pick heating up. the first democrats are breaking with their party, planning to vote yes for justice neil gorsuch, this as more than half of the democratic colleagues plan to apparently filibuster gorsuch s nomination. republicans not ruling out the nuclear option, if that is the occasion. actually, they re pretty clear that they ll use it. our arianna vogue has more and is here now. you have senator manchin of west virginia, heidi heitkamp of west virginia saying they ll vote yes. where does that put the count? they are getting close to a historical brink with the supreme court. those two dems are under pressure, and it s all about the math now. it takes, as things stand, 60 votes to confirm. and right now, as of this morning, 33 democrats are suggesting a filibuster. manchin and heitkamp were the first to break ranks with schumer. and basically, they said we re furious about garland. he should have gotten a hearing, but gorsuch is qualified.
strongly known to them. each member will make his or her own decision. but i think there s a great deal of skepticism in the caucus about judge gorsuch based on his record. let s talk more about this with cnn supreme court reporter arianna vogue and legal attorney page pate. so what is expected tomorrow? you know, these supreme court confirmation hearings, they represent the first and really the last chance for congress to grill a potential nominee. remember, if gorsuch is confirmed, he gets life tenure. he s almost untouchable. so you ll see the republicans going hard on his paper trail, examining his opinions. they really like opinions on religious liberty and other issues. democrats, they re kinds of they re kind of in a tough position. they re furious that obama s nominee, merit garland, didn t get a hearing.
demonized in that sense comes very strange to us. we are really sorry about that. reporter: all this after both donald trump and vladimir putin expressed mutual admiration during the campaign. translator: he is a brilliant and intelligent person without a doubt. in terms of leadership, he s getting an a. reporter: russian officials acknowledged they were pleased when donald trump beat hillary clinton in the u.s. election. they also expected results better u.s./russian relations and possibly an easing of sanctions slapped on russia over the ukraine crisis. now that hope is fading, one expert says. they were giving him a chance. they still are giving him a chance. but they re becoming more realistic about trump, about the united states and more generally, i think that basically they re not looking for a major breakthrough. reporter: the narrative about russia being demonized by the u.s. was some of the things