something as yet unexplained, one by one, gop lawmakers began embracing the prospect of what the white house is now calling a supplemental investigation of judge kavanaugh. orrin hatch said he had no problem with it. ted cruz got onboard. whatever was in the air today in washington, the atmosphere changed, and so has the story. because of what happened between senator flake on that elevator is one of those rare instances when a story s emotional center of gravity seemed to shift right before our eyes, i want to show you more of the moment. the first woman you ll hear is ana maria archila. you ll also here from rhea gallagher. ms. archila is the co-director of a left-leaning advocacy group. ms. gallagher is a recent college graduate. they were among a larger group protesters who had been outside senator flake s office. you are allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the supreme court. this is not tolerable. you have children in your
votes you need to be able to win. and it s only when people who are important for your vote who want something, you have to have if you gave this to the democrats, then there would be the next thing you d have to give, which may or may not be a good idea. so this is all part of the process, and it s ugly, and it s sausage, and i know people don t like it. what about finding the truth? getting to the truth is important, but getting this process done is also important. but the judge, shouldn t it be about the truth as opposed to making sure he gets he s not in control of the process. that s not his job. but the point is now you re saying this is so great, fbi investigation, blah, blah, blah. okay. let s go back. i m saying it s a good thing for the judge. let s go back to what everyone has been saying up until this minute on the republican side, which is the fbi doesn t even do these kind of investigations. you know, this is what we ve been hearing. this is what we hear
be tasked with this, how big a scope they have, who they plan on talking to. look, this all sounds really good, you know. oh, well, we ll just give them a week and then we re going to go vote. we don t know what s going to happen. and if you think that you saw a big change based on powerful testimony on one day, wait until these fbi agents come back with whatever they find. there could be a vote on tuesday, or there could never be a vote at all. so everybody can go to bed tonight and feel like this thing is all wrapped up and tidy. this thing just got blown completely wide open. we have no idea what s going to happen. and that s appropriate when you have these kinds of charges. the fbi is going to start doing its job. and those senators are going to look down the same barrel again, and somebody s going to blink again if, in fact, there s a need for an extension of this investigation. senator santorum, yesterday judge kavanaugh in his testimony was saying, look, the fbi is not going
and so there it was. republican senator jeff flake suddenly calling for the fbi to investigate more. his call followed then by alaska republican lisa murkowski and red-state democrat joe manchin of west virginia, then republican susan collins of maine. all suddenly calling for an fbi probe. by day s end, it was a done deal. a weeklong background check on judge kavanaugh, limited in scope, and starting today. and our breaking news, a source telling us that the president is blaming senator flake and democrats for the delay. so, was that elevator confrontation instrumental in senator flake s surprising decision? he was asked about it. here s what he said. did the protesters that you encountered play a role at all? i think everything that i ve seen and viewed and experienced in the last couple of weeks has had an impact. but so, it s been everything. everything, he says, which today included pressure from constituents, some of whom crowded offices and jammed phone lines. there we
the way that he did and not answered questions, that the republicans on the committee at the very least and many people maybe watching at home would have viewed her very differently. it s a double standard, essentially. do you believe that? yes, i do. i think what you saw in dr. ford was an inspiring testimony from the heart. i cried during her testimony. it emotionally moved me. i couldn t even see her face. but every word out of her mouth was you could see it was painful. it was obvious that she was speaking the truth, that it was coming from her heart, that it was painful, and that she suffered because of how judge kavanaugh treated her in high school. and so there was a huge difference between the way she came to the committee hearing as wanting to be helpful, wanting to be forthright. there was a righteousness behind her words. i did not see any of that out of judge kavanaugh. there was a huge difference. and it s one of the things that this moment is about. this is a larger m