afternoon. in a private ceremony kavanaugh was sworn in by both chief justice john roberts and retired justice anthony kennedy. the court s long time swing vote whom he will replace. tonight president trump will hold a swearing in ceremony with justice kavanaugh at the white house. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is monday, october 8th. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, former adviser to president george w. bush now co-creator and executive producer of the circus on showtime mark mckinnon, i can t m yamiche alcindor and joe meacham. joe, why don t you try to set the scene for us what this will mean for the midterms, what this will mean for democrats and republicans, the senate. i could go on. what does this mean?
cricket wireless, now are you happy we have awful service. join now for $2.99 per decade. the phones have candy inside. i don t know where to begin, but that was funny. i just want to mention our fun event on friday, we went to the new yorker festival and had a great time talking with david remnick about politics and the media and, joe, you had an official fan girl who had scarborough written all over her t-shirt. that was fun. i don t remember that. i do remember, though, a great conversation with david and it was exciting to be there. we talked about the courts and congress, we talked about really took the time to really kind of give the people in the audience a sense of how we do what we do, but also some of the things that have happened that, you know, there is a lot of nuance involved with the events of the past several weeks
democrat phil bredesen. in texas republican senator ted cruz leads democratic congress beto o rourke 50% to 44%. while in arizona democrat kristen cinema has the edge on her republican house colleague martha mcsally 47 to 44%. in new jersey democratic senator bob menendez has a 10-point lead over republican bob hugin 49 to 39%. mark mckinnon those polls were all taken during the kavanaugh fight as the former british one former british prime minister said, of course, in politics a week is a lifetime. i m sure some of those polls will look much different a week from now, but still we ve got about 10 or 11 races up in the air in the senate that could go either way. well, one thing i will say, joe, about that, i think it s great that taylor swift is getting involved but i wouldn t be surprised if marsha blackburn takes that endorsement and puts
popular vote and the united states senate now is controlled by about 18% of the population and if you look at the primary process the most extreme elements in that 16% of the population. this is not a time to say that we need to rework the constitution of the united states. that s not the problem. the problem is that the democrats don t seem to know how to win west of the hudson or east of reno. isn t this a good time for the democratic party to reexamine who they are and figure out whether they want to get outside of their blue bubbles on both coasts so they can start winning senate races in middle america again and start figuring out how to appoint supreme court justices? well, joe, i think the democrats have to sit down as a group and decide who they are and decide what the country is all about. i don t think they know what the country is all about. this was an extraordinarily
and it s very hard even in a three-hour show to get to everything. we talked about me too, troubled times we re in, and of course, mike barnicle, this was friday night and as you know because i busted out of the doors, called you immediately to get an update on the boston red sox, i kept stopping every five minutes, any updates? any updates. it s true. after the event he let me know that the sox were ahead 3-0. man, david price, what a rough second game, went 1 2/3 innings, 0-9 in playoff games, is terrible against the yankees. tonight is extraordinarily important but also yesterday the brewers sweep. that s a great team. maybe not as great as the dodgers who were ahead 2-1 after losing to the braves last night. but what s it looking like right now, mike, with all all these games? well, joe, i will tell you this, we ve been talking about mitch mcconnell today and mr. trump this morning. the most important man in