Grassley, feels the same way and that the present chairman of that committee right now feels the same way means that the votes technically would be there to confirm whoever the president chooses to replace the late justin ginsberg. Welcome, everybody. Im neil cavuto. This is your world. Fastmoving developments. Were going to talk to a key senator in all of this, indiana senator among the Republican Leadership and how the sands shifted so quickly toward getting this process on. Amid optimism that it could get done even before the election as incredible as that seems. Right now lets go to chad pergram on capitol hill with the heatest. Chad . Youre right. It did stop at two, oy two republican senators saying maybe we shouldnt consider a Supreme Court nominee this year. That was Susan Collins of maine and Lisa Murkowski of alaska. The key is that mitt romney, republican senator from utah, he gave the green light to go ahead. Now were trying to figure out what the timing is on this. Heres Mitch Mcconnell, the Senate Majority leader. The next step will be for chairman graham to lay out the way to handle this in committee. And when the nomination comes out of committee, then ill decide when and how to proceed. Democrats are still fuming over the way republicans blocked president obamas nominee for the Supreme Court in 2016, Merrick Garland. Senate democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the republicans should pick the next nominee and he accused the republicans of duplicity. Were supposed to be this specious, flimsy and dishonest argument that its about the orientation of the senate and the presidency. Or how angry republicans are at democrats and all the big scary things that we might do in the future. So its unclear just how quickly they can get this process started, maybe have a confirmation vote in the committee in the next couple weeks. They dont know if they would do this vote on the floor on which side of the election, before or after the election. Its unclear. Another bit of news this afternoon, neil, the house of representatives earlier this often was supposed to vote on a stop gap spending bill to fund the government and avoid a government shut down. That hit a snag and House Speaker nancy pelosi and the secretary of the treasury, Steve Mnuchin entered into renegotiations here. Trying to retool this. Theres a problem with some provisions that are not in the bill dealing with farmers and the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell dismissed this bill earlier. He said the message of this piece of the legislation is drop dead. But we got word in the past 20 minutes the House Majority leader, steny hoyer says they might forge ahead and vote on a retooled bill in the house of representatives later tonight if they can work this out. Neil . All right. Chad pergram, thanks very much. To the white house right now. The president is whittling the list down and make make an announcement sometime on saturday. To john roberts with the latest there. John . Good afternoon to you. President trump telling one of our affiliates earlier today, wjbx that hes pretty close to having made up his mind, which would indicate that he probably needs a few more hours, a couple days to think about it. Then he will make the announcement saturday. He does have a president ial political rally planned in pennsylvania on saturday night. Im told that will go ahead. So the timing for an announcement likely sometime saturday afternoon. In terms of sports, late saturday afternoon, 3 00 to 6 00 is prime time. So the president may step in then. The frontrunner is judge Amy Coney Barrett. She clerked for justice antonin scalia. She was a professor in graduate at notre dame law school. She was a finalist for the last vacancy that was filled by Brett Kavanaugh and sort of widely held that if the ginsberg seat ever became available, that she would be the one to get the nod for that. Another top contender is judge barbara lagoa. Shes of cuban descent and lives in miami. The 11th circuit is in atlanta. Putting her on the court could help the president with latino voters and thats one of the arguments being made to the president. Judge joan larsen of the sixth Circuit Court of appeals is on the president s short list were told. She also clerked for justice antonin scalia. She has something in common with judge barrett. The president brought up her name unsolicited twice in the last couple of days. So hes clearly thinking about her. The fourth candidate that we know of that is really a potential here is judge allison rushing from the south Circuit Court of appeals. Shes 38 years old. The president saying that if she were to live as long as judge ginsberg, she could be on the court for 50 years. Shes a favorite of evangelicals. A few Conference Calls among evangelical leaders in which they were singing her praises and burned up the phone lines at the white house. Im told by sources close to the vetting that perhaps seen as too young for the Supreme Court right now. Certainly a contender for the future. Most of the money is going on judge Amy Coney Barrett. Like anything, this could be fluid. President could pick any one of those. Neil yeah, in her case, shes been thoroughly vetted, so shes a known quantity. So if