White House spokesman Jay Carney said at yesterday’s press briefing that he didn’t see Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) controversial tweet about President Obama — but Carney still had a lengthy response to it.
“Constituents askd why i am not outraged at PresO attack on supreme court independence. Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law,” Grassley tweeted Saturday.
Carney was asked for reaction to the tweet:
“I didn’t see that, so I don’t have a specific reaction. I think we went through this a lot. And on Monday the President expressed his views, when asked, that there is — recent precedence since the New Deal would suggest that the Supreme Court gives a lot of deference to the Congress in its ability to pass legislation that regulates the national economy.
I understand that because he didn’t specifically reference the Commerce Clause or the context, that those comments were not understood necessarily by everyone to mean only related to the Commerce Clause. And so he spoke again — when he was asked again on Tuesday he made that clear.
I think it’s an observation of what I think I was saying last week — it’s an unremarkable observation of fact that since the Lochner era the Supreme Court has given deference to Congress on matters related to the national economy and matters of national economic significance, which no party to this dispute disagrees health care qualifies.
So that’s simply what he was saying. He has also made clear that, in part, for that reason, or largely for that reason, that he believes that not just that his personal belief and our belief here in the administration that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, but that the Court will find it to be so as well because of all that many years of judicial precedent.”
The reporter clarified, “So you didn’t know about Grassley’s tweet and then David Axelrod’s response?”
“I did not,” Carney responded. “I am learning about it right now, live from you.”
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