nomination process. he also slammed his opponents, for a campaign of personal destruction. and also thanked a number of senator for their efforts, but he singled out susan collins from maine and now she s facing a backlash. she s not up for reelection. senator heidi heitkamp is up for reelection this year. and joe martialing of west virginia, she did not vote yes. she voted now. more on that from cnn as dana bash. heidi heitkamp have been fund walking in a classic north dakota parade. hi there. reporter: her smile marvs her political reality. he is the most endangered senate democrat, and knows voting against brett kavanaugh probably didn t help. it s been a tough week for because, you know, the political rhetoric is you can t vote that way if you expect to come back.
wade, even if they prefer to kick that can down the road. it s interesting, joan, because senator collins made a big point saying that justice kavanaugh had said to her he believes in precedent, not just as, you know, kind of a tradition, but as rooted in the constitution. jeff has raised, you know, some doubts about that as, you know, lots of people say that. and yet they overturn precedent all the time. you know, that s exactly right, anderson. i remember when susan collins first came out from her very first meeting with then judge kavanaugh is said he said it s settled precedent. and that doesn t get you very far. supreme court is always overturning precedent. they say they don t like to, but many times they say they will. and again, we ve got a couple of things going on here. we have a president who was avowed to appoint justices who will reverse roe v. wade. he wants the matter sent back to
should meet a threshold of more likely than not as our standard. the facts presented do not mean that professor ford was not sexually assaulted that night or at some other time, but they do lead me to conclude that the allegations failed to meet the more likely than not standard. therefore, i do not believe that these charges can fairly prevent judge kavanaugh from serving on the court. garrett haake, was susan collins endorsement and yes vote of brett kavanaugh a big surprise, or was it a position and a lean, an inclination she had and simply kept close, kept in confidence? i think the latter.
today we have come to the conclusion of a confirmation process that has become so dysfunctional it looks more like a caricature of a gutter level political campaign. joining us now, somebody who knows a lot about the history of gutter level political campaigns, john meacham, political historian. did we make history in the animosity, not just partisan divides, but gender divides in this country over the nomination fight of judge brett kavanaugh? i think we reached historic levels of exacerbation of those levels absolutely. one of the things that i find so interesting about senator collins speech is she was voting to confirm a vision of brett kavanaugh that had far more inspect common with susan collins than it does with judge kavanaugh. if you take the first part of
that his father bailed him out financially and really professionally his whole life. why is he still graded on a curve? because i think that we re dealing with a bully and he s been able to make people defensive that ought not be defensive. they ought to be on the offense. and we need to stop apologizing for calling out what it is. what he is doing is outrageous. when he mentions adam s article about the lynchings, let s not forget these people would go to church and then go to the lynching after clothing themselves in morality. and that s what we re seeing today. when susan collins can stand there after this man mocked al franken last night, he not only has mocked the dr. ford, he takes it upon himself to mock people, if it s the me too protesters, his whole thing is bully, bully, bully, and then he acts like he s doing it for the people. the people, the man inherited $413 million from his father and