Biden dings Supreme Court and Trump in first public appearance since stepping down

President Joe Biden has embarked on his long goodbye to the White House, calling for the Supreme Court to be reformed one week after stepping down as the 2024 presumptive Democratic nominee.

“I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers laid out in our Constitution, but what’s happening now is not consistent with that doctrine of separation of powers,” Biden told a crowd Monday afternoon at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. “Extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court’s decisions.”

Biden’s Supreme Court reform announcement Monday had been delayed amid calls for him to stand down as the Democratic nominee. But he used his speech in Texas, part of the library’s commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, to also criticize former President Donald Trump and Project 2025, in addition to promoting Vice President Kamala Harris, now his party’s presumptive standard-bearer.

“The president is no longer constrained by the law,” he said. “The only limits on abuse of power will be self-imposed by the president alone. That’s a fundamentally flawed view and a fundamentally flawed principle.”

Biden’s Supreme Court reforms include term limits and a binding code of conduct for justices, as well as a constitutional amendment ensuring former presidents are not immune from prosecution for crimes committed in office, a direct response to the court’s decision in Trump v. United States.

Biden opened by praising Johnson, whose footsteps he followed last week when he, like Johnson before him in 1968, delivered an Oval Office address confirming that, as an incumbent president, he would not seek reelection months before voters begin casting their ballots.

“As a kid coming up, I always admired President Johnson for his public service, whether as a school teacher in South Texas, a master of the United States Senate, a historic vice president and president,” he said. “His philosophy was simple: in a great society, no one, no one should be left behind.”

Biden was warmly welcomed by the audience and detoured from his prepared remarks to speak at length about his decision to pursue politics.

Biden was supposed to appear at the library on July 15, but the event was rescheduled due to the attempt on Trump’s life the weekend before. Instead, the president taped an interview with NBC‘s Lester Holt before being diagnosed with COVID-19 later that week.

The White House conceded en route to Texas that Biden’s reforms would be difficult to turn from recommendations into reality, particularly as some would require congressional approval and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has already described them as “dead on arrival.”

“We’re going to have to count on members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, outside of the aisle, listening to the constituents here,” Office of Public Engagement Director Steve Benjamin told reporters on Air Force One.

At Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Biden told the same reporters the White House and congressional Democrats would find “a way” to pass the reforms. At the library, he added Johnson’s thinking was “dead on arrival.”

In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post, Biden wrote that, as a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has a “great respect for our institutions and separation of powers.”

“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Biden wrote Monday morning. “We now stand in a breach.”

“We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power,” he continued. “We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy. In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.”

Harris has also expressed support for Biden’s reforms, indicating she would advocate them next year if she becomes president.