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'There Are No Kings in America': Biden Blasts Supreme Court, Issues Dire Warning After Immunity Ruling

“(With) today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all practical purposes, there are virtually no limits on what the president can do. It’s a fundamentally new principle and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law even including the supreme court of the United States.”

Throughout his address, Biden underscored the gravity of the moment, emphasizing that the only barrier to the president’s authority now lies in the personal restraint of the officeholder. He warned vehemently against the prospect of Trump returning to power, painting a stark picture of the dangers such an outcome could pose.

Audacious ,

He needs to take action, not talk about it.

cabron_offsets ,

He won’t.

Audacious ,

Evil wins when good people do nothing, especially when those good people have the means to.

cabron_offsets ,

De facto, yes there is.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Trump’s election had an enormous impact that seems to have survived his Presidency, and will continue to do so for decades to come.

anlumo ,

Probably a lot longer. These SCOTUS decrees will last until the US crumbles to dust.

Although, they might have accellerated the timeline towards the end significantly.

thisbenzingring ,

They charge rulings but usually only generations later.

RizzRustbolt ,

“This is not a place of honor”, but it’s for the Supreme Court building.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Trump’s election proved that most of America’s governmental system was based around a series of “gentlemen’s agreements” and an expectation of fair play. America is not resilient to betrayal in any fashion. If one person stops respecting the rule of fair play the entire system crumbles.

samus12345 ,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

https://i.imgflip.com/8vpwpj.jpg

absGeekNZ ,
@absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz avatar

What is to stop Biden from cancelling the upcoming election?

Being now his powers are effectively unchecked, couldn’t he just call off the election as an official act. Rather than stupid shit like ordering assassination or deploying the military, just say “I’m cancelling the election until such time this ruling is overturned and a constitutional amendment is enacted that states that the president is not immune from criminal prosecution”

Imgonnatrythis ,

Saving that move for Trump. It’s the dystopian future I guess we deserve.

UltraGiGaGigantic ,

Couldn’t even make it 300 years.

ryven ,
@ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

This protects him from prosecution but doesn’t require other officials to help him break the law. States don’t need the president’s approval to run elections, and Congress doesn’t need his approval to certify the votes of electors in the presidential election specifically.

tiefling ,

He can just pardon all of them, and his discussions can’t even be questioned in court now. Hell, bribery is legal now too.

absGeekNZ ,
@absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz avatar

This reminds me of something…gaining favor of the ruler is key to your advancement.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

What is to stop Biden from cancelling the upcoming election?

Uhhhh he literally can’t. Not because it’s a crime, but because it’s not within his authority. This doesn’t just give them carte blanche to do whatever they want, it just means they can’t be charged with a crime.

absGeekNZ ,
@absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz avatar

Ok, fair enough.

I’m not from the US so my understanding of your system is surface level.

Could he give himself the power to do this?

Joncash2 ,

Only in times of war. It’s literally one of the checks and balances to specifically prevent a president from stopping an election. Now, if we start a full blown war with Russia…

absGeekNZ ,
@absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz avatar

I hear those checks and balances are starting to look a little unreliable.

MartianSands ,

The president can’t actually make law, as far as I understand it. He, and the various offices managed by the executive branch, apply and enforce the law which Congress has written (give or take some interpretation by the courts).

Sometimes of those laws specifically give the executive broad enough authority over something that it’s very similar to the president being able to write laws about it, but it’s not quite the same and it cant overrule actual laws

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

No, he does not have the authority to give himself the authority to cancel the election.

ZombieMantis ,
@ZombieMantis@lemmy.world avatar

The US government is based on the idea of separation of powers, and making the President as weak as possible while still being able to do his job. The President can’t just decide he has a new authority, Congress has to sign legislation that delegates a specific authority to the President. That authority is typically organized in the from of a Cabinet office, which is filled with the advise and consent or Congress.

America was made to abolish kings, that’s why this ruling is so ludicrous, so antithetical to the very Constitution the court is supposed to uphold, and why people are so up in arms about it.

shottymcb ,

He’s the commander in chief of the US military. If there aren’t repercussions for exceeding his authority, it’s essentially unlimited.

kent_eh ,

If there aren’t repercussions for exceeding his authority,

There still are repercussions, all that has changed is that personal criminal prosecution is no longer among those.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

LOL no, that’s absolutely not true.

