Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told “Watters’ World” Saturday night that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would probably “prefer not” to pack the Supreme Court if elected, but “has no choice” because of pressure from the far left.
Though Biden expressed his opposition to the idea of court-packing, or adding ideologically similar judges to the Supreme Court to tip the scales, while campaigning in 2019 — and even called the concept a “power grab” in 2005 — he has so far refused to directly answer the question as the Democratic nominee.
“Look, the answer to the question is yes,” Rubio told Fox News host Jesse Watters, responding to a question about whether Biden would pack the courts. “And the reason why — here’s what I honestly believe — I think Joe Biden, because he’s been there so long he’d prefer not to, but he has no choice, because all the energy, all that money, all the activism in the Democratic Party is coming from the far left and they’ve been talking about and insisting on this for a very long time.”
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“And I want people to understand this is not going to end at nine,” he continued. “We could have a Supreme Court one day with 15 or 18 people, 19 people. Every time some party gets elected and you don’t like the makeup of the court you just add two more people to it. I mean, that’s what they do in the third world. It would be ridiculous.”
Rubio expressed his belief that Democrats would have likely sought to pack the courts “no matter what would have happened” with the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
Turning to the issue of the Senate filibuster, Rubio said that while it’s “not in the Constitution,” the founders “most certainly wanted the Senate to act as the body that sort of slowed things down so that we took some time to analyze situations.”
“And that’s why it’s tough to get things passed in the Senate, and I think the filibuster has been used by both parties,” he said, arguing that Democrats intended to “go for it all” on issues like “single-payer and cap and trade.” (RELATED: Why Biden And Harris Refusing To Answer Packing The Court Question Is Important To Gun Owners)
Biden took things up a notch on Friday, saying that voters “don’t deserve” to hear his position on court-packing until after the election.