Oh the new one well bring out the dogs. Mush dogs barking the old ones just fine well do anything, seriously anything, to help our customers. Thanks. Ally. Do it right. Tonight, they prepare to go before congress and the country. No matter what happens this moment will change our nations politics. Later on, roz roderosenstein. Was he being sarcastic. First, negotiation after negotiation. Shifting the Judiciary Committee on thursday at 10 00 a. M. I, of course, will be there too. Some of the details about this hearing have been worked out. The hearing will be open and dr. Ford will testify first. Democratic senators will ask questions. But important factors are so far unresolved. Like how much time will be allowed for those questions. And then theres the matter of whether republican senators themselves or perhaps their staffers or an outside counsel will do the questioning. This is important in part because all the republicans on the committee are men. At the same time, judge kavanaugh is calling the allegations completely false, saying hes never done anything like what the accuser describes to her or to anyone. The white house says three people identified by dr. Ford as
being at the party where all of this happened say they have no memory of either of incident or the party where it was said to have happened. And then theres the politics. There was a shift this week in tone from republicans from lets hear everyone out to full speed ahead. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a man of integrity. Brett kavanaugh, fantastic man. A stunningly successful individual. Its going to happen. Its going to happen. Were going to plow right through it and do our job. And i believe that judge Brett Kavanaugh will soon be justice Brett Kavanaugh and take his seat on the Supreme Court. Its worth mentioning that Senate Democrats are still pushing for an fbi investigation before the hearing gets under way. With that, i want to welcome in my panel this evening. With me onset, political analyst and fornler chairman of the rnc, Michael Steele. Washington correspondent and msnbc contributor, catty kay. Joining me from nashville, contributor and the author of the soul of america, mr. John mitch mitchum. Thank you all for being here. Im going to start with you, john. I want to talk about the arc of history. We have this set date and time a moment that, regardless of the outcome, seems sure to end up in our history books. That Christine Blasey ford is a name that well remember alongside anita hill, for example. Im wondering what do you think has changed in the decades since anita hill went before the committee and what does it say about us as a country . Well, precious little has changed since 1991. I think that the Kavanaugh Drama and the thomas drama are ch chapters this a story that goes back to the middle of the 1950s. Its when president eisenhower,
the first republican president in 20 years, imagine that. First republican president in 20 years appoints warren to be Chief Justice of the court. The warren court does remarkably historic rulings on integration. On Sectarian School prayer. Republicans are living to some extent with kind of cultural memory that republican president s have not always delivered on the conservative agenda that the base believed they might deliver on. So if 1962 with the School Prayer decision happened. It was a nixon appointee, Harry Blackman who wrote the roe decision. The first 1990, the first justice, that george h. W. Bush appointed was david suitor seen as a stalking horse, not conservative enough. What youre seeing with the passion of the quotations you just showed, part of whats Driving Trump and pence and mcconnell is this republican insistence that every seat must be ideologically pure. It goes way back, its deep in the dna and the Supreme Court which for much of our history has been political, unquestionably its political. But its become polarized now. Thats the Inflection Point were seeing now. Very interesting. Some republicans on the committee have muted expectations about what may come from thursdays hearing. Heres senator Lindsey Graham. Doesnt know anything that dr. Ford could say that would persuade you to vote against kavanaughs nomination, honestly . I would listen to her. But im being honest with you and everybody else. What am i supposed to do . Go ahead and ruin this guys life based on an accusation, i dont know when it happened, i dont know where it happened and everybody named in regard to being there said it didnt
happen. Im just being honest. She should come forward, she should have her say. Shell be respectfully treated. What did you expect us to do with an anonymous letter to begin with. What do you expect somebody to do with an accusation this big not verified in any way. Bring it forward, i will listen. But im not going to play a game and tell you this will wipe out his entire life because if nothing changes it wont with me. So perhaps, Michael Steele setting aside that anybody could be entitled to a Supreme Court seat. Hes had a distinguished life on the bench. What do you make of Lindsey Grahams response . I think long and short, every republican should keep their mouths shut between now and thursday. The better part of valor is to be quiet and say nothing. Every time they do, they make the situation worse. It is very clear from the very beginning of this, this had been the outcome has been pre judged. If thats not true, in fact, it