RizzRustbolt ,

He doesn’t need to cancel the elections. He just needs to wait until after the conventions, when congress and the supreme court are in recess. And then he issues an executive order barring convicted felons from holding federal office.

kandoh ,

That would be some very funny chaos

58008 ,
@58008@lemmy.world avatar

He says that, but has no problem issuing pardons, which is about as king-like as it gets. It circumvents the legal and judicial structure of the entire nation, and he can do so on a whim. It’s true that, unlike Trump, he’s only pardoned people deserving of pardons, but that’s not really the fuckin’ point, is it?

Furbag , (edited )

What Biden needs to do, like right fucking now, is pack the courts. AOC trying with a token effort to get them impeached is cute, but will ultimately fail because Republicans won’t turn on their own. The Senate is tied (if you count Bernie as one of the dems) and Harris has the tiebreaker. The house is controlled by the Republicans, but only 7 individuals need to break from their party in order to get a simple majority to save the future of America.

Biden could expand the SCOTUS from 9 seats to 13 and immediately submit 4 liberal justices for confirmation to be seated. Expanding the court doesn’t require congressional approval, so Biden could do this unilaterally and as long as he is able to get butts in those seats, they’re there to stay even if Trump squeaks his way back in. They could then challenge and overturn the immunity ruling, as well as all the other dogshit rulings that have come out in the last couple of years like Dobbs.

He threatened to do it before. He needs to actually pull the trigger.

StupidBrotherInLaw ,

This is all assuming that most of this isn’t political theater, and I’m really starting to wonder how much of United States politics is actually genuine. So often the Democrats have had the opportunity to do something drastic, if less drastic then that frequently done by Republicans, to counteract the erosion of personal freedom and democracy. Yet they always seem to find a reason not to, typically with the justification that they don’t want to push the envelope like the Republicans do, despite the fact the Republicans will continue to push the envelope to their benefit when back in power.

I’m starting to think a lot of this is bullshit.

Moneo ,

Anyone want to ELI5? Whats to stop trump adding 4 more of his own?

tiefling ,

Only that he isn’t president, but you bet your ass he will do just that the moment he’s back in office

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Moderation isn’t in his playbook, he would never just add 4. He’d add 69+ new judges or else just appoint every single GOP congressman as a Supreme Court Judge.

kandoh ,

The Senate is currently divided in a way that makes passing such a significant change a monumental task. Even with a Democratic majority, the margins are slim, and not all Democratic senators are on board with the idea. Senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have expressed reservations about court-packing, making it highly unlikely that this is something Biden could just do.

todd_bonzalez ,

Imagine expanding the court by 4 seats, 4 months before the election and thinking that Republicans in Congress are going to let a single one squeak by before January 6, 2025.

Those seats would be filled by Trump.

jazzup ,

Expanding the court doesn’t require congressional approval

That is incorrect. Changing the size of the Court is understood to be a power that Congress has because of the Necessary and Proper clause, and not a power of the Executive.

For an act changing the size of the Court to pass the Senate, you first need 60 Senators to break the filibuster. This means that 10 Republican Senators need to vote for increasing the size of the Court for any such legislation to pass. That’s not going to happen.

Furbag ,

You are correct. I retract my statement.

The feeling of helplessness is overwhelming.

jazzup ,

The feeling of helplessness is overwhelming.

Yeah. It’s incredibly frustrating that we are at this point.

FlaminGoku ,

Here’s an easier one. He can assassinate them. Doesn’t need congress to do that. He’s the commander in chief. Hell, he’s defending the Constitution, those fuckers are traitors.

LadyAutumn , (edited )
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I wonder how long now until the north and south separate. I’m semi facetious, I don’t see how this situation can be resolved from this point. The Supreme Court has to go or else this ends one of 2 ways.

If Biden overturned the decision that gave Donald Trump immunity, then the southern republican states would almost certainly rebel. If Donald Trump takes power as a king in January, then the northern Democratic states will almost certainly rebel.

dnu ,

That’s some high-fiction you’re spinning up.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

We keep saying that. But if you told me a decade ago that roe v wade would be overturned and an open fascist would be the likely next president and scotus also just ruled that presidents are literally not beholden to any laws then I’d have said the same thing.

