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Politics & Policy

‘I Got in Trouble When We Were Running against Senator, Who Was a Mormon’

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Christopher Cadelago of Politico is the pool reporter with Joe Biden today, and he sent along a transcript of Biden’s most recent short interaction with reporters:

Q: Should Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s faith be considered by the Democrats at the hearing this week, sir?

Biden: “No it should not be—

Q: There should not be questions about her faith from Senate colleagues?

Biden: “No. I don’t think there should be any questions about her faith.”

(Biden then proceeded to talk about running against Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a Mormon.)

“You may remember, I got in trouble when we were running against Senator, who was a Mormon, he was a governor, OK? And I took him on and nobody’s faith should be questioned.”

Biden then turned back to the fight over Barrett.

“This nominee has said she wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, this president wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. Let’s keep our eye on the ball. This is about less than one month Americans are going to lose their health insurance.”

It will probably shock you to learn that Biden is wrong, and that Amy Coney Barrett has not said she wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. As Dan lays out here, Barrett wrote a book review in 2017 indicating she did not think much of Roberts’s reasoning in one of the ACA cases, and would probably have voted against treating the mandate as a tax.

Separately, Barrett participated in a moot court hearing of a current case involving the ACA and “none of the judges ruled in favor of the administration and Republican states’ request to strike down the law.” Of the eight judges who participated, five ruled that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, but that the rest of the ACA could remain in place, while three ruled that they would have thrown out the case, “arguing that the conservative states challenging the law did not have standing to bring the suit. It’s not known which side Barrett was on because the participants’ votes were not revealed, according to a person who viewed the session and declined to be identified.”

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