The Tennessee Star Report Talks with One America News Network Reporter Neil McCabe About Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Uncertain Health Status

In an interview on The Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast Wednesday on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy spoke to Leahy’s former Breitbart former colleague, now a Washington reporter for One America News Network, Neil McCabe, about the mystery of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s current health condition.  The men also went on to discuss the lack of transparency the Supreme Court continues to show in relation to Ginsburg’s health and how the American people have a right to know the state of her condition.

The segment touched upon Ginsburg’s lethal style as a Supreme Court justice when questioning conservative attorneys in the past and how, with her current state of health, conservatives may need to approach the situation.

Leahy: Hey we are joined now by our good friend and my former Breitbart colleague, Neil McCabe who is the Washington reporter for One America News Network. Neil are you snowed in up there?

McCabe: (Laughs) Yeah it’s really amazing what snow does to our nation’s capitol.

(Leahy laughs)

McCabe: I’m just glad the Russians never came up with a freezing rain storm.

Gill: By the way, if you ever questioned whether Washington D.C. is a southern city or a northern city.  It’s when the snow hits right McCabe? That’s when you know it’s truly a southern city.

Leahy: (Laughs) Oh boy. Neil what’s the latest official word on the condition of Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

McCabe: Right now the Supreme Court has said she’s resting at home and she has no remaining cancer and she’s able to participate in sort of the work of the Supreme Court because she’s been given the transcripts of the oral argument. She has clerks obviously shuttling back and forth. All these justices have an army of clerks to sort of do their research for them. So she’s able to sort of conduct things. A lot of people you know when they hear about the Supreme Court voting five, four, there’s no roll call. You know where people sort of raise their hands.

What they’re actually doing is, you know typically there’s a two opinions on each decision and then your just signing on to one of those two decisions. So you don’t have to be in the room to sort of vote. And so we saw that with the Planned Parenthood decision that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had, the last vote she took, or the last decision that she was involved in, the major one. And she just sort of signed off on it. And so when these decisions come out you’ll see that she’s still there participating. And even if she doesn’t go to oral arguments she still can vote. So that’s pretty much where it stands right now.

Gill: You know back in the day of the old Soviet Politboro, you had Kremlin watchers that you know would notice senior officials disappear that haven’t been seen publicly. Has anybody seen her publicly?

McCabe: (Giggles) Well no, she’s, there is a video seen online of her being sort of tooled around in a wheel chair that’s through December. There were rumors that she had actually returned to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York and that she was no longer in Washington. And so this is Steve, exactly where you’re at. You know, it’s like people are going to go to your house and see whether your lights are on in the bedroom. She doesn’t have to be at the Supreme Court to be a member an active participant in the Supreme Court but there are obvious questions about her health.

You’ll remember that the reporter Katie Turic, the reporter for MSNBC and the anchor for MSNBC. She tweeted out, innocently enough, “Hey, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on my plane.” And that was the shuttle going from DC to New York. Of course no one knew that she was going to New York. And the next day, December twenty first, the Supreme Court put out a statement saying that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had actually been in New York to have two cancerous growths removed from one of her lungs. And this is her (Inaudible talk) new sort of stage of where we’re at now. And if you dial back to November eighth, it’s when the Supreme Court had put out the statement that she had fallen the night before, so that would be November seventh. So she fell in her office, cracked three ribs and in the process of treating that, those ribs and doing routine tests they discovered that there was some cancer in one of her lungs.

Now the Supreme Court put out that statement November eighth where they said you know “Updates would be made as new news became available”. But you know it wasn’t until December twenty first that they put out the next state. And in that statement you know they said that these spots where found in November but the Supreme Court in that space between November eighth and December twenty first the Supreme Court never said, “Oh by the way she’s being treated for cancer.” This person with a lifetime appointment, you know?

Gill commented that he did not find it unusual that the Supreme Court has not been upfront with Ginsburg’s health as its never been known for it’s transparency. He was concerned that at the same time, citizens have a right to know if she has the capacity to serve in such a position with the condition she’s under and it could effect her job performance. McCabe agreed my citing his mother’s battle with cancer and how it was a brutal thing to watch.  He further noted that this is a constitutional officer whose position affects hundreds and millions of Americans and that the people have a right to know what’s really going on. In addition, McCabe described her previous bout with cancer and how it must have moved into the lungs as she had never had it before. Gill concluded that the surgery could kill someone of her age going under anesthesia.

McCabe: Oh, absolutely. There are details about this cancer that we just don’t know. For instance, the fact that it’s more than one, that’s a sign that it’s metastasizing from somewhere else. Also you know they said it was in the lung but if it was upper lung that’s a sign that it’s metastasizing. If it’s in the lower middle lung, that’s a sign that it’s not metastasizing from somewhere else. And so these are things  they could have said a month ago and let us know exactly what we’re in for. But unfortunately, because of this lack of transparency, we’re going to have to go through this macabre sort of ‘health watch.’

Gill: Is she relying on Obamacare which she ruled in favor of as Supreme Court Justice or is she getting the best quality care?

McCabe: (Laughing) She’s getting, believe me, better believe me, they’re pumping her through, they’re pumping her with all the vitamins and getting plenty of time.  You know the other thing is, you know, she’s very lethal in these arguments. You know, she had a twenty five year streak where she never missed legal arguments and so today she’ll miss her what eighth, her fifth in a row right? Because there were three last week and there will be three this week that she’ll miss.

Gill: Yeah but there only Supreme Court decisions it’s not like they’re important or anything…

(Men chuckle)

McCabe: She used to cut these conservative lawyers to ribbons, these guys are very nervous and everything else. When the liberal, if you listen to these tapes or read the transcripts. When the liberal lawyer is in trouble, she’ll sort of help them out.

Leahy: Help them out, yeah.

McCabe: She was a very active participant in these oral arguments. Each side get’s thirty minutes. And so on that side the left is sort of suffering because you know, Sotomayer, Breyer, and Kagan are good. But they’re not lethal the way Bader Ginsburg was. On the other side, I think conservatives have to wonder if this is effecting her mental capacity.

Leahy: Is there a movement in Washington right now anticipating that justice Ginsburg will have to be replaced?

McCabe responded that people in Washington are now bracing for what could be coming up and that many conservatives have remembered the confirmation battle for Kavanaugh. He answered Leahy’s final question about Ginsburg and how she was assisting liberal attorneys in their arguments and attacking conservative attorneys in their arguments and if this would present a challenge for the liberal attorneys to present their cases going forward. McCabe concurred that if you could tie these attorneys in knots that it could shape how opinions are written in the end and that it would make it hard for the other Justice’s to vote.

Listen to the full segment:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.