President Joe Biden arrived in Los Angeles for a star-studded fundraiser headlined by George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Macy Jenkins reports for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 15, 2024.
President Joe Biden on Saturday night warned about the possibility of former President Donald Trump appointing two new Supreme Court justices if he wins the presidency in November.
“The next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees — two more,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles, adding that Trump had already appointed two justices who are “very negative in terms of the rights of individuals.”
“I think it is one of the scariest parts,” Biden said.
Biden’s comments came at a campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles where he appeared alongside former President Barack Obama, actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts and comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
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At the fundraising event, the president participated in a discussion with Kimmel and Obama that touched on several policy issues. Kimmel noted that almost two years ago, conservative justices appointed by Trump played a pivotal role in overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion access.
“These threats to abortion rights, to women’s rights, to even to birth control and IVF are not in our liberal imaginations anymore,” Kimmel said.
“They’re very real, and these decisions, these very personal, intimate decisions, are now being made by nine unelected judges — one of whom flies his flag upside down. One of the others drives around in a $267,000 gift on vacations,” the comedian added, referring to controversies surrounding conservative Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who came under scrutiny for previously undisclosed trips given by a GOP megadonor.
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“And I think we are all wondering, what can we do about this?” Kimmel asked.
“Elect me again,” Biden said, adding that the Supreme Court “has never been as out of kilter as it is today” and that Trump would “appoint two more flying flags upside down.” That was in reference to reports that an upside-down flag was flown outside of Alito’s home in early 2021.
Some Trump supporters who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had flown upside-down American flag during the attack, which was prompted by the then-president’s baseless claims of a rigged 2020 election and his refusal to concede.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he would not probe Alito for the reported upside-down flag, but urged the conservative justice to step aside from two pending cases involving Trump and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Alito declined to recuse himself after he came under fire over the upside-down flag at his home and another controversial flag reportedly flown at a second property. In letters to members of Congress last month, Alito maintained that it was his wife who had decided to raise the contentious flags.
Chief Justice John Roberts also rejected a request to meet with Democratic senators to discuss Supreme Court ethics in light of the flag controversy.
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