He’s using the ruling to his advantage.
President Joe Biden expressed on Wednesday his firm belief that former President Donald Trump indeed supported an insurrection, following the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify Trump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot due to his involvement in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Biden remarked, “It’s evident from what we witnessed. As for the application of the 14th Amendment, I’ll defer to the courts on that. But his support for an insurrection is unmistakable.”
The president emphasized, “No doubt about it — absolutely none. And it seems he’s further committing to his stance.”
In a groundbreaking ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court invoked Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, disqualifying the former president from holding office. This landmark decision, stemming from a lawsuit centered on a relatively obscure provision in the 14th Amendment, sets a precedent as other similar challenges in various states have not succeeded.
The court explicitly directed the state’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, to exclude Trump’s name from the 2024 presidential primary ballot and disregard any write-in votes cast for him. Biden has consistently warned against Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, considering it a threat to democratic values in the aftermath of the January 6 attack.
Back in September, the president highlighted Trump’s belief in the vast, unchecked powers of presidents, citing a 2019 statement where Trump asserted that Article II of the Constitution granted him unilateral authority as president. Biden underlined the contrast between this view and the constitutional norms intended to prevent autocratic rule.
A year earlier, during an August 2022 midterm election fundraiser, Biden equated the “MAGA philosophy” to a form of “semi-fascism.” He remarked, “What we’re witnessing is either the inception or the decline of an extreme MAGA ideology. It’s not just about Trump; it encompasses the entire philosophy underlying — I’ll say it frankly — a semi-fascist ideology.”
