Washington(CNN) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's well-known candor was on display in her chambers late Monday, when she declined to retreat from her earlier criticism of Donald Trump and even elaborated on it.

"He is a faker," she said of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, going point by point, as if presenting a legal brief. "He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. ... How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that."

Ginsburg's comments came in a previously scheduled interview related to my research for a book on Chief Justice John Roberts. I took a detour to raise the reverberations from her criticism of Trump to The Associated Press and The New York Times in recent interviews. "I can't imagine what this place would be -- I can't imagine what the country would be -- with Donald Trump as our president," she had said in the Times interview published Monday.

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Trump responded Wednesday morning by calling on Ginsburg to resign.

"Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements about me. Her mind is shot - resign!" Trump tweeted.

It is highly unusual for a justice to make such politically charged remarks, and some critics said she crossed the line. House Speaker Paul Ryan told CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday night the comments were "out of place."

"For someone on the Supreme Court who is going to be calling balls and strikes in the future based upon whatever the next president and Congress does, that strikes me as inherently biased and out of the realm."

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Having met with Ginsburg on a regular basis for more than a decade and sometimes been struck by her frankness, I found her response classic. The 83-year-old justice expressed no regret on Monday for the comments or surprise that she would be criticized. Any disbelief she expressed stemmed from the fact that Trump has gotten so far in the election cycle.

"At first I thought it was funny," she said of Trump's early candidacy. "To think that there's a possibility that he could be president ... " Her voice trailed off gloomily.

"I think he has gotten so much free publicity," she added, drawing a contrast between what she believes is tougher media treatment of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and returning to an overriding complaint: "Every other presidential candidate has turned over tax returns."

Ginsburg was appointed to the high court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, and is now the senior member of the liberal wing and leading voice countering conservative Chief Justice Roberts. She has drawn a cult-like following among young people who have nicknamed her The Notorious R.B.G., a play on American rapper The Notorious B.I.G.

I have witnessed her off-bench bluntness many times through the years. During 2009 oral arguments in a case involving a 13-year-old Arizona girl who had been strip-searched by school administrators looking for drugs, she was troubled that some male justices played down any harm to the student. "They have never been a 13-year-old girl," Ginsburg told me. "It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."

Today's Supreme Court The justices of the US Supreme Court sit for an official photograph on June 1, 2017. In the front row, from left, are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. In the back row, from left, are Elena Kagan, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch. In 2005, John Roberts was nominated by President George W. Bush to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor as an associate justice on the US Supreme Court. After Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, Bush named Roberts to the chief justice post. The court has moved to the right during Roberts' tenure, although Roberts supplied the key vote to uphold Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Anthony Kennedy was appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. He is a conservative justice but has provided crucial swing votes in many cases. He has authored landmark opinions that include Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Clarence Thomas is the second African-American to serve on the court, succeeding Thurgood Marshall when he was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. Thomas is a conservative and a strict constructionist who supports states' rights. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, she is a strong voice in the court's liberal wing. Stephen Breyer was appointed by Clinton in 1994 and is part of the court's liberal wing. Samuel Alito was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006 and is known as one of the most conservative justices to serve on the court in modern times. Sonia Sotomayor is the court's first Hispanic and third female justice. She was appointed by Obama in 2009 and is regarded as a resolutely liberal member of the court. Elena Kagan is the fourth female justice to ever be appointed, and she is counted among the court's liberal wing. She was appointed by Obama in 2010 at the age of 50. She is the court's youngest member. Neil Gorsuch is the court's newest member. He was chosen by President Donald Trump to replace Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.

Earlier in 2009, she was being treated for pancreatic cancer yet made sure to attend President Barack Obama's televised speech to a joint session of Congress, explaining that she wanted people to know the Supreme Court was not all men. "I also wanted them to see I was alive and well, contrary to that senator who said I'd be dead within nine months." She was referring to Sen. Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, who had said she would likely die within nine months from the pancreatic cancer. Bunning later apologized.

It was evident in our interview on Monday that when Ginsburg imagines who would succeed Obama, she does not expect Trump to prevail over Clinton.

Acknowledging her own age and that Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer will turn 80 and 78, respectively, Ginsburg said of the possible next president: "She is bound to have a few appointments (to the Supreme Court) in her term."