speed were the issue, that might help. Dont forget that democrats are particularly against her because of her perceived position on abortion. So that could really end up being a fight. Neil yeah, all the vetting in the world wont wipe that out. Thanks, john. Want to go to john bussey. Were told this is all about getting it done. Republicans believe right now with mitt romney open to a confirmation process that that is sort of cleared a hurdle that would assure the votes would be there on a nominee. Of course, this depends on that nominee and what comes through the confirmation hearings. What do you think. Doable by election day . Well, possibly by election day. Were 42 days out from the election. The median number of days that it has taken to confirm a Supreme Court judge tis has been 69. 42 is doable. I think either way, the president has an advantage here. The senate has clearly indicated that it is at least that they want to move ahead with a confirmation. So he could do it before the election. He could do it after the election. The new senate wont be seated until january 3. We has a lot of time between november 3 and january 3 to do it then, too. The question is, who is this going to benefit most at the polls . The president or biden and the democrats. Neil you know what is interesting and youre right, we have had times in the past that confirmation and the process had been wrapped up in a much shorter time period. John paul stephens, 19 days. Sandra day oconnor, 33 days. Justice gunsburg 42 days. We live in different times now. I wonder even with those republican votes, you know, confirmation hearings themselves raise issues. Theres other tactics that can bring it out. So play out that potential drama. Yeah. Mitch mcconnell is being very careful about this for that reason. What will the democratic opposition do to delay the process, to drag it out as you say. If they decide to do it before the election, the election itself may complicate matters, neil. Depending on who gets control of the senate, there may be a feeling among some of the institutionalists, those senators who really want to abide by the intent of the constitution to perhaps change their vote if they get voted out of office or if the Senate Changes hands and goes to the democrats. Theres an incentive to do it before the election. It helps the president from changing the topic away from the coronavirus and the democrats hammering him on it. And it helps the democrats because they have new money. Theres the issue of the aca, the Affordable Care act going before that Supreme Court and getting voted down by a new conservative majority. And womens rights in general and abortion specifically. A lot of voters for President Trump are pro choice. Theyre not all pro life. So Mitch Mcconnell may think, look, lets dash through that minefield, get it done before the i collection, get it done before the horizon changes or may decide that its too dicey, we have to go through certain protocols, vet carefully, lets do it after. Neil yeah, to your point, you know, all bets are off in a lame duck session. Votes are not always guaranteed. Weve done it in a lame duck session where a justice has been brought up. Theyre not bound to do anything. Thats that limbo period. Thanks very much, john, on all of that. I want to go to the virus situation right now. Weve been telling you what is happening abroad in britain where three looking at the possibility of a second shut down amid an ominous moment here in the United States even though counts are improving and stabilizing. We crossed the 200,000 death mark right now with better than 6. 8 million cases. Some developments as well on a vaccine front and strict strategies in place by the cdc of what comes out and when. Steve later again following that from atlanta. Steve . Youre right. Breaking news on the vaccine. But still details need to be cleared up. The Washington Post breaking the news that the fda is setting stricter standards for any vaccine that would make it unlikely a vaccine could be produced and available by election day. This makes the u. S. The country with the highest confirmed death toll. Across the u. S. , people still dying at an average now of 770 per day. As the cold weather comes, more people inside, that number could go up despite of the washington report and defiance of it earlier on. President trump says he believes a vaccine will be ready and available well before the end of the year. Heres President Trump. We will distribute a vaccine, we will defeat the virus, we will end the pandemic and we will enter a new era of unprecedented prosperity, cooperation and peace. England too suffering a set back with virus numbers. Officials there concerned about a potential second wave. Number of new cases in england doubling every seven to 20 days. They put in new restrictions on restaurants and pubs and fining people for failing to isolate this, trying to slow down the rapid spread. Back to you. Neil thanks, Steve Harrigan on all of that. To steves point, in franks and spain, parts of italy and israel, theyre looking at slowing things down, restricting or outright lockdowns again in israel. Thats what is occurring as we speak. Theyre getting worried about a spike in cases in india even though the