Left-wing journalist Katie Couric admits in her new book that she made edits to an interview she did with then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, removing comments Ginsburg made that were critical of Colin Kaepernick’s anti-American protests, Fox News reports.
The interview took place in 2016, the year that Kaepernick began the trend of anti-patriotic protests by kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem before every game. The trend was picked up by other athletes and far-left activists, with Kaepernick claiming that his protests were due to alleged “systemic racism” and “police brutality” against black Americans, without providing any evidence for either.
In the interview with Couric, Ginsburg admitted that she did not support the kneeling protests, as those who did so displayed “contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.”
Couric, admitting in her book that she was a “big RBG fan,” wasn’t sure about including the comments in the final release, for fear of damaging Ginsburg’s reputation with the far-left who had recently begun hailing her as a liberal icon. Couric says she sought advice from fellow journalists before ultimately making the edits to the interview; she removed the aforementioned “contempt” comments, but still included remarks where Ginsburg referred to the protesters as “dumb and disrespectful.”
The book also suggests that Ginsburg’s office had some say over what the final version of the interview should say, and called Couric to claim that Ginsburg had “misspoken,” and thus wanted some comments to be edited.
Ginsburg died in September of last year at the age of 87, the oldest justice on the Supreme Court at the time. Her death, less than two months before the 2020 election, instantly became a major campaign issue; but Republicans in the United States Senate, led by then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, ultimately confirmed President Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, to fill Ginsburg’s seat. Barrett was confirmed in late October, thus solidifying the Supreme Court with a new 5-4 conservative majority.