Ginsburg: I wasn't '100 percent sober' at SOTU

Blame it on the alcohol.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg blames falling asleep at this year’s State of the Union address on not being “100 percent sober.”


“The audience, for the most part, is awake because they are bobbing up and down and we sit there, stone faced,” Ginsburg said Thursday during an event hosted by The Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C., according to CNN.

She continued, “But we’re not, at least I was not, 100 percent sober.”

Ginsburg was famously caught napping at the 2010 State of the Union address and some reported seeing the Supreme Court justice dozing off at the 2015 address as well. Ginsburg admitted that this year she had slept through the speech “as I often do.”

“I vowed this year just sparkling water — stay away from the wine — but the dinner was so delicious it needed wine,” she said, speaking about a dinner party beforehand to which Justice Anthony Kennedy brought “very fine California wine.”

She reported getting home from the event to a call from one of her granddaughters.

“She said, ‘Bubbe, you were sleeping!’” Ginsburg said.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who was also at the Thursday night event, told moderator Nina Totenberg of NPR that he stopped going to the address years ago.

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