President Barack Obama, in aninterview with The New Yorker published on Monday, said he disagrees with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's conclusion about why she needs to stay on the high court.
Ginsburg, 81, told Elle last month, "If I resign any time this year, [Obama] could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court."
In an article for The New Yorker's Oct. 27 issue, Jeffrey Toobin asked Obama about Ginsburg's statement.
"Well, we've got a pretty good track record," Obama said. "We've got a couple of Supreme Court Justices confirmed who I think are doing outstanding work. My sense is that the Senate necessarily has to treat the Supreme Court nomination process differently than the circuit- or district-court nomination process -- higher profile, people are paying attention."
Some of the "shenanigans" that occur during the confirmation process for lower-court judges are absent with Supreme Court nominations because of the increased media coverage of the process, he said.
"Having said that, Justice Ginsburg is doing a wonderful job. She is one of my favorite people," he added. "Life tenure means she gets to decide, not anybody else, when she chooses to go."
Debates about whether Ginsburg should retire during Obama's presidency, so he can appoint her successor, have been underway among liberal groups for a while. In a recent HuffPost/YouGov poll, only 29 percent of respondents said the associate justice should retire while Obama is in office. Forty-nine percent said she should "retire whenever she wants."
Read the full New Yorker story here.
Before You Go
