Top Biden ally says criticism of the White House is 'the same foolishness that got us Donald Trump'

© AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File Cedric Richmond AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

• A top Biden ally said attacks on the White House are “the same foolishness” that got Trump elected.
• “The country didn’t elect Joe Biden because they wanted a Democratic Donald Trump,” Cedric Richmond told CNN.
• The White House and Congress are pointing the finger at each other for solutions to key challenges. 

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Here’s what Biden can do to help Americans retain abortion access now that Roe v. Wade is overturned, advocates say

The Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade last week.  President Joe Biden condemned the decision, calling on Congress to act and citizens to vote. Here are the measures abortion advocates have called on Biden to implement since Roe was overturned. 

President Joe Biden on Thursday said for the first time that he’s in favor of nixing the Senate filibuster to codify abortion rights into federal law.

“If the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights … we should require an exception to the filibuster for this action,” Biden said during a NATO press conference this week.

His comments come less than a week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, gutting federal abortion protections which were in place for nearly 50 years.

As the nation reels from the top court’s ruling, abortion advocates across the political spectrum have called for sweeping measures from President Joe Biden.

Following the Friday decision, Biden said the Court’s decision would “literally take America back 150 years” and that his administration will aggressively defend Americans’ rights to receive abortion pills through the mail or to travel across state lines to receive care.

The president called on Congress to act, despite Democrats’ previous failures to enshrine abortion rights into federal law. He also called on Americans to vote in the midterms in November.

“Let me be very clear and unambiguous: The only way we can secure a women’s right to choose, the balance that existed, is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law,” he said. “No executive action from the president can do that.”

While Biden has said his “administration will use all of its appropriate lawful powers” to help Americans retain access to abortion,  lawmakers and advocates have called on the president to implement the following measures since Roe was overturned.

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Expand the Supreme Court

Democrats and abortion-rights activists have demanded Biden administration to expand the Supreme Court and add justices to balance the conservative majority. Over 50 House Democrats co-signed a 2021 bill to expand the Court to 13 justices.

While the number of justices on the Supreme Court has been nine since 1869, it historically ranged between five and 10 justices. There is no limit to number of justices on the high court in the Constitution,and Congress has the power to decide its size.

The last major attempt to expand the court, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, failed in Congress.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Saturday that President Joe Biden “does not agree with” expanding the Supreme Court.

“I was asked this question yesterday, and I’ve been asked it before,” she said. “That is something that the President does not agree with. That is not something that he wants to do,” Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing.

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Declare a ‘public health and national emergency’

Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota called on Biden to  “declare a public health emergency” after the Supreme Court ruling.

“We urge the president to declare a public health emergency to protect abortion access for all Americans, unlocking critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services. The danger is real, and Democrats must meet it with the urgency it deserves,” Warren and Smith wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus authored a letter to Biden ahead of the Court’s final decision, calling on the president “to use every tool at your disposal to protect fundamental reproductive rights and abortion access.”

“The effects of this decision on the lives and health of Black women and pregnant people will be devastating and require an urgent and whole-of-government response,” said the letter signed by Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush, Barbara Lee, and nearly two dozen others.

“Declaring a public health emergency and national emergency will allow your Administration to utilize additional flexibilities and deploy resources where necessary,” they added. “In this unprecedented moment, we must act urgently as if lives depend on it because they do.”

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Establish abortion clinics on federal land

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday demanded Biden create abortion clinics on federal lands while speaking at a protest in New York.

“There are also actions at President Biden’s disposal that he can mobilize,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I’ll start with the babiest of the babiest of the baby steps: Open abortion clinics on federal lands in red states right now. Right now.”

However, Vice President Kamala Harris said that putting abortion clinics on federal lands is “not right now what we are discussing” in the administration.

The proposition would face logistical hurdles like the longstanding Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds from directly funding abortion services through programs like Medicaid and Title X. A White House official told Insider that the proposal could be a risk to “women and providers who are not federal employees could be potentially be prosecuted.”

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A top ally of President Joe Biden, Cedric Richmond, argued that Democratic attacks and criticisms of the Biden White House are “the same foolishness” that got former President Donald Trump elected.

Democrats on and off Capitol Hill are increasingly frustrated and disappointed with what they see as a woefully inadequate response and lack of urgency from the White House to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, sources told CNN.

“The country didn’t elect Joe Biden because they wanted a Democratic Donald Trump to go out there every day and divide the country more,” Richmond, the former director of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement and former Biden campaign surrogate, told CNN.

Richmond, now a senior adviser at the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats openly attacking the administration are “scapegoating the President, or distracted and not focusing on what they should be focused on.”

“He saved democracy once by beating a tyrant. He’s doing it again, but he doesn’t do it by beating his chest,” Richmond added.

Richmond, a former Democratic congressman from Louisiana, criticized attacks on the administration as “the same foolishness that got us Donald Trump,” likening criticisms of Biden to critiques of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton from within the party.”

Richmond said that claims like “Hillary wasn’t good enough” and “she’s not fighting hard enough” are “what got us Donald Trump. And that got us Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Case closed.”

Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who the White House tapped to help roll out the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill Congress passed in 2021, argued that Biden is restoring the norms of the presidency but not bulldozing ahead with unilateral action or meddling with independent federal agencies.

“This is what separates him from Donald Trump, and it’s an important separation. He says, ‘I am not a dictator. I am not an autocrat,'” Landrieu told CNN, echoing Richmond’s comments.

Landrieu also partially pointed the finger at Congress for not passing more of Biden’s economic agenda in reconciliation, drug pricing legislation, and a major anti-China competitiveness bill currently languishing in limbo, saying, “it’s just the nature of politics sometimes you just say, ‘I wish somebody else would help,’ when we’re really this is all hands on deck.”

But not everyone in Congress is satisfied with Biden’s proposed policy solutions or how Biden is using his bully pulpit in areas like abortion, where the administration has limited tools at its disposal to bolster access to the procedure.

“There’s no fight,” a Democratic member of Congress told CNN. “People understand that a lot of this is out of his hands — but what you want to see is the President out there swinging.”

One Democratic member of Congress described the White House’s response to multiple, overlapping challenges, including abortion and the economy, as “rudderless, aimless and hopeless.”

“It’s got to look like you’re taking actions,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told CNN about inflation. “Any economist who says the President shouldn’t do anything on the economy should be fired. They can be at a think tank, they can be a professor. But they shouldn’t be at the White House.”

Another aide to a vulnerable Democratic member of Congress told the outlet that “there’s not a frontline office out there that isn’t frustrated with the lack of action coming from the White House on inflation.”

The White House has also wavered on multiple ideas to address persistently high gas prices.

Biden’s proposal for a three-month gas tax holiday doesn’t yet have the support of key Democratic members of Congress, with one Democratic official telling CNN the approach to gas prices has “the appearance of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.”

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