Biden confronted for hiding position on court-packing after saying voters don't deserve to know

Joe Biden was once again confronted on Saturday over his position on court-packing, which he has refused to make public.

This time, however, the former vice president repeated a falsehood about the Republican Party while still refusing to tell voters where he stands on court-packing.

What's the background?

On Friday, Biden told a Las Vegas reporter that voters don't deserve to know his position on court-packing.

The reporter asked, "Well, sir, don't the voters deserve to know?"

"No, they don't," Biden responded. "I'm not gonna play his game, he'd love me to talk about, and I've already said something on court-packing, he'd love that to be the discussion instead of what he's doing now. He's about to make a pick in the middle of an election, first time it's ever been done, first time in history it's ever been done."

What is Biden saying now?

When confronted by reporters outside his campaign airplane on Saturday over why he does not think voters should know his position on court-packing prior to the election, Biden repeated a falsehood about the Republican Party.

"The only court packing going on right now is going on with Republicans packing the court right now," Biden said.

"It's not constitutional what they're doing," he added. "I'm going to stay focused on it so we don't take our eyes off the ball here."

Court-packing became a major issue in the election after Republicans vowed to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court prior to Election Day. Democrats responded by threatening to expand the Supreme Court and pack it with ideologically liberal justices if they return to power.

Of course, court-packing, which was once attempted by former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would remove partiality from the court.

But as Biden has continued to dodge answering questions about court-packing, Democrats have been circulating a falsehood about the Republican Party — that they're packing courts already.

Such claims are not true.

By definition, court-packing involves expanding the number of justices on a given court. In 1937, FDR advocated expanding the Supreme Court, via what is now referred to as his "court-packing plan," to obtain favorable rulings after significant portions of his New Deal were ruled unconstitutional.

Republicans, of course, have not expanded the number of seats on any federal court. They have, however, taken advantage of their Senate majority during a Republican presidency by confirming more than 200 conservative-leaning justices on every level of the federal judiciary.