and that would probably wouldn t come testify, but it would have the effect of slowing it down. and what kind of company does she have with that? you typically see suzanne collins and lisa murkowski together and they were getting tremendous pressure from back home. folks threatening to run against collins in maine. murkowski, the governor of alaska coming out against brett kavanaugh, some local groups as well. so there is a tremendous amount of pressure, and it will be interesting to see if, as we have seen in the past, they basically kind of do it together. comes to the credibility of question. let me read from the prepared testimony of professor ford. there was music playing in the bedroom. it was uturned up louder. i was pushed on to the bed and brett got on top of me. the american people viewed it as a draw. how do you settle that? in today s world we know people
in, senator, but the mood today with the me too movement is a lot different than it was in the early 90s. i get that. and i think what republicans believe is that democrats, for partisan and for political purposes, have weaponized the me too movement to attack brett kavanaugh in order to stop a fifth judge to be on the court. when i said that christine blasey ford is a pawn, there s a war going on here. and she is an unwilling participant in that war because she didn t want to be. the war to stop kavanaugh. but it s a bigger war. this is the big schism that we see in this country between the left and the right. and the progressives and the conservatives. and the central role that the court has played in moving this country to the left. and now we see it, the principal vehicle for the transformational change we have seen in a lot of the progressive ideology is now being threatened.
he is a republican on this committee who has not yet decided about brett kavanaugh. he took to the senate floor yesterday and gave a big speech to try to reset the narrative. he basically blasted both sides for politicizing, you know, the allegations around brett kavanaugh, for politicizing the allegation that christine blasey ford has brought forward. so really trying to hit the reset button. he did not say anything going in. silence from jake flake. thanks very much. in today s hearing, all eyes will be on key members as they hear testimony and form their decisions on the fate of judge brett kavanaugh. david is over at the magic wall for us. david, break it all down for us. yeah. let me provide you a little bit of a scorecard. as you are watching some key senators to watch. first of all, three of the senators on the committee today were on the committee back in 1991 when anita hill was
course, because he can t talk about race, but he can talk about the partisance here. i think you will see a lot of that. the other thing i want to caution is that back in 1991, at least to the public, it seemed like a draw. you know, it was the question when we all were watching those of us who were watching it either in the room or on national tv, it was who do you believe. under those circumstances it goes back to the individual senators, what s going on in their districts and what are the political stakes irrespective of this man and woman. one of the things that i think is fair to say just in terms of the analysis of this is the more that this testimony today is about the cultural moment we re in, the more difficult it becomes for people like lisa murkowski and senators to vote for brett kavanaugh, the
no definitive answers on where they re going to go. the stakes are so high in this hearing in large part because republicans don t have the votes. all right. phil mattingly, thanks so much. we heard not one of the 11 republican members of the senate judiciary panel plan to question either ford or brett kavanaugh. rath rather, they have brought in a sex crimes prosecutor to do their questioning for them. cnn tells us for about this prosecutor. jake, that prosecutor whose name is rachel mitchell will have such a major role in today s hearing, not only the question, the tone, the direction that this all goes. she is someone who has been a prosecutor in arizona for the last 25 years, and she has significant experience dealing with sex crimes. she is someone that has handled many high profile cases, specifically going