but everybody has to understand, this is not the start of this process. it s at the very end. are there going to be other witnesses? i saw there was some thought of other witnesses, perhaps mr. judge, who she says was an eyewitness. i know he put out a letter but do you want other witnesses at this hearing? you know, i want to hear from the i m told i m not supposed to use these terms, but the accused and the accuser. i think i m being fair to both of them. i want to start with them. i don t have enough information to decide whether we need to have other witnesses. i just know secondhand what the allegations are. i need to hear the allegations from the person making them. have you asked brett kavanaugh directly, since she s reached out to you, whether any of this is true? yes, i have. and what was his answer to you? very firm no, absolutely not.
question that you asked me, have you spoken to judge kavanaugh. specifically, i thought it would be a good thing not to. he can handle himself better than anybody. he is a very outstanding man. president trump also said he was okay with delaying this confirmation vote so, quote, both sides can be heard. but he may not have much of a choice. mitch mcconnell is a shrewd political operator. if he had the votes what do you think he would be doing with the kavanaugh nomination? he would probably have it through committee already. we ve heard more than a few republican senators in the past several hours waiver a bit. if the allegation were true, it would be disqualifying for him? of course. if the incident occurred as she described it, that would be disqualifying. that s why we re having this hearing. and we have, in the past, changed our minds on judges in the past. you saw that several weeks ago where members of the republican conference changed their minds on a judge at the last
decision but it was decided to do it on monday. today, we got an update and the only change that i know of is that we agreed to tell professor ford if she would rather do it in a private hearing, she can do it in a proist hearing. it s her choice, public or private. any reason why they scheduled the hearing before finding out if she was available? well, you ve got to start somewhere. and the normal way that the senate committees work, at least my experience is, they set a date and say okay, here is the date and we expect everybody to be here. that s why, in part not a totally good reason but in part why we gave professor ford two different days. is there a deadline in your mind for her to agree or do you feel as if this should be scheduled until you gavel the hearing and if she s not there, then the hearing doesn t happen or when do you reassess whether
this hearing should take place? well, i m going to see what happens monday. i hope professor ford comes. judge kavanaugh will be there. he has told me that personally. i mean, the process, as you know, is pretty much over, but the confirmation hearing is over. the confidential session that the senators have with the nominee is over. the fbi background investigation is over. the time period to submit written questions is over. professor ford has made these allegations. they should be taken seriously. i hope she coelects to come mony and, frankly, i hope she elects to do it in a public hearing. i think it s important for the american people to hear both professor ford and judge kavanaugh. interesting whether it should
our panel is back, cornell, shane and danielle. this is something we ve been hearing about for some time. this concern. it s just like you dealt with in the obama era, right? there are obama voters and democratic voters and they don t always overlap. and there are trump voters and republican voters and they don t always overlap. i think that is true here. newsflash, trump voters are not connected to reality situation. but also, chuck, remember, for core trump voters it s not like trump himself has been in love with mitch mcconnell and speaker ryan either. he routinely goes after it s a routine complaint from house republicans, stop trashing us. so why would hard-core trump voters be energized to save mitch mcconnell and speaker ryan? there is a blue wave. and i think things are looking that way. although i m not completely sold on it. if there is a blue wave, part of