Karine Jean-Pierre says it would be a 'personal decision' if Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 69, stepped down in response to op-ed calling for her to resign so Biden can replace her with a younger liberal

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that it would be Justice Sonia Sotomayor's 'personal decision' to leave the Supreme Court - and allow President Joe Biden and the Democrat-led Senate to replace her with a younger liberal.

The Atlantic published an op-ed Monday penned by journalist Josh Barro calling on President Joe Biden and other Democrats to push the 69-year-old liberal justice to retire while the White House and Senate remains in Democratic hands. 

Otherwise, Barro warned, Democrats risked the 6-3 conservative majority growing to 7-2 if former President Donald Trump or Senate Republicans are successful. 

Jean-Pierre was asked on board Air Force One Tuesday if the president had considered asking Sotomayor, the country's first Latina justice, to bow out now. 

'That's a personal decision for her to make,' the press secretary replied. 'That is something that, that she has to make. It's not something that we make, we lean in on or get involved in. So I'm not even going to address that question.' 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (left) said Tuesday that it would be Justice Sonia Sotomayor's  (right) 'personal decision' to leave the Supreme Court - and allow President Joe Biden and the Democrat-led Senate to replace her with a younger liberal

Barro wrote that he feared identity politics would prevent Democrats from asking Sotomayor to head to the door. 

When she was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, she made history as the country's first Latina justice. 

But because of this, Democrats are 'worried that publicly calling for the first Latina justice to step down would appear gauche or insensitive' according to a Politico report that Barro cited in his op-ed.

'This is incredibly gutless,' Barro wrote. 'You're worried about putting control of the Court completely out of reach for more than a generation, but because she is Latina, you can't hurry along an official who's putting your entire policy project at risk?' 

'If this is how the Democratic Party, operates, it deserves to lose,' Barro added. 

Barro did the math and suggested that if Sotomayor doesn't retire this year she will be 'making a bet that she will remain fit to serve until possibly age 78 or even age 82 or 84.'

'[A]nd she'll be forcing the whole Democratic Party to make that high-stakes bet with her,' he said. 

President Joe Biden gives a thumbs up as he departs the White House Tuesday for a trip out west. Jean-Pierre wouldn't say if he would give Sotomayor a nudge toward the door - enabling him to appoint a second Supreme Court justice in his first temr

Sotomayor has been open about some of her health challenges, including that she's a diabetic, and sometimes has to travel with a medic. 

Since the June 2021 Dobbs decision to overrule Roe v. Wade, Democrats have been reeling over the makeup of the Supreme Court. 

Former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three justices during his one term.

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch replaced the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia after the seat was controversially held open by then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, despite Obama announcing now Attorney General Merrick Garland as his pick. 

Trump then selected Justice Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring conservative Justice Anthony Kennnedy. 

Finally, in another controversial move, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett was shoehorned into the seat - just days before the 2020 presidential election - occupied by the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died of cancer on September 18. 

Democrats were incensed with this move - but could do nothing about it as Republicans controlled both the White House and the Senate. 

'I thought Democrats had learned a lesson from the Ruth Bader Ginsburg episode about the importance of playing defense on a Court where you don't hold the majority, ' Barro said. 'All liberals have to show for this stubbornness is a bunch of dissents and kitsch home decor.'