When news broke that
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died Friday after battling pancreatic
cancer, tributes from politicians and Americans all over the country came pouring in within minutes.One voice conspicuously missing? President Trump's.Trump was speaking at a rally in Minnesota when the Supreme Court announced Ginsburg's death. And while he certainly can't be blamed for failing to check
Twitter while giving one of his signature rambling speeches, as the hour wore on, it became increasingly strange that the president was seemingly one of the few top lawmakers who hadn't heard the major update.As
NBC News' Garrett Haake put it, the "political earth has shifted under his feet" during the course of his rally, and he was seemingly without a clue.
Ginsburg's death constitutes "political earth," of course, because with a vacancy on the Supreme Court, Trump and the Republican-majority
Senate are now likely to push forward with a conservative nominee to replace her before the November presidential
election. With a new Trump-picked justice, the court's conservative majority would be further solidified for years to come.Trump told the crowd about his belief that
Sean Hannity should win a Pulitzer Prize, called
Joe Biden "Sleepy Joe," and discussed the latest poll numbers, all while pundits and Americans everywhere were meanwhile considering the sudden change to the 2020 race. When he started ruminating on the power of the president to influence decades of judicial balance on the Supreme Court, attendees began yelling "Ginsburg is dead," video shows.
At last, after Trump exited the stage nearly two hours after the court's announcement, reporters seemingly informed Trump of Ginsburg's passing. "She just died? Wow. I didn't know that," he responded. He said he was "sad to hear" the news and praised her as an "amazing woman."