perspective, i saw him, too. i completely understand what he said, what he heard and the sentiment. the reason i pause is, brett kavanaugh is no fool. right? he s had rehearsal after rehearsal for this. let s say he wanted to snub fred guttenberg. i don t know that he would have done in it that public forum and caused the issues. but it is a very tense room and protesters taken out of the room. this one we could take a beat on. brett kavanaugh would not have made a mistake like this on purpose. pete williams is standing by for us. long-time justice correspondent and, pete, i hate questions like this but i m going to ask it any way. what are the opportunities to lay a glove on this nominee today? oh. well, i think a couple of one that is the democrats will really focus on. first of all, in the ra in which we live and based on the first 15 minutes of this hour they re going to ask brett
pete, one further quick question and that is, is it too simplistic to frame this as some of the democrats have that the president has selected a judge for a period of time, perhaps months from now, when he will be judged for what has taken place in office? no. i don t think that s simplistic at all. i think that s something to ask him about. they re going to ask him if, for example, you know, yes, the president nominated him. he s beholden to him. what will be his views toward the president if he gets on the court and would he recuse himself if a case like this, a case about, for example, subpoenaing the president, came to the court. pete williams in our washington bureau. very best we have to cover proceeding like this. appreciate it very much. we re going to scoot to a quick commercial break. obviously, when we come back, we will have gavel to gavel coverage of this first initial morning session. the first day of questions and
previously and if you can t trust a supreme court justice to be honest and forthcoming about whether they were in a room about the discussion about whether the president was going to violate international law i think they have to know that. i think that s a valuable preview. we re going to open up some of the audio from the room. we have been wondering why grassley was so tardy. after all, we re three minutes past our scheduled start time. but he is walking the nominee in to the room. you see judge kavanaugh greeting the folks who are waiting for him. senator grassley will probably now retreat and go back around to his chairman seat. they re saying their good-byes. we have seen most of the other committee members already file through. people who are new to senator grassley might have received a master s degree in the senior senator from iowa watching the proceedings yesterday from his shall we say iowa twang.
all right. and tomorrow our guests will include former secretary of state john kerry, former cia director john brennan. that does it for us this morning. brian williams picks up msnbc s special coverage of the brett kavanaugh confirmation hearings right now. mika and joe et al, thank you all. we ll begin on capitol hill and as john heilemann was saying, the backdrop of the white house and the on going daily reaction is interesting to gauge. there s the hearing room. the first day of questioning for judge kavanaugh as he attempts to seek to be placed to nominate being nominated for the vacancy of justice kennedy. i am joined here in the studio by stephanie ruehl. this is her hour and contributing to the coverage of this and we want to start with phil rucker covering the white house for the washington post
kavanaugh could make in the hearing would be one if he were to cross conservatives or give them pause that s something that could affect his future but otherwise republicans seem extraordinarily bent on pushing this through. declined to delay the hearing despite the document dump that democrats complained about all day yesterday and mitch mcconnell wants the vote on kavanaugh s confirmation before the midterm election. so again, unless there s an objection from republicans, that s not a lot that democrats can do and you have seen many trump nominees march right on to the courts. this is, you know, when you talk to republicans, why are you living through the trump presidency the way you are without protesting louder than maybe you do, what you re seeing play here today is the answer to that question, brian. let s back up a moment to that unfortunate incident between the parkland parent and the nominee.