Sanctus ,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Liberation Coalition Rebellion 2027 let’s goooooo!!

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9ec19232-3875-48b8-875c-dbc947245ef4.jpeg

pigup ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e94421db-5c29-40ba-8909-6fd352bb454a.gif

HorseRabbit ,

If he has now got supreme power couldn’t he just declare that the president doesn’t have supreme power, and hey presto it’s gone?

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Not really… It’s not that anything he says instantly becomes law, it’s only that he can’t be charged with committing a crime. It’s not a cheat code that lets him create or modify any law because the change or new law just won’t be recognized by the government. It isn’t a crime, per se, it just gets ignored. Or it gets voted on and the GOP squashes it.

HorseRabbit ,

Gotcha. Thanks for the explanation!

crusa187 ,

Ok Biden, time to do something about these fascists. They just gave you everything you need to squash the threat, on a silver platter fit for a king. It’s time to process the new information, understand the powers granted to you, and act - are you up to this task? Please don’t let America down, because you have asserted yourself as the only one who can now do anything about it.

tiefling ,

Never underestimate establishment Democrats’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

this_1_is_mine ,

Fire a Justice… Or you know a couple…

Out of a cannon.

psycho_driver ,

At a brick wall. 3 feet away.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

The bricks don’t deserve that abuse.

ZK686 ,

Never mind the entire United States political system right? Let’s just ignore how our judicial system is set up, because, some liberals and democrats are mad that things aren’t going their way!

this_1_is_mine ,

Why not it seems to be working for the Republicans.

FlaminGoku ,

It hilarious because all of your gotchas are GOP projection. Gerrymandering is used by the GOP because reality has a liberal bias and they have to cut up counties to let them win.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

These threads are awash with comments like this but you can’t avoid fascism by becoming a fascist.

Shit is fucked but arbitrary killing is not the solution.

Delusional ,

Well republican fascism isn’t being stopped by the normal way of doing things since they don’t even take the law into consideration and keep fighting dirty. Seems to me that someone needs to fight dirty against them. As long as the rule of law and checks and balances can be continued afterwards then we’re good but currently, we’re heading into christofascism.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

As long as the rule of law and checks and balances can be continued afterwards

Historically that never happens and it’s naive to think that it would.

SeducingCamel ,

Damn you right guess we just give up the country to trump

fine_sandy_bottom ,

That’s a false dichotomy.

daltotron ,

So, obviously he could just [redacted] the supreme court justices he doesn’t like, appoint new ones, and then the only thing congress could do would be to expand the court or whatever, right? but then why couldn’t he also just keep killing people in official acts until he gets a bunch of people that are like “yup, that was official and you don’t need to do anything about it”? I know that’s probably a slippery slope, right and would probably get him a shit ton of public pushback, especially after a certain point, from both conservatives, who predominantly make up the military, and economic power structures, to liberals who would prize decorum and “fair play” above all else (but I repeat myself), and so maybe that leads to a dissolution of society, which maybe leads to an even worse society as the people who control the levers of power are already the most horrible people, but, yadda yadda.

But, I dunno, how many congress people does he have to make go away, before the rest of them start to get the picture and then start to behave in their own self-interest, as they’ve always behaved? How many people do you really have to threaten in a system where the people who climb to the top are only going to be there out of their own extreme self-interest?

xenspidey ,

Isn’t that the definition of a fascistic dictator?

daltotron ,

Not so much, it would more be along the lines of a standard military coup, which doesn’t necessarily have to originate from a fascist. Those can and do come from all sides of the political spectrum.

I don’t think biden would ever do that, and probably if he did, he’d be the worst president dictator of all time with only the mild upside that he could maybe only do so for the rest of his probably not long lifespan, or for the next couple months as they run another election, which he would probably do since he seems like kind of a sap.

