or not the president is lumping in the accuser in that brett kavanaugh saga, christine blasey ford, into that comment when he says that this was brought forward by people who are evil. if you talk to people inside the white house, inside the republican party, obviously in the democratic side, they fall believe christine blasey ford to the point where she says she was sexually assaulted. where there seems to be a huge divide is that people like susan collins and so on say while they believe christine blasey ford was assaulted, they don t believe that brett kavanaugh committed that act. but it is rather striking, brooke, to hear the president continue this battle, almost as if he wants it to continue. and we ll see some of that later on this evening, when the president hosts an event over here at the white house in the east room, where brett kavanaugh will be brought out in front of the cameras and announced as the next supreme court justice. this is the victory lap that they re looking
justice kavanaugh s confirmation? a new poll, some of it conducted just last week shows a slight lead for the blue party and battleground house districts. 50% to 46. and you see those districts in 2016 went majority republican. so let s go straight to our chief white house correspondent, jim acosta. and jim, i want to go straight to the president s words, saying that kavanaugh s nomination was caught up in a hoax by the democrats and he didn t stop there. what else did he say? well, it s pretty remarkable what he s saying, brooke. we should point out a few minutes before you came on the air, he was making additional comments at this law enforcement speech that he s giving down in orlando, florida. he was talking about the battle over brett kavanaugh and some of the allegations that were brought forward. and he said, quote, it was a disgraceful situation brought about by people who are evil. so the president is putting this in some very stark, i mean just the most pointed terms possib
this selection is about me. steve bannon, his former chief strategist, he says, the battle over impeaching donald trump is what is on the ballot on november 6th. so they want to lean in and make this about trump, so that he can try and use some of that very strong bond he has with the base as a way to bring them out in november. and no doubt kavanaugh is a big part of that. the concern that some republican strategists specifically running house races have is that as he does that, there is there is the potential and perhaps likelihood to continue to disaffect independent voters, white college-educated women, suburbanites, who have no patience for this at all. and that is so much of the battle for these districts where incumbent house republicans are vulnerable. yep. melanie, how do you see it? because you could see it as, i think to david s point, those independent voters, those who are maybe on the fence, this may, you know, have the opposite
effect on them, right? yeah. or also just energizing democrats. energizing women to say, we re not taking this. right. so mitch mcconnell called this a gift. and i think he s right that it s a gift in the senate. but i think it s going to be a curse for them in the house. and that s because you the republicans are defending dozens of vulnerable seats, many of which hillary clinton carried in 2016. these are suburban swing districts for these independent, moderate women, are a crucial voting bloc. they are already energized by the me too movement, fed up with trump, and i think this whole kavanaugh play is just pouri ii gasoline on the fire. so you could really see this come back to haunt the gop. now, i think they might have made the calculation that the house is already gone and they might not care and they did get the conservative supreme court that they wanted. and mitch mcconnell is pushing through with the re-shaping of the courts, not just at the supreme court, but also f
but so he doesn t want to sort of offend anyone or discredit her account. and yet, he s saying it s a complete hoax. this was made up by the democrats, and clearly, he doesn t believe her version of events and her version of events is that brett kavanaugh assaulted her. melanie, this is how do you interpret the president s words? i think this has been the gop strategy all along. they sought to make kavanaugh into the victim. just look at what lindsey graham said the other day. i won t repeat the exact comments he said, but he basically was saying that kavanaugh was the one who was poorly mistreated in this entire process. republicans are really sounding alarm, saying that your sons and your husbands and your fathers are going to be the next ones who could be who could stand falsely accused of a sexual assault. you heard the president also say not too long ago that it s a scary time for men in america. of course, this is a false equivalency. the rates of sexual assault are muc