Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers call strikes and fouls on Day 1 of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing

Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/Late Night, The Daily Show)

Tuesday was the first day of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and things got off to a rocky start. "Kavanaugh actually has a long résumé," including a decade as a federal judge and years as a lawyer in the George W. Bush White House," Trevor Noah said on Tuesday's Daily Show. "But what makes his possible appointment so crucial isn't who he is but what he believes," Noah added, because his views are much more conservative than those of the man he would replace, Anthony Kennedy.

President Trump is pushing especially hard for Kavanaugh's confirmation, Noah said, suggesting one possible reason: "While he's being investigated, he nominates a guy who thinks presidents shouldn't be investigated. Like, Trump's not even hiding his evil plan. ... Now, people who are not under investigation by a special counsel might want to know more about Brett Kavanaugh, but they can't," he explained, because Republicans are blocking the release of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.

"Let's just step back for a minute and consider the fact that Trump is trying to appoint to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court while simultaneously being implicated in a truly staggering number of criminal cases and corruption scandals," Seth Meyers said on Late Night. "That's like Bonnie getting arrested and saying, 'You know who'd make a great judge? Clyde.'" He ran through some of the scandals, then circled back to how "absurd" it is Trump gets to pick any nominee, "let alone a lifelong partisan Republican like Brett Kavanaugh."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

"Republicans are trying to hide as much about Kavanaugh's record as they can because they know it would be damning," Meyers argued, showing Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) bang his gavel as 2010's Grassley, on split screen, demanded all documents relating to then-Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan and ample time to review them. Watch below. Peter Weber

Explore More

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.