Biden sparks debate by refusing to take questions at Stephen Breyer retirement event

‘I’m not gonna take any questions because I think it’s inappropriate to take questions with the justice here. He’s still sitting on the bench,’ president says

President Joe Biden has sparked debate after not taking any questions after the announcement of the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at the White House.

“I’m not gonna take any questions because I think it’s inappropriate to take questions with the justice here. He’s still sitting on the bench,” Mr Biden told reporters with the justice at his side.

The Republican National Committee appeared to take Mr Biden’s comments out of context, omitting some of the president’s words.

“I’m not gonna take any questions because I think it’s inappropriate,” Mr Biden says in the three-second clip tweeted by RNC Research.

“This is so freaking dishonest. Biden’s whole quote was: ‘I’m not gonna take any questions, because I think it’s inappropriate to take questions with the justice here. He’s still sitting on the bench.’ The RNC is out here just blatantly lying to people,” journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted.

“Notice how the RNC clipped the video at three seconds to omit the rest of Biden’s quote. You will not see a more egregious example of dishonesty than this.”

Twitter user Paul Hardy asked, “what does it say about a party that purposely misinforms (lies to) its base?”

“In general, it’s good to be sceptical of short video clips, especially when posted by partisans but in general too,” CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale tweeted.

“Clipping out the before and the after is an easy way to deceive. We saw a lot of this kind of thing from the ‘Trump War Room’ account during the 2020 campaign.”

“I followed the RNC Research account last year and it blocked me near-immediately. C’est la vie. I posted a screenshot of today’s tweet to compensate,” he added.

“Misinformation propagated by what should be a legitimate organization is going to lead to the downfall of our republic,” Taylor Flatt added.

“It’s a shame an entire political party chooses to purposefully divide this country instead of doing their job and governing,” another Twitter user said.

“The person I nominate to replace Justice Breyer will be someone with extraordinary qualifications. Character, experience, and integrity,” a statement on Mr Biden’s Twitter said. “And they will be the first Black woman nominated to the United States Supreme Court.”

Mr Biden has said that he will announce his choice before the end of next month.

“We know Joe Biden, who does not have a single vote to spare in the Senate – will nominate an activist judge who will rubber stamp the far-left's political agenda,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.

“This type of judge is a threat to Americans' constitutional rights including religious liberty, the Second Amendment, the right to life, and free speech. The RNC will do everything in our power to expose Biden's Supreme Court nominee and hold Senate Democrats accountable in November for their votes.”

Commenting on the Republican attacks on the future nominee, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that “we should also be clear about some of the games that we’re already seeing indications of”, adding that “if anyone is saying they plan to characterise whoever [Mr Biden] nominates … as radical before they know anything about who she is, they just obliterated their own credibility”.