Leading contender to be Trump’s Supreme Court pick faces questions from social conservatives

The Washington Post reports:

An intensifying debate over Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a front-runner in President Trump’s search for a Supreme Court nominee, gripped Republicans on Tuesday, with conservative critics highlighting past rulings and his links to GOP leaders while his allies — including inside the White House — forcefully defended him.

The sparring over Kavanaugh, one of four federal appeals court judges who met with the president Monday, underscored the challenges facing Trump as he aims to pick a successor to retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy by his own July 9 deadline. Even as Trump mulls a shortlist that has been carefully cultivated by influential Republican lawyers, frictions in the conservative legal community and on Capitol Hill threaten to disrupt the search process.

The political moment for Trump was fragile as a president devoted to his base weighed what a Kavanaugh selection could mean for him, unfolding amid a flurry of op-eds and phone calls praising the 53-year-old judge as well as a clamor from those who see him as out of step on health care and abortion, or too tied to George W. Bush’s White House. ....

Trump has also spoken by phone with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) this week, according to three people briefed on the call who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Paul and his advisers had conveyed their concerns about Kavanaugh to the White House in recent days, citing his decisions on health care. Since the Republican majority in the Senate is 51 to 49, losing just one GOP vote could jeopardize a nominee.

The next David Souter???