is absolutely true in perception. The American People looking at this, particularly women looking at this are feeling and getting the sense that no matter how you work the machinations in the process, you use that as your excuse, your kuj ol, whatever you want. Theyre saying come thursday, the imagery of this woman sitting there in this panel of white men looking down on her and prying into an affair incident that happen very personal incident. The personal incidents given their already public statements makes for a very untenable situation. I understand that theyve got to answer the question. But i think at this point its best to say i plan to hear her out and move on. Every time they open their mouth, it goes a little further south. Catty kay, there will be a difference in that there will be four women on the panel which we didnt have before. Theyre looking for anybody but their republican senators asking the questions. That is one of the things that changed since 1991 in anita hill and the conversation is out in the open. We have now had more women talking about incidents like this and more men being found to be guilty of incidents like this in the public and so women are believed more than they used to be. Now, that doesnt mean this incident happened. It doesnt mean that Brett Kavanaugh is guilty. It means that the shifting since 1991 is we assume shes not telling the truth. Lets give her a fair hearing because she may well be telling the truth because we know now that a lot of women have come because within nanoseconds, a new movement of why i didnt report this. Because women are saying, actually, no, mr. President , it can happen to me. That does not mean i reported it at the time. Based on what Lindsey Graham said and sort of everything we know or our knowledge of what we dont know about this, do you think theres anyway that this hearing could change the
outcome . It doesnt seem to me like senators on the republican side are open to having their minds changed particularly. I think that raises the issue of why we should be having an fbi investigation. Ive spoken to members of the fbi who said absolutely, we could investigate this. Would it be dispositive, we dont know that. But there are certainly things we could do. We could talk to judge mark judge. We could ask him those questions and go through her yearbook and his yearbook. There are things that could be done if we really wanted to get to the bottom of what happened and find out whether shes telling the truth, whether her memory serves her correctly or whether he is telling the truth and those steps are not being taken. Lets bring in democratic member of the senate Judiciary Committee, senator chris coons of delaware. Thanks for taking the time to be on the show tonight. Thank you, kasie. Lets start with the plan that late last week started to
crystallize where republicans senators dont seem to want to be doing a lot of the questioning directly themselves. They inted, want to bring in an outside counsel or have their staff do it. Its been my sources told me is because they want women asking questions of dr. Ford. Whats your take on this plan from the republican side . Kasie, i think our goal as the senate Judiciary Committee ought to be to show that weve learned something from the decades when anita hill was questioned by the yooud committee f my republicans degrees dont think they can handle the challenge of respecting dr. Ford and questioning her in an appropriate and supportive way, then perhaps they shouldnt be serving on the committee. This is the kind of role that senators shouldnt be outsourci outsourcing. If they dont like the optics of having a group of all white men on the republican side of the Judiciary Committee of grilling dr. Ford, perhaps they should reconsider their questioning
style and consider that we could have offered to dr. Ford an appropriate hearing by including an fbi background check, by inviting or compelling mark judge to testify, by bringing in the former fbi agent who administered a Lie Detector Test to dr. Ford that she passed or by calling in front of the Committee Expert witnesses on the dynamics of Sexual Assault and how it affects memory. Any of those steps would have improved the quality and the even handedness of this hearing. Instead, the republican majority rejected all of them. Have you made up your mind about who you think is telling the truth here . I have made up my mind that im voting against judge cave kna kavanaugh. I focused on president ial Power Concerns which are well outside the mainstream. I also believe dr. Ford. I think we should have a hearing where its possible for her to have a respectful opportunity to
present her allegations. But i think there are a few members of both sides, republican and democrat, where who they believe this week will make the difference in how they vote. So you do think that in the case of perhaps Susan Collins or lisa murkowski, this hearing could make a difference to the outcome of the confirmation . I do. So the wall street Journal Editorial Board put out this oped piece about what it seems to be a lack of due process afforded to kavanaugh by the democrats. The democratic standard for Sexual Assault allegations is they should be accepted as true merely for being made. The accuser is assumed to be telling the truth because the accuser is a woman. The burden is on mr. Kavanaugh to prove his innocence. If he is unable to do so, he is this turns american justice and due process upside down. We have an outspoken advocate of dr. Fords and play how she responded to the right to the Presumption Of Innocence during an interview she did this morning. Take a look. I put his denial in the
