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In SCOTUS Hearings, Gorsuch Refuses to Say Whether He'll Try to Ruin America

When it comes to how he'd rule on issues like abortion or the Muslim ban, the Supreme Court nominee's lips are sealed.

Below is what happened on Trump's 41st day in office. You can find out what damage was done every other day so far on the Saddest Calendar on the Internet.

On the second day of his confirmation hearings, Supreme Court justice nominee Neil Gorsuch did not give much insight into how he'd rule on cases regarding issues like religion-based bans and voting rights, but he did say—over and over—that "no man is above the law." He also repeatedly echoed that he would not discuss his stance on abortion.

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In the first few hours of his hearing, he dodged a question about the unfair treatment of Merrick Garland, Obama's Supreme Court justice nominee who Senate Republicans blocked from receiving a hearing, by saying that he couldn't get into politics.

When Patrick Leahy (D-VT) relentlessly interrogated Gorsuch about the suggestion that he may be pro-Muslim Ban, he responded, "a lot of people say silly things." On theme with the rest of his hearing, he followed up the statement with "no one knows how I would decide." He didn't break the trend when questioned about abortion rights, a topic he found himself avoiding more than once.

When prompted by Senate judiciary committee chairman Charles Grassley to speak about his stance on Roe v. Wade, Gorsuch declined to weigh in, justifying his non-response (for this issue and others) with the reasoning that he would not discuss his personal views surrounding Supreme Court decisions. When Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked him if the ruling should be protected as a "super precedent," he did not budge.

"I'm not in a position to tell you whether I personally like or dislike a precedent," he said. "That's not relevant to my job."

Later in the hearing, Gorsuch told Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that upon meeting Trump for the first time, the president did not ask him to turn back Roe v. Wade (he claimed he "would've walked out the door" had he made such a request). Of course, during his campaign Trump did promise to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court.

Similar questions were put to Gorsuch's predecessor, Antonin Scalia, during his confirmation hearings in 1986. When Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) asked Scalia about Roe v. Wade, he said that "it would not be proper for [him] to answer that question." Once he was approved, he called for the Roe v. Wade to be overturned.