Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh and the Partisan War Over the Supreme Court
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2018
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Thursday morning, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Professor Christine Blasey Ford testified that she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 1982. In the afternoon, Kavanaugh furiously described the accusations as an attack motivated by "revenge on behalf of the Clintons" and orchestrated by left-wing opposition groups. Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the hearing, and what it suggested about how Kavanaugh would approach his judicial work if confirmed to the court.
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| 1:11.9 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. |
| 1:18.1 | It's Friday, September 28th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 1:24.3 | Yesterday, Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school, spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee. |
| 1:37.3 | I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what |
| 1:47.2 | happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school. When she was asked to name the |
| 1:52.6 | strongest memory she had of the alleged incident, she recalled the display of male camaraderie |
| 1:57.8 | between Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge. |
| 2:10.4 | Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two, |
| 2:16.2 | and they're having fun at my expense. Kavanaugh testified in the afternoon, opening with a very long statement in which he |
| 2:22.3 | furiously described Blasey Ford's allegations as a partisan attack, motivated by revenge on behalf |
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