context of everything that i know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases. As i said, his credibility is already very questionable. It is so important that there be at least an investigation so theres some effort at collaboration. As far as his friend, mark judge, not even testifying, that is astounding to me. What do you think, senator coops, is the due process obligation and sort of Presumption Of Innocence standard that should be applied to judge kavanaugh in this case . Obviously, this is not actually a criminal prosecution. Right. It is important for all of us to remember in how we prepare ourselves for this session of the Judiciary Committee and how we talk about this that dr. Ford is not on trial. There are, if we have Reasonable Estimates of the number of victims of Sexual Assault in the country, there would be hundreds of thousands of victims of Sexual Assault who will be watching these hearings closely. If she is put on trial, it will discourage so many others from ever coming forward with their stories in other settings to challenge the conduct of other assault perpetrators, men or women. They are mostly perpetrated by men. I do think its important that judge kavanaugh be given a fair and reasonable opportunity to bring his side of the story forward. But frankly, what would have made this into a more fair and appropriate Confirmation Hearing was to do what we do with all nominees for a lifetime seat on a federal court, whether the Supreme Court or other court, which is to have the fbi do an expanded background investigation. Every single nominee who comes in front of the Judiciary Committee has had to clear a background check. Ill remind you, its judge kavanaugh who is seeking a lifetime appoint. Not dr. Ford who is seeking to charge him in a court of law. Frankly, the standard here is what senators find compelling
and what we ought to be considering is as broad a range of evidence and insight and advice from experts as is possible. Senator, to that point, the Washington Post reports that democratic staff have been researching the broader culture of the prep Academy World in which kavanaugh lived. Theyre reading the writings of mark judge, the kavanaugh friend who ford said was in the room. They plan to grill kavanaugh on the controversial twitter thread from ed whalen that you may have seen. Im wondering, which line of questioning do you intend to pursue in this hearing and do you think those reported ones would be fruitful . Im preparing with my team a number of different lines of questioning. You know, one of our challenges is going to be with 21 members of the Judiciary Committee. Theres lots of different potential lines of questioning and so given that im not the most senior democrat, ill have to be prepared to followup with additional questions depending on how other senators have
questioned. Im concerned about judge kavanaughs truthfulness given the ways in which he declined to answer or avoided answering a number of my direct questions. We met in my office privately first and i told him my areas of concern is jurs prudence. Then i sent him a public letter telling him what i would be questioning him on the haeearin. I questioned him in his Confirmation Hearing and i sent him written questions in a letter of followup. I felt that on several critical points in particular around his extreme view of president ial power that judge kavanaugh was not forthcoming with me and did not defend a number of his more extreme positions. Do you think he lied to you . Those exchanges . I wouldnt put it that directly in my questioning of him. Id say that he shaded or avoided answering or changed the subject or cited other jurists
to avoid having a direct conversation. I would have far preferred he directly defend his views. I think they can be defended but from a different perspective from mine and from a perspective that is outside the mainstream of american jurs prudence. Senator chris coons of delaware. Thank you. Well be watching and im sure ill be chasing you down the hallway with a microphone at some point this wake. Thank you, kasie. Jon meacham, i want to go to you. If you are a senator sitting on this committee, you have to be thinking about what youre going to do this week with an eye toward history. You know, its the margaret j. Smith principle. The republican senator from maine, Susan Collins, call your office. Very early on, within a matter of months after joe mccarthy launched his Campaign Seeking Communists in the government, stood up and gave a speech
called the declaration of conscience. Laying out exactly what the case against mccarthy would become. Only six senators joined her. Mccarthy dismissed her as snow white and the six dwarves. Yet four years later, it took the men four years to catch up shall the senate censures mccarthy on almost the same grounds that senator smith laid out. The thing i say to folks on few occasions when they ask. We ask you a lot. What do you want us its actually effective. What ill say is what do you want us to think about when we look at your oil portrait. They cant imagine a world where were not staring at their portrait. That gets through the shell. This is one that people are going to think about for a long time. Its not an appropriations vote. Its not a Passing Piece of
legislation. This is about the character of the country. Its really down to three or four senators. Thats what were talking about here. Were talking about Senator Collins and murkowski and senator corker from my state who is not facing the voters again. So what they have to do is decide, is this someone they want on the Supreme Court in light of all these circumstances . Jon meachams questions to all of you. What do you want people to look at when they see your oil painting . Weve got much more to come. Well talk abou