Page 67 - Murkowski News Today

Ed: after a rather chaotic week for the supreme court process. christine blasey ford granted another extension. how will this all play out. tom bevan real clear politics. how are you. >> good, how are you? ed: lets start with the idea dr. ford finally combings to some sort of agreement with chairman grassley in the next day or so and testifies early next week. what do you think could happen? >> it depends on her testimony if she comes forward and credible and sympathetic and kavanaughs response ...

Get someone new affirmed before the nominations. >> if she doesnt want to testify for some reason or other, there can be a reasonable doubt that we dont have the whole story and were not going to get the whole story. >> that sounds right for them. >> and then he could get through also. >> thats up with flake and murkowski and mcconnell. >> i think from what we saw today this is going to get pushed through is kind of set the deck for her to feel that way. >> in other words, shell be afraid of tha...

Votes. >> if she does talk and very effective, right. this is a jump ball. she is very effective then its going to be a jump ball. then senator collins and senator murkowski of alaska, you know, and a few other republican senators may decide to vote no. and if thats the case, then we have a big problem. its hard to say. she may have holes in her story. she may not recall the events that were understandably she may not know where she was at those type of things could sink her testimony as well. a...

We should hear her out. she doesnt deserve to be criticized or condemned. lets hear her out. you see even she is sort of changing her strategy here, maybe saying she is confused, mixed up, mistaken, iden identity in taking judge kavanaugh once he goes through these tweets. he usually keeps going, there is no pullback once he gets out there. >> there have been a couple. >> and the political risks here. initially, there was some concern about him alienating two female republican senators, who are ...

That its going to be impossible to find out what happened in that room between teen agers 36 years ago, but its not impossible to find out in the moment if someones lying about memories of where they were and when it happened and specifically if there is any knowledge by judge kavanaugh about the ed wellen conspiracy theory where a middle schoolteacher was smeared and publicly identified as the person who possibly did that. if that was a coordinated strategy -- and im not suggesting for a second...

On public support for brett kavanaugh. it was never particularly hot, now its declined. look at those from 29% opposing to 28%. almost ten points there, support about this saying but dont know, the undecideds in fact have polled against it. you might say the only poll that matters is the senate. they have the power to confirm. do these public support figures matter to senators when they face the decision? >> neighbor a few of them. state by state the ones we have been looking at, obviously, murk...

He gets confirmed, but theyre trying to keep the president away from this situation, not to get too close because its a fragile nomination. if they need to pull it at some point, top republicans tell me they would, but theyre so far trying to balance all these different agendas, all these different dynamics. >> and people are asking, which collins are going to show up today, which flake, which murkowski, for that matter, because all of them seem to have quotes all over the spectrum on this. >> t...

Controlled by republicans, but there are not that many of them. if only a handful decided to vote against judge kavanaugh, it was always possible that if something came up, that caused concern, that the nomination could go off the rails. i think that what has really changed as caitlin said over the last couple days is you had four senators, four republican senators, collins, murkowski, corker, and jeff flake, all of whom had expressed concerns about moving forward without hearing from her. now t...

Otherwise, that it would go anywhere significant for her. now here she is, and she is literally on the precipice of discussion. everybody has said it would be better if she testifies. what happens if she does not testify? personally, how can you blame her, right, with all the pressure? but what happens if she does not testify, if she says, i dont like it. i dont like what youre doing. its too much for me. my family cant suffer it. what happens? >> first of all, i think we should forgive her. the...

>> the president emphasized kavanaugh has been repeatedly investigated by the fbi for previous jobs and downplayed the prospect of an additional probe. >> lets talk about this with julian zelizer. professor. all eyes on the republican senators. collins, murkowski, graham, flake, corker. we know where this is headed. here is susan collins yesterday on where they will move forward without the fbi investigation. >> i think it is not fair to judge kavanaugh for her not to come forward and testify. b...