Page 8 - Senators Murkowski News Today

Questions. john? >> three people most important in the process are senators murkowski, collins and flake. this morning two of those senators, flake and collins, were extremely upset that -- how the president described christine blasey ford at that rally in mississippi. knowing how sensitive this issue is and how important it would be if the fbi investigation shows no other compelling evidence to keep judge kavanaugh for the court, these people need to be comfortable with voting for him, why did ...

Know, hes just going to be working his republicans very hard to make sure he does have those votes. >> houugh, every day, this gets little harder. >> well, it does. i spoke with three republican senators on the record this morning, the whip, john cornyn, joni ernst and david purdue from georgia, which is a swing state. all three of them are solid for kavanaugh, if anything explosive comes out in the fbi report, it would be up for grabs. i spoke with a senior republican leader, not in the senate,...

Year that michael cohen was acting on his own in an arbitration proceeding to prevent stormy daniels from doing a tv interview when the president directed that? >> i wont get into a back and forth. thats an issue for the presidents outside counsel. i direct you there for an answer. john? >> thank you, sarah. two brief questions. first. the impact of the presidents comments in mississippi notwithstanding it is a fact that senators collins, murkowski, flake and manchin are undecided votes critical...

Sexual assault. what do you get out of that? is that to help kavanaughs nomination? is this to rally the base? is this gonna help with the midterms? whats the point in doing that? >> again, i dispute that it was anything other than the president stating facts. facts that were laid out in the prosecutors memo that she put forward to the senate. >> dana: south dakota senator john thune, you saw him yesterday after the policy lunch. he came to the podium. thanks for being on the show today. questio...

Her. normally a chatty guy to reporters, not engaging on this. he believes the fbi can and will do their job here. he doesnt think it is appropriate to talk about this process until the fbi finishes its job. he was in the room after the hearing on thursday with the judge kavanaugh hearing on thursday. he was in the room with senators murkowski, collins and flake as they discussed how to go forward here. you have to think, at least to some degree he is on board with the general discussions they h...

Is this moving the goal posts? >> i think any reasonable person would say, if you are going to reopen the investigation and they are giving you corroborating witnesses, that the fbi would interview all of those people. they have a week. so, i dont think its moving the goal post. i think this is what -- im pretty sure this is what flake would have expected to happen. >> i understand the public may think that, but does it make sense that the fbi interview -- they already have her, they know the pe...

On now. there are quite a few people that are arguing that everything is connected. his honesty, his past behavior in college involving alcohol and, of course, sexual misconduct. >> matthew? what do you think were debating? >> i think what really matters is what flake, collins and murkowski think were debate, and then in a second group, manchin and heitkamp. those are the five senators that im focused, like a laser, on, and the truth is, we dont know, chuck, whats going through their head. like ...

Believe it. they know, as well as you and i know, we dont have the votes. were in the minority. the only thing that brought this hearing together last thursday was the demand of jeff flake, a republican, supported by the democrats, of course. but his demand led to that hearing. the only thing that led to the fbi investigation was the demand of jeff flake, together with senators murkowski and collins, for an fbi investigation. we dont have the votes to make it happen. we have not delayed this. it...

People. >> senator flake was asked if that moment affected him. >> i think everything that i have seen and viewed and experienced in the last couple of weeks has had an impact, its been everything. >> majority leader mitch mcconnell has no obligation, of course, to honor this commitment but was forced to oblige as other republicans joined senator flakes positions. senators murkowski, collins, mansion and heitkamp endorsed the move to have the fbi further investigate and all of them are seen as p...

Diligence here, and i think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to but not more than one week in order to let the fbi continue to do an investigation limited in time and scope. >> to paraphrase russell crowe, the actor we owe this fbi to one bloke. jeff flake is one of 100 u.s. senators and today he took the rae ra reins in the confirmation of judge kavanaugh. he has received support from democratic senator joe mansion of west virginia, lisa murkowski of alaska and susan collins of...