Following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s surgery for lung cancer on Friday, President Trump showed nothing but grace, wishing her a “speedy recovery.”
“Wishing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a full and speedy recovery!” the president tweeted on Friday night.
A little over a month after fracturing three ribs in a nasty fall, Ginsburg underwent surgery for lung cancer on Friday. A statement released by the Supreme Court Friday announced that Justice Ginsburg underwent a “pulmonary lobectomy” in New York City that resulted in the removal of two malignant nodules. No other complications with Ginsburg have been detected.
“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent a pulmonary lobectomy today at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City,” read the statement. “Two nodules in the lower lobe of her left lung were discovered incidentally during tests performed at George Washington University Hospital to diagnose and treat rib fractures sustained in a fall on November 7. Both nodules removed during surgery were found to be malignant on initial pathology evaluation. Post-surgery, there was no evidence of any remaining disease.”
President Trump showed equal grace to the justice last month following her fall. When she appeared at a White House ceremony honoring the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the president said, “Glad to see you are feeling great.”
While Justice Ginsburg has at times shown herself to be political regarding Trump, when it comes to her colleagues, she has shown the same grace that President Trump and several prominent conservatives who vehemently disagree with her have shown during her past two health scares. Upon the passing of her former colleague Justice Scalia, Ginsburg, who developed a friendship with him during his tenure on the bench, spoke fondly of him while leftists trashed his legacy.
“From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies,” said Ginsburg at the time. “We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia nailed all the weak spots—the ‘applesauce’ and ‘argle bargle’—and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh.”
At 85, Ginsburg has made no plans to retire from her Supreme Court seat, which, if filled by a conservative, would dramatically alter the court’s makeup for decades to come. In the early Obama years, progressive activists were hoping she would announce her retirement so the former president could replace her with an equally progressive judge. After the 2014 midterm, when Republicans took back the Senate, her retirement became all the less likely. Now that President Trump sits in the oval office and Republicans control the Senate, Ginsburg will likely stay on at least through 2020.
“I said I will do this job as long as I can do it full steam,” Ginsburg said Sunday during an interview following a New York City screening of “On the Basis of Sex.”