As we begin a new week, good evening from our nbc headquarters. Day 620 of the Trump Administration and there are new and potentially damaging revelations about Supreme Court nominee federal judge Brett Kavanaugh, many of them still rolling out tonight as the president defended in front of a rally in tennessee. They have been trying to destroy him since the first second he was announced. He is a good man, great student, great intellect. Never had a problem. All of a sudden, lets go back to high school. There he is, new reporting from the New York Times and bloomberg. It says kavanaugh was involved in a bar fight in new haven, connecticut back in 1985 while a junior at yale. The times adds that kavanaugh has been questioned about it. Kavanaughs former classmate at yale spoke to bloomberg about that fight. Yesterday he released a statement describing kavanaugh as, quote, belligerent and aggressive after drinking. Here is what kavanaugh said to the committee about his drinking last week. I drank beer with my friends, almost everyone did. Sometimes i had too many beers, but i did not drink beer to the point of blacking out. Earlier this evening his former classmate offered a different assessment. I can say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking and in down playing the degree and frequency of the drinking, brett has not told the truth. I felt it was my civic duty to tell of my experience while drinking with brett. He went on to say he has been in touch with the fbi about kavanaugh. This morning President Trump was asked about the conflicting accounts of kavanaughs drinking. There are now concerns that he may have lied or mischaracterized his drinking while testifying. If they find that he did, do you think that bars him from being your Supreme Court nominee . I watched him. I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer and he has had a little bit of difficulty. I mean, he talked about things that happened when he drank. This is not a man that said that alcohol was absent and he was perfect with respect to alcohol. Please note, the president did not quote kavanaugh accurately and went further did kavanaugh did in his own sworn testimony. Tonight there are also new questions concerning kavanaugh and his second accuser deborah ramirez. She has alleged kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were both at a party at yale, something he denies. Nbc news reports tonight that before ramirez went public with her allegation published in the new yorker, quote the judge and the team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim according to Text Messages obtained by nbc news. Those texts sent between two of kavanaughs friends suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former classmates about ramirezs story in advance of the new yorker article that made her allegation public. That is critically important because kavanaugh said under questioning and under oath that he learned about the ramirez allegation only when it was published in the new yorker. Nbc news has confirmed that the fbi has spoken to ramirez. And the lawyer for kavanaughs High School Friend mark judge says he has spoken with the fbi but that his interview has not been completed as of yet. Last thursday the first accuser dr. Christine blasey ford testified judge was the one in the room during the alleged assault. Fords friend Leyland Kaiser has taken part in an fbi interview. There has been much debate over the scope of this investigation and democrats say they worry republicans may try to rein in the agents on this. Today the white house signed off on the bureau expanding its inquiry beyond the set set of witnesses urging the agency to follow any leads they wish while maintaining the same friday deadline. I think the fbi should do what they have to do to get to the answer. I want them the do a very comprehensive investigation, whatever that means according to the senators and the republicans and the republican majority. I want them to do that. With that being said, i would like it to go quickly. Today Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell was determined to signal full steam ahead. If you listen carefully, mr. President , you can practically hear the sounds of the democrats moving the goal post. The time for endless delay and obstruction has come to a close. Judge kavanaughs nomination is out of committee. We are considering it here on the floor. And mr. President , we will be voting this week. With that, lets bring in our lead off panel on a monday night. Peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times, sean henry, former assistant director of the fbi and former u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york. Good evening and welcome to you all. Peter, you shared the by line breaking the news today that the white house it had the air of a white house relenting in expanding the reach and scope of the fbi investigation. You have also written about the fact that it is not without its risk. Thats exactly right. The white house passed along the list that Senate Republicans gave them, witnesses they wanted the fbi to interview. There were only four names. Rebecca ramirez and the three people that Christine Blasey ford say were in the house when her incident happened in the early 1980s. That was it. That was what the fbi was told to do. When that got out that caused a lot of consternation among democrats and among the handful of Senate Republicans including jeff flake. Jeff flake got in touch with the white house and made clear this wasnt acceptable to them. The president saw the stories and decided it didnt look good if it seemed to be so restricted that there wasnt a serious investigation, it would only generate more problems. He went ahead and gave the white House Counsel instructions to tell the fbi to follow the leads and interview anybody they thought needed to be interviewed as long as it was done this week. I need not tell you the fbi is not autonomous and they hate being the story which is what they have