Hillary Clinton attacked former law school classmate Clarence Thomas in personal terms on Tuesday, calling the longest-tenured current Supreme Court justice angry and a "person of grievance."
"He's been a person of grievance for as long as I've known him," she said on "CBS Mornings." "Resentment, grievance, anger. And he has signaled in the past to lower courts, to state legislatures, find cases, pass laws, get them up. I may not win the first, the second, or the third time, but we're going to keep at it."
Clinton told host Gayle King that Thomas is speaking to the "right-wing" legislatures and justices with his rhetoric. In his opinion concurring with the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade last week, Thomas wrote that past Supreme Court decisions affirming the rights to same-sex marriage and married couples using contraception should be revisited, due to their similar legal bases to Roe.
"There are so many things about it that are deeply distressing, but women are going to die, Gayle. Women are going to die," Clinton told King, who didn't appear to disagree.
Clinton earned her Juris Doctorate at Yale Law School in 1973, the year Roe v. Wade was decided, and one year before Thomas did in 1974.
Thomas has been the subject of sharp attacks throughout his tenure since 1991, but he has come under particular fire in the wake of the Roe decision; liberal actor Samuel Jackson called him "Uncle Clarence," a disparaging term for Blacks viewed as overly deferential to Whites, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, D., said "F--- Clarence Thomas" at a rally over the weekend.
Clinton said she hoped the Supreme Court's decision would hopefully "wake up" Americans about whether the government was too intrusive.
"This is going to, I hope, wake up a lot of Americans. I don't care what political party or religion you are. The question is, 'Who decides?' Is the government going to be in your bedroom? Is the government going to be making these decisions?" she told CBS.
CHICAGO MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT MAKES PROFANE ATTACK ON SCOTUS AT PRIDE EVENT: ‘F--- CLARENCE THOMAS’
In his opinion, Thomas speculated that the overturning of Roe would provide a blueprint for revisiting years' worth of decisions that he says are "demonstrably erroneous."
"After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated," Thomas wrote.
Thomas joined Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito in overturning Roe v. Wade in their decision affirming Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. All five were appointed by Republican presidents. Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the majority in upholding the Mississippi law but didn't concur with overturning the Roe decision.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Fox News' Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.