To his own dismay, former Vice President Joe Biden made headlines Thursday when he echoed Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) ObamaCare pitch and told voters they needed to elect him to find out his position on packing the Supreme Court with liberals. The comments made ABC chief White House correspondent Jon Karl proclaim “[t]his doesn’t make any sense” on Twitter. But later that evening, senior congressional correspondent Mary Bruce covered up Biden’s sleaziness.
While standing in an Arizona hanger and taking questions from the press, the media’s presidential nominee said: “You'll know my opinion on court-packing when the election’s over.” He went on to complain that if he was to give his position now, then that would be what all the headlines would be about.
One could reasonably assume that Biden knew his position was controversial and could cost him the election, and that’s why he was worried. But all of that was avoided on ABC’s World News Tonight.
“And as Republicans try to push Judge Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate confirmation process, Pence pressed Harris to say if a Biden administration would expand the Supreme Court,” Bruce noted of Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate.
Bruce admitted “[California Senator Kamala] Harris never giving a clear answer on packing the court” to Pence at the debate, but she refused to show or even tell viewers of Biden’s earlier dodge. Instead, she promoted this blatant lie Harris shot at Pence:
Abraham Lincoln was up for re-election and it was 27 days before the election and a seat became open on the United States Supreme Court. Abraham Lincoln's party was in charge of not only the White House but the Senate. But honest Abe said it's not the right thing to do.
But Bruce did show video of Biden in that hanger, but whining about Trump (pictured above).
The lie was so egregious that even the liberal Washington Post had no choice but to call her out on it. “Kamala Harris’s ‘little history lesson’ about Lincoln’s Supreme Court vacancy wasn’t exactly true,” their headline said.
“Harris is correct that a seat became available 27 days before the election. And that Lincoln didn’t nominate anyone until after he won. But there is no evidence he thought the seat should be filled by the winner of the election. In fact, he had other motives for the delay,” wrote Gillian Brockell.
Brockell noted that the “effect of the delay is that it held Lincoln’s broad but shaky coalition of conservative and radical Republicans together,” and “Congress was in recess until early December, so there would have been no point in naming a man before the election anyway.”
The WashPost fact-check was backed up by Dan McLaughlin over at National Review: “Lincoln, of course, said no such thing. He sent no nominee to the Senate in October 1864 because the Senate was out of session until December. He sent a nominee the day after the session began, and Salmon P. Chase was confirmed the same day.”
Hmm, that confirmation seemed to have happened pretty quickly.
ABC’s in-kind donation of support to the Biden campaign was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from WeatherTech and Bayer. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they’re funding.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s World News Tonight
October 8, 2020
6:38:49 p.m. Eastern(…)
MARY BRUCE: And as Republicans try to push Judge Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate confirmation process, Pence pressed Harris to say if a Biden administration would expand the Supreme Court.
VP MIKE PENCE: I'd like you to answer the question.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Mr. Vice president -- I'm speaking. I'm speaking, okay? [Transition] Abraham Lincoln was up for re-election and it was 27 days before the election and a seat became open on the United States Supreme Court. Abraham Lincoln's party was in charge of not only the White House but the Senate. But honest Abe said it's not the right thing to do.
BRUCE: Harris never giving a clear answer on packing the court. Today, the President took aim.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: This monster that was on stage with Mike Pence, who destroyed her last night, by the way, but this monster, everything she said is a lie.
JOE BIDEN: It's despicable. It's despicable. So beneath the office of the presidency. And the American people are sick and tired of it.
[Cuts back to live]
DAVID MUIR: So, let's get to Mary Bruce, back with us tonight, covering every step of this campaign. All of this fast-moving today. Both candidates tonight now making their own plans instead of that debate.
(…)
