Joe Biden Gives Ominous Supreme Court Warning

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks onstage during a campaign fundraiser at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on June 15, 2024.

Speaking at a Hollywood campaign event on Sunday where he raised a record-breaking $30 million, Joe Biden said that, should Donald Trump be elected as president in November, he would be able to further influence the makeup of the Supreme Court.

"This has never been a court that's so far out of step" the Democratic president said during a discussion at a campaign reception at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California, with former President Barack Obama and comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

Biden added that, after the conservative majority in the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe vs. Wade in June 2022, deciding that there is no federal constitutional right to abortion, "you had [Justice] Clarence Thomas talking about the fact that there are going to be other things we should reconsider, including—in vitro fertilization, including contraception, including all these things."

Biden said that fundamental rights like same-sex marriage weren't and wouldn't be reversed under his watch. "Not on my watch," he added, amid applause. "Elect me again," Biden said, adding that "the next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees. Two more."

He added: "He's already appointed two that are—have been very negative in terms of the rights of individuals. The idea that, if he's reelected, he's going to appoint two more flying flags upside down," Biden said. He was making a clear reference to recent reports that Justice Samuel Alito flew an inverted American flag at his house in January 2021. The inverted flag was a symbol embraced by Trump's supporters who falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election had been "stolen."

Alito later confirmed to Fox News that the flag was flying upside down at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, but said his wife had put it up in response to a sign in the neighborhood that read "F*** Trump." The conservative justice refused to recuse himself from weighing in on two pending cases involving the embattled former president and the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

There is a six-justice supermajority of Republican appointees in the Supreme Court. While Alito wasn't appointed by Trump, three of the conservatives justices were: Neil Gorsuch (2017), Brett Kavanaugh (2018) and Amy Coney Barrett (2020).

Biden said that the possibility of Trump appointing two more Supreme Court justices was "one of the scariest parts of it."

The president's Los Angeles fundraiser, which featured actors Julia Roberts and George Clooney, broke the Democratic Party's record for cash raised in one night, according to the Los Angeles Times. The previous record, $26 million in one night, was obtained by Biden during a Manhattan fundraiser earlier this year with former presidents Obama and Bill Clinton.

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