Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says she sometimes cries over rulings made by conservative-majority court and hints more right-wing bombshells are to come

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor admits she sometimes finds herself in tears over the rulings of the conservative dominated high court. 

Sotomayor, 69, is one of three remaining Democrat-appointed judges on the court alongside Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

While she's always been in the minority on the court, recently the court has taken a more rightward turn under a 6-3 majority, which includes the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. 

In a talk as she was given an award at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute Friday, she admitted it brings her to tears sometimes. 

'There are days that I've come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,' she said. 

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor admits she sometimes finds herself in tears over the rulings of the conservative dominated high court

But she followed it up by saying the right-wing bombshells are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. 

'There have been those days. And there are likely to be more,' Sotomayor warned. 

She did not specify which cases had made her cry but admitted that there were intense feelings after certain judgements. 

'There are moments when I'm deeply, deeply sad. There are moments when, yes, even I feel desperation. We all do,' she said. 

'But you have to own it, you have to accept it, you have to shed the tears and then you have to wipe them and get up,' Sotomayor added.

The eldest of the three Democrat-appointed justices, Sotomayor has faced calls to retire to ensure that Democrats will at least remain at three judges on the court should Donald Trump win in 2024.

The Atlantic published an op-ed in March 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. 

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

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in March that it would be Justice Sonia Sotomayor's 'personal decision' to leave the court.  

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.' 

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. 

Even if Biden were to win re-election, Democrats' odds at hanging on to the Senate are considered low and would prevent him from appointing Sotomayor's successor after January 2025 

President Donald Trump was able to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court

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.

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 Kennedy. 

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. 

Sotomayor was speaking at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute, where she was presented with an award

Sotomayor, seen here with Chief Justice John Roberts, was appointed by Barack Obama

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 décor.'