Vote. Then the announcement came with Vice President mike pence in the chair. On this vote, the ayes are 50 the nays are 48. The nomination of brett m. Kavanaugh of maryland to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is confirmed. Just before that critical final vote, the Senate Majority leader made a passionate appeal on behalf of judge kavanaugh. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is among the very best our nation has to offer. He will make the senate and the country proud. He will serve with distinction on our highest court. Lacking the votes to stop the kavanaugh nomination, the Senate Minority leader appealed to democratic voters to step up. Change must come from where change in america always begins. The ballot box. So to americans, the so many millions who are outraged by what happened here, theres one a judiciary democrat tried to rally those disappointed by thio didnt think possible. The mocker in chief mocked dr. Ford. Now this nasty fight on capitol hill leads us into the midterm elections, just 31 days away. Chris, shannon . Chris Mike Emmanuel on capitol hill, thank you. Protesters even though the vote is over are still gathered outside the Supreme Court, where Brett Kavanaugh is headed to be officially sworn in. Those protesters making sure their voices are heard. Right now Leland Vittert is live outside the capitol, among the protesters. Leland . Chris, the organizers are certainly doing their best to try and keep all the protesters around. Although its thinning out quickly, and a lot of the people you see behind me are more spectators than they are protesters. It is difficult to get a lot of these people to talk to you and voice any of their opinions. Right now we have been seeing this group shouting and yelling at senators as they head out from voting and on their way home. Talked to some democratic antikavanaugh protesters and i said hey look dont you worry that this is going to galvanize republicans . One woman said to me i dont know how much worse it can get. On the other side, republicans say theyre not really concerned by the groups out here of democrats who are fired up, mostly today. Youve got people talking about november. They really viewed the kavanaugh vote as a foregone conclusion. You can see some guys behind me are happy about the vote today. On the other hand, you have a lot of other folks who are clearly not so happy about the vote. Both sides pushing, chris, towards november. Chris leland, im not suggesting youd tell them, but do the protesters out there, particularly the protesters in front of the Supreme Court, do they know that judge kavanaugh is headed to the court right now to be sworn in as Justice Kavanaugh . Yeah, they figured that out pretty quick on twitter, chris. So they definitely all said, you know, were going to stick around and were going to chant and on and on and they say this is yet more proof of it being done in darkness, that they are going to swear him in on the evening of his confirmation. Unclear, though, in terms of whether were going to get the numbers to stick around. It peaked here about 11 00, and thats when we had about 150 or so arrests up on the capitol steps. Since then the crowds have really continued to thin out. A lot of the people that you talk to and see in these pictures, you say are you here to protest. They say no we just wandered down to say hello, met some folks from indiana and others from Southern California up here on vacation, much more watching this than participating in it. Shannon all right, Leland Vittert in the middle of the action. Thank you. On the heels of the confirmation vote in the senate is President Trumps rally in topeka, kansas. That event is a few hours away. Our doug mcelway is standing by there on the ground where the president will certainly we guess doug be firing folks up tonight. You know it, shannon. People have been camped outside since yesterday on a cold damp autumn day in central kansas. They remain very very enthused. Just over an hour ago, this was about half full. As people got the news that Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed through text messages, through emails, from cell phone calls the audience erupted in applause here. In route to topeka, the president tweeted and i quote i applaud and congratulate the u. S. Senate for confirming judge kavanaugh to the United StatesSupreme Court. Later today i will sign his commission of appointment and he will be officially sworn in. Very exciting. The last we heard from the president in his actual voice about judge Brett Kavanaugh was waiting on the south lawn as he waited to board marine one. Heres what he had to say. This is a very exciting time. Any time you have a chance to put a Supreme Court justice in position and in this case i think hes going to be a great great Supreme Court justice for many years. Very exciting time. So were going to kansas. But we will see you in a little while, after the vote. Before arriving here at this arena in a little over two hours, the president will attend a fundraiser for republican gubernatorial candidate, who has been an avid antiimmigration person who worked very hard with many states to craft their immigration laws, worked hr vefly with the white house to craft worked very hard with the white house to craft immigration laws. Also another tight battle against paul davis the democrat also today. When the president speaks here, he will be completely unleashed following