i think that there is a process. that process needs to be fair. it needs to be open. we all, every member of the united states senate has an equal obligation to thoroughly vet this nominee. that was senator murkowski there, the other potential swing vote who has been historically focussed on this issue. she describes herself as pro-choice. and kavanaugh s comments you played just a few minutes ago saying he wouldn t throw out roe v. wade basically give both of these republicans plausible deniability to say, look, he said this publicly. i m going to back him because he says he s going to continue to support abortion rights for women. but schumer, chuck schumer, their democratic leader in the senate, he s already warning that just because, you know, kavanaugh said this in the past doesn t mean you should take him at his word now. the reality is that a judge can look at a court case and say, oh, you know, the reality is a
senators that are in the middle. susan collins, lisa murkowski on the republican side. on the democratic side, several red-state democrats. trump won states by double digits who were up for re-election. as you noted, those senators, as we expected, keeping their powder dry. that really underscores we re in for a lengthy process. obviously the full-on blitz started frankly even before brett kavanaugh was nominated. you re going to have millions of dollars in outside money trying to influence those senators, trying to pressure those senators. you re going to have grassroots on both sides try to bring to bear their pressure on the senators as well. but this is going to be a lengthy process, one where we probably won t know where the votes actually are, at least in total, until shortly before the floor vote. how long does that mean? until probably about 2 1/2 months or so, 10 weeks, 11 weeks. think about a hearing in the early part of september, c confirmation vote middle of september. the
quickly. but it s going to be thorough. it s going to be done right. and try to do what we can to accommodate everybody s interests. in the end, i think his record speaks for itself. we thank you all very much. a little hard to hear over all clicking sounds there, but that is chuck grassley. he s the chairman of the judiciary committee. he will be running the confirmation hearings for brett kavanaugh. the gist of what he said was there s going to be a thorough process. obviously he didn t say, okay, i m in, but he sort of alluded to that, saying he has a good record that speaks for itself.
he s a respected jurist and so on and so forth. you know, this is about as standard and conventional as we see of any process in the trump administration. this happens in every administration, democrat or republican. you do the nominee. the next day they go up to the hill and do the meet and greets and say words without really saying much before the cameras. i think this is because this is the sort of the kbbiggest part of trump s administration that he s farmed out to another group of folks, that being the federalist society. this is sort of the result, the fruit of a really earnest effort by a lot of serious young lawyers who were concerned about the way the legal profession was going too liberal. they ve now created a community of lawyers who have focused, better than i think anybody else in the conservative movement, on actually getting their people into the federal bench. this is the result of that.