President Joe Biden took direct aim at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during a recent interview, referring to him simply as “the guy who likes to spend a lot of time on yachts.”
The interview was published Monday by The New Yorker, and the comments regarding Thomas came up when Biden was asked about the Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned the landmark 1973 abortion case Roe v. Wade.
Biden told interviewer Evan Osnos that if he had the chance, his goal was to “pass Roe v. Wade as the law of the land” — and that he was reasonably confident that Democrats could attain the necessary Congressional majorities to make that happen.
“A few more elections like we’ve seen taking place in the states” might do it, Biden argued. “You’re seeing the country changing.”
Biden then pivoted to voice what he claimed were his personal views on abortion, saying, “I’ve never been supportive of, you know, ‘It’s my body, I can do what I want with it.’ But I have been supportive of the notion that this is probably the most rational allocation of responsibility that all the major religions have signed on and debated over the last thousand years.”
Osnos then asked Biden whether he believed — as some have suggested – that the Court could also roll back decisions regarding “same sex marriage, the decriminalization of homosexuality, and access to contraception.”
Biden said that he did not believe there would be a majority on the Court willing to roll back any decisions addressing those issues — but he did believe some on the Court would be in favor of doing so.
“I think that a couple on the Court would go considerably further … the guy who likes to spend a lot of time on yachts,” Biden said.
When Osnos asked, for clarification, “Thomas?” the president just smiled.