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President-elect Joe Biden arrives Tuesday at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Del., ahead of his address about the Trump administration’s lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
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President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday played down the Trump administration’s resistance to his victory in the White House race.
“The fact that they’re not willing to acknowledge we won at this point is not of much consequence in our planning and what we’re able to do between now and Jan. 20,” Biden said, referring to the date of his inauguration.
The Democrat and his transition team have been denied government funding as well as access to the president’s daily briefing, or PDB despite being called the winner in last week’s U.S. presidential election. What’s more, President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, dismissed questions Tuesday about preparations for a foreign-policy transition, saying there will be a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
“We can get through without the funding,” Biden said. “Obviously, the PDB would be useful, but it’s not necessary. I’m not the sitting president now. And so we don’t see anything that’s slowing us down, quite frankly.”
His remarks came in a brief question-and-answer session with reporters in Wilmington, Del., after he gave a speech on the Affordable Care Act’s importance amid a Supreme Court case that might bring about the ACA’s demise.
The Trump administration and Republican-leaning states have been arguing that the whole ACA, also known as Obamacare, must be scrapped after lawmakers in 2017 zeroed out the individual mandate’s penalty for lacking health insurance. Democrat-leaning states contend there’s no reason the entire law has to collapse and deprive an estimated 20 million people of health insurance.
See: The Supreme Court’s Obamacare case is about health care — but also simple math
In his speech, Biden said “even many conservative legal scholars, including in the National Review,” view the GOP lawsuit as “ridiculous.”
“Regardless of the outcome of this case, I promise you this: Beginning on Jan. 20, Vice President-elect Harris and I — we’re going to do everything in our power to ease the burden of health care on you and your family,” Biden also said.
The Supreme Court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority following the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, heard oral arguments in Texas v. California on Tuesday morning and adjourned around noon Eastern.
Now read: This is what it could cost you if Obamacare is thrown out by the Supreme Court
Also: Some conservative Supreme Court justices sound unwilling to strike down Obamacare
