The 79-year-old Democrat, who wants to make the most of this historic appointment politically, went out of his way this Friday to pay tribute to the brilliant 51-year-old magistrate in the gardens of the White House.
Wearing sunglasses and a big smile, Joe Biden arrived accompanied by Ketanji Brown Jackson and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and African-American in this position. They were greeted with a standing ovation from the public, made up of officials and civil rights activists.
“We will remember this moment as a true turning point in American history,” he said.
The Democrat also took the opportunity to recall that he had appointed many African-American or minority women to key positions in the US judicial system.
Before this ceremony, Biden already received the magistrate at the White House when he announced that he had chosen her as a candidate for the position, on February 25. And on Thursday, the president and Ketanji Brown Jackson together watched the telecast of the Senate vote confirming her nomination.
– “Hope” –
With the mid-term elections in November approaching, traditionally difficult for the ruling party, Joe Biden needs a ball of oxygen.
The United States is enjoying a lightning-fast economic rebound and a thriving job market, but Americans see only skyrocketing prices at gas stations and supermarkets due to runaway inflation.
Although his popularity with public opinion improved after the invasion of Ukraine, as he took the lead in the Western response, his glory was short-lived, in a country where the divisions between parties have been red hot since the presidency of Republican Donald Trump.
These divisions crystallized at the Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings.
Joe Biden has accused Republican senators of subjecting his candidate to “verbal insults” and “despicable and baseless claims.”
Although three Republicans voted for Ketanji Brown Jackson, it is not comparable to a bipartisan rally around Stephen Breyer, whom she will replace on the Supreme Court. The outgoing judge was confirmed by a vote of 87 to 9 by the Senate in 1994. She was confirmed by a vote of 53 to 47.
– Re-mobilize –
With this appointment, Joe Biden hopes to remobilize a crucial electorate for him and for Democrats in general: African-Americans.
Numerous activists criticized the president for having abandoned the promises he had made to them, in terms of fighting police violence or defending access to the vote.
But on the White House lawn on Friday, Ketanji Brown Jackson certainly defused a lot of hard feelings and, frankly, stole the spotlight from Joe Biden, with a speech that was both moving and earnest.
“It was 232 years… before a black woman was elected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, but we have done it!” he said. “In my family, it only took a generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court,” she recalled.
Before a visibly moved audience, he paid tribute to civil rights activists and their struggles, with these lines from the great poet and activist Maya Angelou: “Bringing the gifts bequeathed by my ancestors, I am the dream and hope of the slave.”
