Trump's nominee to replace Kavanaugh on the Circuit seems like a female Kavanaugh

In this Aaron Rupar thread, he provides video clips of Neomi Rao's confirmation hearing.  Here are the tweets without the clips.

Leahy asks Rao if she still thinks women are partially to blame if they're sexually assaulted while drunk. "I was trying to make, & not in the most elegant way, the commonsense observation that excessive drinking can lead to dangerous behavior for both men & women," she says.

.@SenBlumenthal: In 2014, you called the Gun-Free School Zones Act a "grandstanding statute." Do you believe that? RAO: "No, that--" BLUMENTHAL: Well then why did you say it? RAO: "I was responding to person I was interviewing." B: I hope you'll rethink that view

BLUMENTHAL: You said the Violence Against Women Act is a "grandstanding statute." Do you believe that? RAO: No B: But you said it! RAO: I was just responding to an author B: You were responding to an author & said something you don't believe? What kind of judge will you be?

Rao repeatedly dodges straightforward questions about whether she believes presidents can defy Supreme Court rulings, as she suggested they could in a 2009 article.

[Rao] is asked if she stands by her claim that climate change is "nothing more than major environmental boogeyman." She says she now accepts "scientific consensus that there is climate change."

Rao struggles to explain articles she wrote at Yale claiming things like LGBT groups spread "myths" about AIDS and arguing that notions of racial & sexual oppression are overblown.

Pressed on her past comments about racism being a "myth," Rao claims, absurdly, that she was "inspired by Martin Luther King's vision."

Rao says she "very much regrets" writing that the idea that women are equal to men is "dangerous feminist idealism." "I'm honestly not sure why I wrote that in college," Rao says.

Under questioning from @KamalaHarris, Rao says she regrets writing that "no" doesn't necessarily always mean "no" in college. "I would not express myself that way today," she says.

No, because today she's being grilled for a job.

.@CoryBooker: Are gay relationships in your view immoral? RAO: ... Senator, I'm not sure the relevance of that... BOOKER: Do you believe they are a sin? RAO: Senator, my personal views on any of these subjects are things I would put on one side.

That's a "yes" then.



And she'll get the job.