The battle of the town halls descended upon America Thursday night. Joe Biden sat in with George Stephanopoulos over at ABC, and President Trump sat down for a grilling by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie.
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s town hall was much more combative than Biden’s. The Election Commission should have just gone ahead with an in-person debate, since Savannah Guthrie just ended up debating the president anyway. The ratings numbers will be interesting to see, but flipping back and forth between Trump and Biden, it was crystal clear that the more entertaining conversation was over at NBC.
Trump’s very decent showing at his own town hall aside, Biden knew he was going to have to face the court- packing question, and face it he did. An audience member brought up the issue to the former vice president, and Biden predictably danced around the question.
Biden’s standard answer seems to now be that he isn’t a “fan” of the idea, but he doesn’t want to answer the question and pull focus from “important issues.” At one point, he told Stephanopoulos that he did not want to answer the question directly, because then the conversation would become about what he would do after the election.
Biden says he won’t answer the court packing question bc then all the focus would be on what he intends to do after the election. pic.twitter.com/ETiqgZvbnP
— Repeal AB5, No PROact (@RealKiraDavis) October 16, 2020
That seems like a legitimate line of thinking when one is considering who to elect the President of the United States.
Stephanopoulos pressed him a bit and again, Biden deflected.
Biden: No matter what answer I give you, if I say it that’s the headline tomorrow. It won’t be about what’s going on now, the improper way they’re proceeding.
Stephanopoulos: But don’t voters have a right to know what you think?
Biden: They do have a right to know where I stand, and they’ll have a right to know where I stand before they vote.
Stephanopoulos: So, you’ll have a clear position before Election Day?
Biden: Yes…depending on how they handle this.
#BREAKING: Even though he reiterates he’s still “not a fan” of court-packing, Biden opens the door to the idea of “other alternatives” and policies regarding the future of the Supreme Court.
In other words, he’s moving toward court-packing, folks. Get ready. #BidenTownHall pic.twitter.com/HSGI0noJd5
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 16, 2020
Biden’s strategy seems to be to run out the clock on answering this question, allowing early voters to cast their votes without hearing his position (which is obviously polling as distasteful to the general electorate).
Clearly, Biden voters just want Trump out of office, but Biden is right to dodge the question. He knows that a significant portion of his base might reconsider that vote if he committed to court- packing. No one on the voting Left wants to open that Pandora’s Box and then hand that type of tool over to Republicans one day and then vice versa and on and on and on.
Can Biden run from the question until Election Day? The corporate media will do their best to see that he can, but the issue may be taking on a life of its own at this point. Only time will tell, and fortunately, we don’t have too much time left to kill.
