Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spoken out about Donald Trump before, and her distaste for him is no secret. In a recent interview with the BBC, the feisty justice intimated that she doesn’t think the country is in good hands, but she is hopeful for the future.
While Ginsburg did not comment directly on President Trump as she has done in the past, in a Thursday interview on BBC’s Newsnight, she said, “We’re not experiencing the best of times.”
Ginsburg, 83, also said that the public’s resistance to Trump’s presidency gives her hope that “we will see a better day.”
“A great man once said that the true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle; it is the pendulum, and when the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it will go back,”Ginsburg said. “Some terrible things have happened in the United States, but one can only hope that we learn from those bad things.”
The Washington Post reports that Ginsburg echoed those sentiments during an appearance at George Washington University on Thursday.
Ginsburg appeared to draw from Trump’s signature slogan as she told the crowd, “I meant that we are not as mindful of what makes America great.”
From the Post:
Ginsburg didn’t talk about Trump’s controversial executive order barring refugees and citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. But, according to the AP, she reflected on the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
The White House has said that the president will soon unveil a revised order after the first one was blocked by federal courts.
Ginsburg also defended the free press, the target of repeated attacks from the president, who has called the media “the enemy of the American People.” The justice said she reads both The Washington Post and the New York Times every day and believes that “reporters are trying to tell the public the way things are.”
As the Post notes, Trump has repeatedly attacked both publications and the media in general whenever stories are reported that don’t show him and his administration in a favorable light. The president has, in fact, gone so far as to label such stories “fake news” in an attempt to discredit and delegitimize the media.
Ginsburg told the BBC, “What is important is that we have a free press, which many countries don’t have. Think of what the press has done in the United States.”
As an example, Ginsburg cited the Post’s investigation in which reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate scandal that would lead to President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
“That story might never have come out if we didn’t have the free press that we do,” Ginsburg said. She noted that she now lives in “the famous Watergate” building.
Ginsburg, who is the oldest of the current sitting justices, told the BBC that she has “a way to go” and would stay in her position as long as she could.
Thank you, Notorious RBG, because we need you on our side for as long as possible.
Read more at BBC and the Washington Post.