Ruth Bader Ginsburg to former critic who predicted 'with glee' she would die: 'He is now dead and I am very much alive'

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a scathing message for at least one of her haters – you’re dead and I’m not.

The liberal judicial icon made the remarks during a recent interview with NPR, in which she addressed ongoing concerns about her health following a cancer diagnosis last year.

“There was a senator, I think it was after pancreatic cancer, who announced with great glee that I was going to be dead within six months,” she said. “That senator, whose name I have forgotten, is now himself dead, and I am very much alive.”

It turns out that Ms Ginsburg was referring to former Kentucky senator Jim Bunning, who died in 2017.

Ms Ginsburg was diagnosed with lung cancer last year, and underwent surgery for the condition in 2018.

At the time, the news of her poor health scared critics of Donald Trump, who expressed concern that he would replace the liberal justice with a conservative.

During the NPR interview, Ms Ginsberg expressed concern with the idea put forward by Democratic presidential candidates to expand the Supreme Court in order to put more liberal justices on the bench.

“Nine seems to be a good number. It’s been that way for a long time,” she said, adding, “I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court.”