Trump, 79, Makes Wild Error While Warning Supreme Court Justice Alito
During an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo, Donald Trump was unable to remember when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died—once again raising questions about the president’s mental acuity.
“Look at [what] happens to Justice Ginsburg. She was not exactly a young woman. The election was taken. They had a Democrat who could’ve appointed a liberal justice—and the liberals do stick together, that’s one thing about those justices, they stick together like glue, not like the Republicans,” Trump said in an interview that aired on Wednesday morning. “But she decided that she was gonna live forever, and about two minutes after the election, she went out. And I got to appoint somebody.… She really hurt herself within the Democrat Party.”
a very confused Trump: "Look at Justice Ginsburg. She was not exactly a young woman. The election was taken. They had a Democrat who could've appointed a liberal justice. About two minutes after the election, she went out." (Ginsburg died in September 2020, when Trump was… pic.twitter.com/6Hw6bQzlaE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 15, 2026
Trump is very wrong here. Ginsburg died in September 2020, well before the general election, and he replaced her with Amy Coney Barrett before his 2020 election loss, which went directly against Ginsburg’s dying wish.
Trump shared the factually incorrect story in response to a question about the possibility of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, 76, stepping down while Republicans still control the Senate—appearing to warn the justice that his time is at an end.
The flub is a cherry on top of what has been an absolutely awful few weeks for Trump’s mental fitness, and it’s only Wednesday. From his weird AI posts depicting himself as or with Jesus Christ, to saying the pope is “weak on crime,” to threatening to wipe out an entire civilization, the president seems to be unraveling at a faster rate than usual.
It’s shocking that Trump could even forget Ginsburg’s death. His raw, cinematic reaction to it on an airport tarmac—with Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” playing in the background—was perhaps one of the most iconic moments of his first term.