not liked thus far about this administration. What i mean by that is they receive orders and follow them. Are you convinced that agents and field offices feel they have received their orders and in living rooms around the country tonight where appropriate there are agents sitting this close asking people, potentially witnesses in this story, for their testimony . I have no doubt they are working around the clock now interviewing people and taking results of the interviews and chronicling them. The fbi is not going to wait a week to prepare a report and send it. They are getting the results contemporaneously. There may be direction and guidance coming from the department of justice and from the white house. While i believe they will have the opportunity to conduct their investigation, the parameters may change as the information goes back into the white house through the department of justice. Somewhere tell me there is a white board and a map of the nation and a red pin on new haven, connecticut where field agents are at yale. There is a red pin in maryland and a red pin in california where presumably they are reinterviewing her and that kind of thing. I imagine this is being worked out of fbi headquarters. There are leads being cast throughout the United States. When results of interviews come back if the agents have the authority and opportunity to continue to follow the leads logically as they would take them to try to get to the bottom of this and answer all the questions, then additional leads will go out and other agents will be dispatched to follow up. Would you be interested in a bar fight in the 80s . I think it is important. What happened to somebody in their teens, in high school or in college, isolated incidents in and of themselves are looked at and overlooked if isolated. I think the bigger issue here is a pattern of conduct and if it continues decades into the future into the present time. The other piece is the credibility and the suitability of the candidate to sit on the bench. If the candidate made statements under oath to the senate and they were misstatements or if he had perjured himself those are the types of issues that agents will chronicle, follow and present them forward. That is exactly where im going to go with our wise inHouse Counsel tonight. This nbc news story, lets call it a campaign of Text Messages were going out to old friends to say there is something coming out, please back up our guy. The story i think in part alleges that some may have come from kavanaugh. Two tiered question for you. Is there anything illegal if im coming up on a big moment in my hearings and i get wind of something bad coming . Second, is it really bad that this federal judge is already sworn to saying he didnt see the allegation we are talking about until it came out in the new yorker and we all read it . The first question is it could be illegal. If kavanaugh and his team got word that ramirezs allegations were coming out which is what it sounds like happened and kavanaugh himself reached out to people to say this is not unlike things we talked about with trump before. Its how close did he come to helping them refresh their memory. He shouldnt have reached out directly. He should have left that to his legal team. That would be extraordinary for a sitting federal judge. It sounds like that might have happened, that he might have reached out directly. Based on the reporting it says that her texts referred to brett reaching out to her. So we dont know for sure, but that is something that needs to be looked into because if he did, that is highly inappropriate and could border on illegal. Even his team doing that, if they were simply asking questions, what do you remember . If they were pressuring people in any way, trying to refresh their memories or get their stories straight, that is a big nono to put it simply. And the allegation comes out in the new yorker. He says that is when he first learned about it. Any of the texts would put that in doubt. It would. Again, it sounds like were hearing this from someone who has the text. This is why this investigation is so important and someone needs to really speak directly to the person who has the text which it sounds like they have been trying to reach the fbi and it hasnt happened yet. That is a little troubling. My guess is that might be because of limits that were put on the fbi initially. Now hopefully they will be free to talk to the witnesses directly. Yes, if he did know about this ahead of time but testified that he didnt know about it until the time it was in the new yorker, that is definitely not true. Could you prove a perjury case based on that . I wouldnt want to bring that case. The standard is as we have all been saying, is this a person who is being forth right and honest and should be on the Supreme Court . I think the growing impression over and over is that he was not completely forth right in his testimony. Peter baker, as you cover this president , i know it is not lost on you that every so often this white house follows the book of president ial behavior. For all the times they dont, and one of the things that president s do or avoid is opening the door to a plan b, a backup choice for a big nomination, a big job. The president avoided that today. He continued to support his guy tonight at the rally in tennessee. Behind the scenes we all know there is a white board and there are backup names. There always are during this kind of selection process. So talk to me about the degree of confidence you are sensing in your contacts with those in the west wing. He did, in fact, avoid the trap door of acknowledging that he has a plan b. That would be devastating to his current nominee. Anybody would know that in washington. He seems to be convinced of that. He did leave himself some wiggle room. As strongly as he defended judge kavanaugh and embraced the judges defense and seemed to identify with him as somebody accused of Sexual Misconduct, he did say if the fbi came back with information