it go and move forward? i think the people would like to close the door on the ugliness of the last few weeks, i don t think they ll be able to. these are big questions, the way the allegations came into at least senator feinstein s office, they weren t followed up on, seemed like coordinated political hit blow it is tradition to have committee and this isn t just they don t do this for supreme court nomination, that committee process is hundreds of nominations to all sorts of judgeships and other important positions, that process has to work and if it didn t work we need to know why and how things went wrong and if they can be improved in the future. bill: dick durbin democrat from illinois. craig, when you think about all of the arguments that have been made about brett kavanaugh s testimony and the well, the assertive way that he addressed the senators, how do you address
on this and this was not going to get any better if we didn t vote. dana: indeed, chief congressional correspondent mike emmanuel, mike, is a sense of relief among republican senators now that they feel sure that they have votes for confirmation. dana, there seems to be no question about that, quite the roller coaster for weeks, as you heard from the majority leader republicans didn t know they had the votes until major speech from maine susan collins. we ve heard a lot of charges and countercharges about judge kavanaugh, but as those who have known him best have attested, he has been an exemplary public servant, judge, teacher, coach, husband and father.
another promise kept. tell me about the president s standing now going into the midterms in 2020? well, it would be strong, even stronger, it would be than it was several weeks ago when he looked like he was going to be defeated on this. success begets success. that s why we have seen modest increase in the president s polls, the higher he gets on favorable and unfavorable better for republicans on midterm elections and whatever next policy battle he intends to engage on. this has been very valuable for the president. he s had terrific assistance in the senate, he s been aided ironically by events outside of control. no one inside the white house, nobody in the senate republican leadership had was enthusiastic about fbi investigation and now comfortable for jeff flake for brett kavanaugh and susan collins able to vote for brett kavanaugh and interestingly
tough questions but this process was on track when senator feinstein decided to sit on dr. ford s letter. but that still doesn t mean we can t be thankful, i m going to vote happily and proudly for judge kavanaugh and i am hopeful, i think he understands that the role of the supreme court justice is not to try to rewrite the constitution to advance a political agenda. it s to to be an umpire, say what the law is and not what the law ought to be. that s what i m going celebrate today. bill: why do you think judge gorsuch went through so easily and this one did not? i don t think it had anything to do with justice gorsuch versus soon to be justice kavanaugh. bill: was it numbers? i think it was the fact that justice kennedy was considered
arrested to cheers from the crowd not really massive crowds that came out of here. a lot of people with their dogs, a lot of people with their kids, the one rallying cry that we continue to hear out here, dana, from this crowd, feels like they lost the battle on kavanaugh, resigned to that, they say the bigger war is about november and most to have speeches now this afternoon are going from being antikavanaugh to being rallying cries for the november midterms. dana: all right, leland, we will keep an eye on that, bill: back in studio, andy mccarthy, closing thought, talking for hours, andy, what do you think of what has transpired since 12:00 noon eastern time? i m glad that we got to finish line. i happen to think that brett kavanaugh will be a model justice. i think he will be credit to the supreme court. whether i m right or wrong about that, time will tell. but what what gives me a feeling of saddens as we close instead of joy is that that the