taj mahal has been reopened, the First Time Since the pandemic struck. So depends where you are and what youre looking at. Meantime, the fight over a Supreme Court justice is minimizing and stopping almost all action on anything else. Senator mike braun of indiana on the implications of that after this. International incident. I cant give up on him. Now, one man, one mission, one movie event that cant be missed. Infidel. Rated r. Ikeeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. Claim your seventyfivedollar credit when you post your first job at indeed. Com promo with priceline, you can get up to 60 off amazing hotels. And when you get a big deal. You feel like a big deal. Priceline. Every trip is a big deal. Neil all right. Supreme court battle on. Everything else off. Dont blame folks for being cynical with the pace. The rap is that they cant chew gum and talk at the same time. I dont know if senator mike braun has tried it. He got in 2018 on what is at stake right now. Senator, this is going to be an interesting battle. The feeling seems to be that it will be all centered on getting a conservative justice to the Supreme Court but at the expense likely of almost everything else. What do you think of that . So dont put me in that category of not doing two things at once. Remember, im a main street entrepreneur having been in this place all that long. Youre right though. This is going to be the thing that dominates the calendar until were through. It wasnt like a lot else was going to get done, neil. I came here to work on things like high cost of healthcare and climate and other things. Thats been shoved aside by Government Shutdown when i got here, impeachment, covid and so forth. But here i do sense that were going to make the most out of the time we got. When you look at precedent, history, leader mcconnell has been clear. If he gets a nominee, there will be a vote. Many of us want to see that happen before the election as well. Neil now, i know again that you were not there in 2016 when the Merrick Garland controversy and democrats have been pounding on that, the hypocrisy of that, ten months before Barack Obamas term was scheduled to end, the republicans were not going to take up that nomination. Here they are taking up this one. The reason mr. Mc conneconnell its different now. We have same parties in control of the white house and the senate. Do you buy that . So i think that is a difference because historically the 15 times its occurred, eight of them have had the same circumstances. Seven of them had a nomination and successful movement in to the Supreme Court. Of the other seven, it just happened a couple of times where it came to fruition when parties when the president and the senate were of different parties. Its a vivid memory to me. Two years ago to date i remember sitting in the room when donnelly decided to vote against kavanaugh. When that transpired, including all the theatrics with it. My race and josh hollys race in missouri were considered tossups. We knew we were slightly ahead. It was tangible, palpable when the kavanaugh hearings occurred and when my opponent said he was going to vote against it, it popped us up two to three points. Thats the most recent example of how its had an impact. Had we not won in missouri and indiana, of course, i wouldnt be here. We would not be in the majority as well. Thats the lesson that we can tern to of how important it is. Neil Lisa Murkowski of alaska, Susan Collins of maine didnt want to be a part of this process right now. I dont know what they could do if they wait till a final vote, if they vote. What do you think of them and how they should move right now . They have indicated theyre against this, so i assume they sit it out. It depends on their motivation, which im not sure what it is, if its the timing. I think there could be a change of heart. If its the nominee, which i think is going to be different, too, the kavanaugh hearings were about as histrionic and belabored as youll get. When you look at who im hoping who is nominated, Amy Coney Barrett from indiana, she has a stellar record. A constitutional list, one that wont legislate from the bench and a woman to boot that is going to trump has said it will be a female nominee. I wonder if there might be a change of heart. Then we had another variable cleared up just a few hours ago when senator romney said that he will be there to vote, and he indicated big difference. Neil all right. Senator, good catching up with you. Thank you very much. Youre welcome. Neil meantime, i want to draw your attention to Kamala Harris. Hes on the campaign stump right now. Shes been busy at a roundtable in michigan. Watch her very closely. He sits on that judiciary committee. She was an aggressive questioner of Brett Kavanaugh. She would be in that role presumably for democrats on the committee if we get a process going with the trump pick as soon as saturday. So think about that and how it changes her plans and the democratic tickets plans campaignwise. She can do a lot less of this and a lot more sitting around at a Committee Hearing in washington after this. Attention veteran homeowners record low Mortgage Rates have dropped even lower. 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