what is arguably the biggest victory of his presidency. You recall earlier this week when he spoke at the rally in mississippi he was advised not to mention Brett Kavanaughs accuser. He rejected all that, spoke about her. Spoke out very heavily against her credibility. He returned to washington to endure the wrath from both democrats and republicans. Theres an alternative line of thinking that may have helped somewhat in the Republican Base and among women in the Republican Base. The midterms are just a month away and the president wants to maintain the momentum that he has seen from the Brett Kavanaugh controversy. We will be watching very closely what he has to say when he speaks 6 30 local time here in topeka. Back to you. Chris doug mcelway at the trump rally in topeka, kansas. Thank you. This is a major victory for a lot of people, Brett Kavanaugh especially. Senate majority leader Mitch Mcconnell, President Trump and the g. O. P. Joining us now, Republican NationalCommittee Spokesperson kayl kaylee say your last name. Thats okay. It is a tough one. Chris thats embarrassing. We know this is apparently according to the polls really galvanized republicans. We heard in a press conference a little bit earlier from Mitch Mcconnell that he thought this was a political gift republicans have. This really mobilized the Republican Base. You have to admit its also mobilized a lot of democrats as we can see from the protesters all over capitol hill. Sure, but the difference here is that those protesters were already motivated. We saw that at the womens march that happened. Were seeing it again now. They were already going to show up. But all of our polling showed a gap in enthusiasm, democrats were 11 points more motivated than republicans in the latest pew poll. Well, that gap has shrunk to just 2 points. I just got done responding with our data department, who confirmed to me that they have seen positive movement in all of our senate races. And likewise, spoke with our regional director on the ground in nevada, and he said voters are energized. These are not just republican voters. He said nonpartisan typical nonvoters are very energized and motivated. Hes seeing it anecdotally too. Chris the analysis, the conventional wisdom in washington, which is i dont have to tell you is usually wrong, is that this may be true for senate races, statewide races, but when you have these slivers of populations and districts, for instance, in a suburban district that might tilt republican and where republican women may have been turned off by this vote. The suggestion is this may help you keep the senate but might hurt you in terms of keeping the house well, what weve seen in our polling is we had to motivate what are called soft republicans. So individuals who may not be part of the hard core trump base and our polling indicated that in fact these voters may not realize the stakes if democrats are to take back the house. We firmly believe that the stakes were highlighted and very vivid, very obvious terms over the last two weeks when you saw the resistance obstruct tactics of the democrats to delay, those soft republicans we think have mobilized and will be mobilized and that will help us in the house. We believe in both the senate and the house, this will help us. Kayleigh, you know how tough these races are going to be more so on the house side. Top democrat pelosi hoping to rebecome the speaker of the house. She calls this is a profoundly heart breaking day for women girls and families. Weve talked about this. How do you fight that message . Well, we think its been fought for us by what youre seeing on your screen. When you have Susan Collins, a woman as the determining vote for Brett Kavanaugh, and the reaction of the women march protesters, the ones you are watching, is to put out basically an ad saying that she sympathizes with rape. That drives republican women to our side. It drives moderate women to our side. They reject that kind of talk about a dignified respectable woman like Susan Collins who made an educated choice and laid out in a 45 minute speech why she decided the evidence weighed in favor of Justice Kavanaugh. Shannon speaking of evidence, congresswoman pelosi also says shes going to announce shes filing a freedom of information act request so the public will be able to see not only the fbi report but all of the transcripts of the underlying interviews and all those kinds of things. Would republicans object to that, to letting the American People see what the fbi put together . Well, that is up to republicans in congress. What i will say though is that reporting indicated that that fbi report in fact had more evidence that favored kavanaugh than it did the claims of dr. Ford. So those coming to light would likewise confirm to voters what we already know which is Brett Kavanaugh is a man of high character, someone who deserves that spot on the court. What i would say about nancy pelosi, she has been very very firm in saying that she does not want to move for the impeachment of President Donald Trump because her internal polling suggests that would be perilous for democrats. She has been kind of waffling and gave a rather tepid answer on whether she would support the impeachment of Justice Kavanaugh. That kind of talk is going to be ruinness for democrats come november because i can tell you the public doesnt want to see impeachment talk. Our polling suggests that time and time again. Shannon it seems