White House Pushes Back On SCOTUS' Breyer Retirement Talk: Axios

Axios is reporting that President Joe Biden and his chief of staff Ron Klain are pushing back on talk from left-wing Democrats advocating the White House pressure Supreme Court associate justice Stephen Breyer to retire.

• Breyer, 83, is the most senior liberal justice on the SCOTUS bench having been nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994.
• Some on the left of the Democratic party have argued that pressure should be placed on Breyer to retire now, while the Democrats hold the White House and a majority in both the House and the Senate in order to ensure his replacement by a liberal justice.
• Memories remain of the attempts by President Barack Obama to get Merrick Garland onto the SCOTUS bench in 2016 following the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia. The Republican-held Senate was able to hold up the liberal Garland's nomination until after the 2016 presidential election, when President Donald Trump was able to nominate conservative justice Neil Gorsuch.
• Axios reports that Biden and Klain oppose pressuring Breyer as it would risk politicising the image of the court, and could backfire should Breyer decide to remain in post longer to prove his political impartiality and independence.