Donald Trump baselessly claimed on Fox & Friends this morning that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying statement to her granddaughter, that it was her fervent wish to be replaced after the next presidential inauguration, was fake and written by Democrats.
CNN explains Ginsburg’s dying statement:
NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, a longtime friend of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reported that the justice had dictated the following statement to granddaughter Clara Spera, a lawyer, days before she died on Friday: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."
But when asked about that on Fox by “tough journalist” Ainsley Earhardt, here’s how Trump responded, again from CNN:
"I don't know that she said that, or was that written out by Adam Schiff and Schumer and Pelosi. I would be more inclined to the second, OK? That came out of the wind," Trump said. "It sounds so beautiful. But that sounds like a Schumer deal or maybe a Pelosi or shifty Schiff. So that came out of the wind. Let's see. I mean, maybe she did and maybe she didn't."
As Daniel Dale, CNN’s fact checker noted, there is absolutely no basis for this claim.
Think “not in the tank for Trump” Earhardt challenged that hideous and baseless conspiracy theory? Think again! She and her two cohosts implicitly validated the lie by letting it go unchallenged. Cohost Steve Doocy went further and murmured his agreement as Trump went on to delegitimize the election outcome:
TRUMP: We have an obligation to do what’s right and act as quickly as possible. We should act quickly because we’re going to have probably, election things involved here, you know, because of the fake ballots that they’ll be sending out. So you can’t have a terrible situation.
DOOCY: So, Mr. President, you can’t have a tie.
Despite last week's demurral, Fox granted Trump’s wish for weekly campaign stops on Fox & Friends for the second week in a row. Like last week, Trump had nothing more pressing to do than schmooze for 40+ minutes with his Fox lapdogs.
At the end of the interview, Doocy made a point of thanking Trump for "accepting our invitation" to appear. You may recall that Doocy broke the news to Trump after last week's schmooze fest that despite Trump's desire to appear on the show every week, Fox would make no such agreement. Late night comedians had a field day. I'm sure Team Trump appreciated Doocy's ego massage this week.
You can watch the three sycophants enable Trump’s lies and self-serving anti-democracy propaganda below, from the September 21, 2020 Fox & Friends.
This is truly a depressing moment in our history, as we watch the Right Wing literally bury the Supreme Court for easily the next 25 years. I truly hope that the people who told us the Supreme Court doesn’t matter and that the GOP would never try to throw out all those precedents have learned their lesson by now.