But, if he were replaced by a person I actually liked, or there was someone who’s policy I agreed with in that position, I’d pretty much be fine with it, and I get the feeling that most people would be fine with it too, as in, a majority of the population. The levers of power might freak out though, and that might put a damper on things.

xenspidey ,

So you’re ignoring this part of fascism? “forcible suppression of opposition”

VictoriaAScharleau ,

that isn’t part of how mussolini defined it.

daltotron ,

Well yeah, but that’s only one part of fascism. You could say pretty much the same of any war, lots of non-fascist goverments, and hell, you could say we already do that, just look at how the campus protests were treated, the BLM protests, the civil rights protests, the sufferagettes, a personal favorite of mine would be the horrid history of our oppression of labor by siding with companies and enabling the use of pinkertons to gun down crowds, yadda yadda.

No, if america was to be fascist, it would be fascist for historical reasons which already existed, which have been around for a while already. I don’t know whether or not america suddenly having a dictator, would really have too much of an effect on it suddenly becoming fascist, despite the popular consensus that fascism just requires a really racist guy to suddenly be a dictator. I actually don’t think that would factor too much into the definition at all, I think you could pretty easily have a fascist democracy, and you could definitely have a fascist oligarchy.

I’m pretty sure imperial japan was mostly run by a military cabinet which internally needed a certain number of votes, and the emperor was more like a figurehead and religious figure that had a certain amount of sway over the cabinet’s decisions as he was like, a big deal, more than him being a figure of political power. From what I remember, anyways. Me personally, I’d be pretty comfortable calling imperial japan a fascist state, even if it maybe conforms to that definition less well than, say, italy or germany.

xc2215x ,

Good for Biden. He is completely right here.

FlaminGoku ,

So this is how Democracy dies, with thunderous applause.

madcaesar ,

Time to use these powers to clear out the Supreme Court and put in non corrupt assholes.

FlaminGoku ,

Throw them in the same bin as the traitors still in office that helped orchestrate Jan 6.

SeattleRain ,

If only he were in some position of power to do something about it hmmmmmm.

Cornelius_Wangenheim ,

Yeah, if only his party had control of the House.

eldavi , (edited )

– again

they’ll still find some other excuse not to do anything the next time around.

Cornelius_Wangenheim ,

They impeached Trump twice. It’s not their fault the Constitution requires a 2/3 majority to convict and only 7 Republicans were willing to put country above party.

anticolonialist ,

And they will get enabled by democrats shielding their shitty politics

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Old enough to remember when Dems did control the House, but it didn’t do anything useful.

spidermanchild ,

Sure, assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful. I don’t think you realize how short 2 years is for the legislature and how narrow the dem margin was. They achieved significantly more useful legislation than I thought possible. Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism, so maybe you’re right. Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though - it would be fun to find out, if we could avoid getting all worked up blaming different people we mostly agree with and vote big against fascism.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful

No more than the CARES Act or the PROSWIFT Act or the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 or the Hong Kong Autonomy and Uyghur Human Rights Policy Acts, under the prior administration. We’ve never had a problem issuing large bipartisan bailouts in the thick of a recession, rolling out buckets of cash for proxy wars, or pissing away trillions on expanding legacy highway infrastructure. This is not something unique that Biden brought to the table.

Hell, Trump was even sending military aid to Ukraine as early as 2019. One could argue it was this military escalation and subsequent bombing of the Donbas that kicked off the war with Russia to begin with. Thanks for that!

Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism

Because they’re a party heavily populated with Pro-Life Democrats, they genuinely like the business-friendly / anti-regulatory bent to the SCOTUS, and they are more than happy to break bread with fascists just so long as the fascists can be used as proxies against enemies of US business interests at home and abroad.

This isn’t a fucking accident. It is deliberate bipartisan consensus.

Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though

Exactly what they did in 2009. Send trillions of new dollars to the privatized tech sector. Roll out new privatization schemes for the USPS and US Education System. Bailout failed banks. Increase the size and the authority of police agencies. And impose a host of new unfunded mandates on consumers - via tariffs, anti-union tax increases on health insurance, and private lending schemes - that only serve to degrade quality of life in pursuit of higher corporate profits.

FFS, the lowest hanging fruit imaginable for the Democratic Party is DC Statehood. Easiest win imaginable to just hand yourself two free Senators and 3-4 new House Reps. And they won’t do it.

spidermanchild ,

You’re still making the mistake of treating dems like some single monolith. It’s a coalition of just about everything that isn’t MAGA at this point, covering all sorts of ideals, yours being just one small part. The answer is still “get a majority of reps that aren’t asswipes” and then we’ll get legislation we want.

