girard College, a boarding school with a predominantly Black student body, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris thanked Black voters for sending them to the White House in 2020 and argued that their agenda has massively improved the lives of Black Americans.

Biden pointed to his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black female justice on the Supreme Court as a "promise made and a promise kept."

"Because you voted, I was able to keep my commitment to appoint the first Black woman on the United States Supreme Court—Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson," he said.

"And I appointed more Black women to the federal circuit courts than every other president in American history combined."

Harris also pointed to the lasting impact of Trump's presidency on the nation's highest court, saying he had "handpicked three members" of the Supreme Court "with the intention that they would overturn Roe vs. Wade," the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

"And as he intended, they did," Harris said. "If he wins a second term, I promise you: He's going to go even further. So, all of this is to say, who sits in the White House matters."