that was relevant that he would take that into consideration and give a rethink to the nomination. He did give himself an out if Something Else comes to the floor. I think the white house is not sure this is going to lead to a confirmation at the end of the week. They are confident but not overly so because they recognize it in four days, any number of new things can come out of the wood work, more allegations, a bar fight or more serious things that call into question not just the judges actions in terms of Sexual Misconduct but his credibility and candor that he exercised or didnt exercise. So to my other question earlier, there exists the possibility that in a field office in dallas, texas tonight someone is slipping a note under a physical door that says urgent and confidential. Does the bureau surge field agents to new tips, new information even if it is in tomorrow mornings New York Times under the by line of peter baker . It is like any allegation that comes in, anybody who says they have information about any type of a violation you have to assess the credibility of the person who is providing the information. Agents will do some type of an initial triage. They are likely to run it up the chain to their Supervisory Staff or to the department of justice. It is still not clear. I heard multiple people officially in the white house, from the president and others who made statements that have been inconsistent. Even when the president has said there are no parameters, they can do what they like, there is still some back channel suggesting maybe you should stay here within these guidelines here. Agents if they have the opportunity, they are going to want to follow all logical leads. I think we as americans want this to be resolved one way or the other. If the judge were to be confirmed you dont want these questions hanging. You want the American People to have the confidence that the people that are sitting in the highest court of the land are credible, that these things have been reviewed and that there has been no smoke left there unchallenged. Meaning it almost sounds like you worked at the fbi. Counselor, as you know, ritual ritual rachel mitchell, the special counselor brought in to help with the questioning said something about this case being something difficult to prove this weekend. A he said she said case is difficult to prove but this case is weaker than that. Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event who either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them. I do not think a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence nor do i believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance of the evidence standard. You are a reasonable prosecutor. Could you reach that same conclusion . No. I reach a completely different conclusion. First of all, i have so much trouble with her process that she used here. She calls this a he said she said and doesnt address in the memo what he said. There is no analysis of kavanaughs testimony. She focuses only on fords. That is not how agents and prosecutors look at a case. You cant draw a conclusion about whether something would be a good case or not by looking at one witnesss testimony. You have to look at the whole picture. That is exactly what they are not doing here. And her memo picks apart dr. Fords testimony in this very sort of nitpicky way. She says that dr. Ford called it a physical assault at one point and a Sexual Assault at another point. It can be both things. You dont need to use the same term over and over to describe an event like that. There are many problems with her memo. The biggest problem is that standard is completely irrelevant to what is going on here. This is not a criminal case as republicans have said. This is not a trial. This is not someone seeking a search warrant. This is supposedly a truth seeking exercise to find out whether as we are all saying this man is qualified and fit to be on the Supreme Court. And to put these preponderance of the evidence standard is not the right standard to be talking about here. It is a political memo. I said it was embarrassing that she allowed herself used for the questioning, this memo is more embarrassing. I thought you might have an opinion. Our thanks to the big three starting off a big week. Thank you so much for being with us. Coming up, the politics influencing this debate over kavanaugh. And later the president boasts about his deal replacing nafta. Well ask for a canadian perspective on all of that when we continue as the 11th hour is Getting Started on a monday night. Getting started on a monday night. My name is elaine barber, and im a fiveyear cancer survivor. Being diagnosed with cancer made me rethink everything in my life. The things that became important to me were the relationships with people. We pulled together closer as a family. I had so many people at ctca helping me find a way to go through the treatments, to prepare me for anything i wouldve faced. Cancer showed me what true living is all about. So i started helping at a school for special needs children. I think they do more for me than i do for them. The reality of cancer is not everybody survives. Surviving for five years is a big deal. At ctca, they have a huge celebrate life event. That was amazing because the whole day was about all of the survivors. Im not exactly sure whats ahead of me, but im excited about my future. Visit cancercenter. Com to schedule an appointment now. So, howell. Going . We had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. Go someplace exotic . Yeah, bermuda. A hospital in bermuda. A hospital in bermuda. What . What happened . I got a little overconfident on a moped. Even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401 k so it set us back a little bit. Sometimes you dont have a choice. But it doesnt mean you cant get back on track. Great. Yeah, great. Id like to go back to bermuda. I hear its nice. Yeah, id like to see it. No judgment. Just guidance. Td ameritrade. Democrats are willing