Supreme Court justices call for civility: 'Let's stop this nonsense'

President Trump's call for unity and bipartisanship during his State of the Union on Tuesday wasn't the only appeal for a break from the hyper-partisan atmosphere that has engulfed Washington, D.C.

Along with the president, justices on the Supreme Court on at least two separate and unrelated occasions in as many weeks spoke to the need for civility. Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, during a speech at Stockton University in New Jersey last week, and again by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who sits on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum from Gorsuch, in two different events.

The calls for civility from the justices come at a time of heightened partisanship, particularly in the nation's capital, where it didn’t take long for Democrats to criticizethe president’s address as “divisive” and “appalling.”

“Someday, I hope we will get back to the way it was,” Ginsburg told a crowd at Roger Williams University School of Law in Rhode Island during an event Tuesday. “I think it will take great leaders on both sides of the aisle to say, ‘Let’s stop this nonsense and start working for the country the way we should.'”

Ginsburg and four other justices missed the president’s State of the Union address, but she cited the confirmations of the four most recent justices named to the high court as evidence of the partisanship that has consumed Washington.