Twenty-Seven Years After Anita Hill, Brett Kavanaugh Faces a #MeToo Moment
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2018
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, publicly accused the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of drunkenly assaulting her when they were both teen-agers. Ford’s allegations have imperilled Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings in the Senate, much as, in 1991, the confirmation of Clarence Thomas was nearly derailed when Anita Hill, his former employee, came forward with charges of sexual harassment. Jane Mayer joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what has and hasn’t changed since Anita Hill’s testimony, and how Senate Republicans are scrambling to contain the fallout.
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| 0:48.6 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. It's Friday, |
| 0:55.6 | September 21st. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. Last week, Christine |
| 1:02.1 | Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh |
| 1:08.8 | of drunkenly assaulting her at a party when she was 15 and he was 17. |
| 1:14.6 | Most congressional Republicans continue to support Kavanaugh, and several have publicly |
| 1:19.5 | dismissed Blasey Ford's claims as partisan opportunism. |
| 1:24.4 | On Monday, Oren Hatch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee told a CNN reporter that he had spoken with Kavanaugh on the phone. |
| 1:32.8 | Well, he didn't do that. |
| 1:34.8 | And he wasn't at the party. |
| 1:36.4 | So, you know, there's clearly somebody's mixed up. |
| 1:39.6 | He said he wasn't at the party that she's referring to. |
| 1:42.6 | Yeah. |
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