As to DC statehood, it would have gone through if not for Manchin because the Senate “majority” at the time hinged on his support. We need to win these seats with bigger majorities, period, and then they’ll pass better bills. The overwhelming majorty of Dems support DC statehood, saying “they won’t do it” is not a great take when they literally didn’t have the votes.

eldavi ,

that was only a few years ago and i’m going to assume you’re older than 10.

Burn_The_Right ,

If he jails some Republican reps, we’ll have the majority.

TokenBoomer ,

Like Matt Gaetz, who should be in jail. And MTG, who should be in jail. And Lauren Boebert, who should be in jail. And…

JasonDJ ,

He doesn’t. Impeaching judges is the House’s job.

You know your house rep is up for election this year?

realitista ,

Yeah but now he’s above the law, so I say do it anyway and overturn the ruling his damn self.

madjo ,

It sets precedents that you might not want, because if Trump or one of his cronies get into the oval office, they can do the same thing.

imPastaSyndrome ,

T h e y a l r e a d y w i l l

TokenBoomer ,

This notion of appeasement to fascism will doom us all.

JasonDJ , (edited )

I think the problem is, if Dems do it first, they’re not better than the Republicans.

Unilateral dictatorships are unilateral dictatorships no matter who does it.

You can’t win in a game where one side insists on cheating and one side insists on following the rules. Our system of governance wasn’t designed for this level of factionhood. It should and could’ve been stopped the right way maybe 20 or 30 years ago. At the least, 8 years ago. And the very last chance was when Trump’s second impeachment made it to the Senate.

But now, there’s no chance.

It’s not even really “cheating” that the Republicans are doing. Most everything is getting a “legal” stamp of approval. Just in a shady way that clearly and defiantly goes against everything this country has ever been about.

Hey I know another politician who was pretty popular for his time that did the same thing. Bright young man with a funny mustache.

FreakinSteve ,

OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY DONT YOU FUCKING PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT THEY WILL ALREADY FUCKING DO THAT!!! THEY DO NOT NEED OR EVEN WANT DEMOCRAT PERMISSION OR PRECEDENT!!! Goddamn a you fucking milquetoast losers who defended free speech for Nazis all this time and got us in this fucking predicament!! You NEVER understand who you’re dealing with!!

Buddahriffic ,

If Trump gets back into office, it’s game over, unless the people are willing to fight a civil war to stop him. Though even that will probably be too little too late because of the power vacuum it will likely create on the world stage when WWIII already looks possible in the next decade.

It might already be too late because I agree that Biden pushing his weight around with these new lack of presidential limits would get messy. But the cat is out of the bag right now and it’s not going to go quietly back in.

Madison420 ,

Legally … but the law doesn’t apply to the president so long as they’re doing it for a reason they believe to be official.

trafficnab ,

The ruling more or less explicitly states that Biden could go on national television, say “Won’t someone rid me of these troublesome justices?”, have them assassinated, and face no legal repercussions because using the bully pulpit is covered by presidential immunity

Madison420 ,

Farther. He could use the military or any branch of government to kill them and still get immunity. We now have a long, don’t get me wrong we always had some assumption that that’s how it went but seeing it on paper is an eye opener.

Hell, he could sign literally every US asset over to anyone he pleases and there’s nothing we could do via a legal means. It’s not supposed to work that way but if no law constrains the office then the office is simply free to do literally whatever they want.

Akuden ,

The law applies to the president always.

Here is what this ruling is for -

First - if I order an enemy of the US dead I can be prosecuted.

The president orders an enemy dead. That enemy is killed. The president cannot be prosecuted for that act.

What this ruling does - the president may also not be prosecuted for that act after they leave office.

That’s all this does. That’s it. If the president kills a maid in the White House he or she will go to prison because that is against the law and not within the duties of the office.

Madison420 ,

It doesnt.

Nope.

Agreed.

No or means they can’t be prosecuted for it ever so long as it was under the guise of an official act.

Nope, that maid was a spy and deserved what she got.

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