to be a split within the democrats when they talk about the i word. Thank you very much. Thank you, both. Shannon as for the democrats they are sounding the alarm about todays vote. The republicans have succeeded in confirming a deeply flawed and dangerous nominee, only by breaking all the rules and the norms, the damage done today will be enduring to the United StatesSupreme Court and to our country. Shannon lets bring in our panel for more insight. Charlie hurts opinion editor with the washington times. Chief counsel for the judicial crisis network. And founding executive director at the Georgetown Institute of politics. Welcome to all of you. Charlie, i couldnt help noticing that you were laughing at senator blumenthal there, but what he says resonates with a lot of people. They are taking this very serious. He did use the word dangerous to describe kavanaugh. No doubt in my mind that it does resonate with a lot of democrats. The reason i was writing it down i dont want to get it wrong. The word dangerous, thats the kind of language that kicked off this nomination even before kavanaugh got nominated but certainly after he got nominated where people were going these are legitimate people, legitimate people, you know, part of the Democratic Party going around saying that people are going to die, women are going to die if this guy gets on the Supreme Court . And my goodness, is it any wonder the process ended where it did. Is it any wonder that it got as disgusting as it did when you have people making these outrageous baseless claims. Of course somebody you know, of course it is going to reach to this level if you have that kind of rhetoric. Chris i want to get back to something that was part of the discussion in the News Conference by Mitch Mcconnell, and thats the question of the Nuclear Option and the end of the filibuster, the super majority, 60 votes. Senator mcconnell pointed out that nobody had been ever filibustered in the Supreme Court and it was only after first democrats against republicans in the bush administration, then republicans against democrats in the obama administration, that it started with the democrats in 2013, harry reid the then democratic majority leader invoked the Nuclear Option which was for Lower Court Judges and said that you could cut off filibuster with a simple majority, 51 votes, not the super majority of 60 votes. Then last year, in the gorsuch case, it was extended to 60 votes. But i wonder whether or not because of that, because of the fact that were now openly saying you can just jam this through on a Straight Party line vote, whether it makes Supreme Court nominations, all nominations more partisan. Look, 60 votes was never the threshold. That was something that was theoretically was out there as an option, but none of the senators viewed it as a real thing that was done to Supreme Court justices. Chris they did do it to lower court justices. Only starting in 2003. Look at justice thomas, for example, he was confirmed with 52 votes. Thats not 60 votes. Justice alito was not confirmed with 60 votes. This has been the way the justices were confirmed. Getting rid of that filibuster, it returns us to a situation that is closer to the historic norm which is that people would get confirmed unless there was something truly extraordinary. And thats for most of history of course it was a much more of a given, there wasnt the focus on the courts that there is now. Chris the reason harry reid did this is because republicans were filibustering not Supreme Court justices but a lot of Barack Obamas appointees. Then as we got into 2017, and trumps president , then mcconnell extends that to Supreme Court nominees. And i guess what im wondering is, does the fact that we now are saying you cant filibuster, if the majority rules, does that tend to push the extremes in this whole process . I think it is hard to argue if youve looked at the way the senate has worked in recent years that it isnt becoming more partisan. And it worries me. Chris both sides. That partisanship is ruling the day in a way that it probably hasnt before in the United States senate. And we are now at this point with Supreme Court justices, and that does worry me, and look, i worry about it with each side escalating sort of the changing of the rules in order to make things easier for themselves. I wonder about what comes next. Mitch mcconnell held up the Merrick Garland nomination. You may think that was fine, if you supported having conservative judges on the court, you may be upset if you were upset that a moderate or a progressive wasnt seated or even given a chance to have a hearing. But he changed that and held up a new standard. And today was asked, if in 2020, there is a vacant seat, after the president ial primaries start, would you move forward . And he said i dont know. Right . Once again, showing maybe an openness to changing rules that he himself set and standard that he himself set. It worries me if we keep doing this chris your reaction to that . I think it is a little unfair to say that republicans are as much to blame for this situation as democrats. I know that we point to Merrick Garland as an example but theres never been a single democratic nominee to the Supreme Court who has ever been filibustered. All of this began in the early 2000s after the 2000 president ial election where george bushs nominee started getting held up. And on a filibuster which was completely unheard of. And i remember