WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden called on voters to “render a judgment” on Donald Trump, after a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to potentially escape prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

Biden’s televised remarks on Monday from the White House were in part an effort to divert attention from his debate against Trump. The president’s team believes Biden’s increasingly narrow path to victory relies on focusing the national spotlight on Trump’s behavior and away from concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness to serve.

“The American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy on Jan. 6 makes him unfit for public office,” Biden said.

The president compared the court’s ruling to its 2022 decision overturning nationwide abortion rights, and said that offering presidents immunity from prosecution created a “dangerous precedent” that place them “above the law.”

The high court’s decision amounted to a political and legal triumph for Trump, who is now virtually certain to avoid a trial before the November election for plotting to overturn his 2020 loss. It also limited the scope of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution, if the case is ever tried, by ruling Trump cannot face charges over his official acts as president.

Biden’s address was the culmination of a day-long push by Democrats to seize on the issue in hopes of turning the page from the debate debacle. Within minutes of the 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, the Biden campaign and Democrats issued press releases and held calls to draw attention to the Jan. 6 riot, part of the campaign’s post-debate strategy to make the election a binary choice between Biden and Trump, and casting the latter as a threat to democracy.

“The American people must decide whether they want to entrust, once again, the presidency to Donald Trump, now knowing he’ll be more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it,” Biden said.

Biden declined to answer questions from reporters about whether he would remain in the race after concluding his speech.

‘Freaking insanity’

For Biden, the hope is that voters ultimately decide they’re more concerned about how Trump — unable to be prosecuted for anything the courts deem official acts — would behave in office than the incumbent president’s age and acuity.

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