White House press secretary Josh Earnest joked Wednesday about the recent anti-Donald Trump comments made by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before refusing to comment on them.
A reporter asked Earnest to comment on if the White House thought the statements Ginsburg made last week lambasting Trump were inappropriate coming from a justice.
"I wanted to ask you about this firestorm that has erupted over some comments that Justice Ginsburg made to the Associated Press and to some other news organizations about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee," the reporter said. "Does the White House have any concerns about that kind of language from a Supreme Court justice or feel that it’s appropriate for her to be making those kinds of, well, pining in that way about the presidential election?"
Earnest elected to make a joke about the comments instead of answer the question.
"Well, she didn’t earn the nickname ‘notorious RBG’ for nothing," he said.
There was a pause.
"But, what I will say is that in the past I have been asked about controversial comments from other Supreme Court justices," Earnest continued.
He then cited an old example of a comment the late Justice Antonin Scalia made in open court. Earnest said that since he did not say if that comment was appropriate, he would not do so now either.
"At that point, I declined to wade into that criticism, and I think I’ll push through a similar approach in this instance," Earnest said.
Ginsburg’s comments caused a stir and she was widely criticized since members of the high court traditionally do not weigh in publicly on politics. Media outlets have reported that her statements were unprecedented, and one law professor called it unethical for a justice to comment on the state of a presidential race.