"You could become resentful of such a person," Clinton joked, "but you're not."

"All of us hope that she will stay on the court forever," he told a crowd in North Little Rock, Arkansas, at an event hosted by the Clinton Presidential Center.

The remarks came just days after Ginsburg announced she had been diagnosed, for the fourth time, with cancer. On August 23, the 86-year-old leader of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court said she had undergone treatment for pancreatic cancer. In a release, the court's public information officer said the tumor had been treated definitively and "there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body."

On Tuesday night Ginsburg said, "I am pleased to say that I am feeling very good tonight."

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