Judge Judy Sheindlin is known for her tough but fair approach to justice. (Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images)
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EXCLUSIVE – Judge Judy responded to the furor caused by her love-it-or-leave-it remarks about America last month, explaining that she wasn’t calling America “perfect,” but that the country is based on certain principles she is compelled to defend.
“I have a house, and I have a home. I consider America my home,” Sheindlin told USA Today in the now-viral interview exchange. “America has been good to me. I think that it’s the greatest country in the world.”
“If you don’t like this country, go somewhere else,” she continued. “Don’t come to the greatest country in the world, the most successful country in the world, and say, ‘I want to change it.’ There are other countries that are the something else that you want. Go there. Go there. But don’t come into my home and say, ‘I want to change it.’”
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ABC’s “The View” dedicated a whole segment to Sheindlin’s take. While Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin came to her defense, Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro expressed disappointment with the judge’s words. Hostin even said she detected “selfishness” in her comments, arguing that they focused too much on individual success. She suggested that patriotism means fighting to make your country better for everyone.
Judge Judy Sheindlin is interviewed on the set of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” on Oct. 4, 2016. (Lloyd Bishop/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal)
“I take umbrage with what she said, and I don’t like it at all,” Navarro also said of Judge Judy’s remark, adding that it’s because she loves America that she feels she has “the duty and responsibility to call out the grift and the cruelty and the racism and the abuses of power and the anti-American actions that [Trump] is taking on.”
Sheindlin said she didn’t understand Hostin’s response.
“If you listen to what I said, I was saying my country is America,” she told Fox Digital. “Every American should feel that way. And America is my home. Everybody should feel that way. So, when I said ‘my,’ I wasn’t limiting it to myself.”
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Of Navarro, Sheindlin said she takes everything she says with “a grain of salt.”
Judge Judy fired back at Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro after “The View” hosts criticized her love-it-or-leave-it remarks about America. (Lou Rocco/Getty Images)
“I accept criticism, and you can criticize my view, which was not that the country is perfect – and I did say in that interview that there’s nothing wrong with tweaking this country,” Sheindlin told Fox News Digital of the backlash in general. “Everything can always be better. I mean, if you live in a house — which I compared America to — if you live in a house, the house could always be better. It could use a fresh coat of paint every once in a while. Sometimes it needs new carpeting. Sometimes it will need a new stove or refrigerator to keep it functioning optimally. You have to upgrade your television sets or else you won’t be able to get certain programming and high definition. That’s tweaking.”
But, she said, “There’s a difference between tweaking your house and burning it down.”
“And this country was founded on certain principles,” she continued. “And where those principles are being tested and saying those are not the right principles. I mean, if you’re a capitalistic country, you’re not a socialistic country.”
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“The basis of this country is a capitalist country,” she continued. “And when you say, ‘Well, we don’t want capitalism anymore, we want socialism’, that’s where I draw the line. Because then you are fiddling around with what this country is about.”
Socialism, she said, is not popular with the vast majority of Americans, musing that most people agreed with her statement.
“The very vocal minority won’t address the statement,” she said. “They try to shut you up by giving you a negative name, by calling you names which they hope will lead you to shut up. Not responding to the message and saying, ‘Judy, I understand what you’re saying, but not everyone comes from a background where they see their life being fulfilled in this country… so that everyone has potential to reach the American Dream.’”
That’s an argument that Sheindlin said she understands.
“But to call me a name because I said this is a great country and tweak it, but don’t burn the house down?” she asked.
“It’s gonna take a lot more than Ana Navarro to shut me up,” she added.
Judge Judy and son Adam Levy pose behind a desk. (CBS Media Ventures)
Fox News Digital has reached out to “The View” for comment.
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“It’s one of the sad things about this internet, which has the capacity to do so many good things and join people together,” Sheindlin said. “It has allowed some people, either anonymously or overtly, to be mean-spirited.”
Sheindlin’s special, “Judge Judy: Unfiltered, Unforgettable,” aired on CBS in late September.
“I think that the people who are fans over the years sort of got to know that what you see is what you get,” she said. “The naysayers probably would not watch. If you’re not somebody’s cup of tea… I can skip it. I think that fans who watched the special and have been following me over the last 25 years or 30 years or newcomers for less time, I believe that they know who I am.”
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“My persona on my program is pretty much the same as my persona off the screen. Except that I have a family. I don’t order my family around like that the same way,” she laughed.
The original “Judge Judy” premiered in 1996 and ran for 25 seasons before ending in 2021. Sheindlin later launched “Judy Justice,” which concluded in October. She said she was proud of the work her son, Judge Adam Levy, was doing on “Adam’s Law” now that he’s taken the reins of the family’s TV courtroom career after Sheindlin announced she’s “rewiring” her career.
“I think he’s certainly smart, and he certainly works very hard at each case,” Sheindlin said. “Actually, he works much harder than I did. I think he’s doing a great job and the ratings are backing him up. And I think he’s got an exciting energy and an honorable person, which is what you need behind the bench.”