Often with justices, you had 99, 96, 94. This is the first or second closest vote weve ever had. And once you make it a simple majority, its going to be a blood sport. Its going to be thunder dome because theres desperation by the side that doesnt have the power because the power is almost absolute with a simple majority. Thats what we saw here. Unless kavanaugh was completely derailed, he was always going to get through. They cant stop it. You realize the minority of the country and people in the senate, in the congress who represent a minority of america are actually leading america and making laws right now, by the millions. By the millions. There are millions more people who are from bigger urban areas or from bigger states, and they dont have the representative. Thats the whole thing, the popular vote versus the electoral college. Well, look, you have endemic challenges. We had eric holder on the other night. Hes got a very clever way to test the waters for running for president. Hes big on gerrymandering, redistricting. Thats where the democrats got their heinies whooped is at the state level. They lost all of these state legislatures all across the country. Thats where the districts are done. Youre going to have a not trickle down but youre going to have a bubble up problem with these kinds of things. But thats politics and power. What im saying is in this country, youve got to find common ground. You have to find points of accommodation. You have to. But you know what . This is our system. We saw it playing out for us in front of our face in realtime this week and the last couple weeks, and thats what it is. So we have to embrace it, and we have to move forward and then try to figure out how we do it better. Well, you accept the result. The result is legit, but they have to change the process, not because of the out, but because of how they arrived at it, what they ignored, what they wound up sacrificing. That matters for the for christine ford, for that body of truth, for those women who went to the senators in those elevators after this cultural cataclysm where we at least came to some recognition that, hey, we got to treat these things with more respect. We have to understand these allegations with more respect. That was sacrificed here. Ford never had a shot at getting a real review like what we promise anywhere else in society right now. She never had a chance. Here we go. Term limits would help, and we have to get people in both houses of congress who represent the diversity of this country rather than people who just represent older people or just one ethnicity. Im with you on that. I believe diversity is strength. I think it helps. Its never going to be one thing, don. Its going to be a lot of Different Things all pushing you in the same direction. That would help. That would help. Representation would help. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Have a great weekend, okay . You too, pal. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. No matter what you think about the prospect of Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, and the country is bitterly divided on that tonight. We just said that. Theres no question that this will be a big victory for President Trump. It may be honestly the best day of his presidency. And assuming that judge kavanaugh is confirmed and lets face it. The chances that he wont be are slim to none even in a nomination process as wild as this one. The president has changed the shape of the Supreme Court for years to come, maybe generations, for a lifetime. And he has kept one of his Biggest Campaign promises. But the country is paying a price for his victory. This fight has been so brutal that nobody is really coming out of it looking good. Senators who are voting in favor of kavanaugh, struggling to explain how they can, in good conscience, ignore everything professor ford told them. Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense. Everything she said shes 100 sure he did. Dr. Ford, with what degree of certainty do you believe Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you . 100 . 100 . So ive said it before. You cannot believe both professor ford and judge kavanaugh. You hear that a lot. Well, i believe both of them. You cant believe both of them. You cant support him and still believe her. And senators are trying to have to explain their support for judge kavanaugh. I made my decision, and i gave my reasons for my decision. Ours went out, and we wanted to make sure. Shame, shame, shame you can listen to the people here. Im very much concerned basically with the sexual abuse that people have had to endure and very much concerned we have to do something as a country. I had to deal with the facts i had in front of me. And of course there is President Trump slamming Christine Blasey ford after she testified in excruciating detail about being sexually assaulted. 36 years ago this happened. I had one beer, right . I had one beer. Well, you think it was nope, it was one beer. Oh, good. How did you get home . I dont remember. How did you get there . I dont remember. Where is the place . I dont remember. How many years ago was it . I dont know. I dont know. [ cheers and applause ] i dont know. I dont know what neighborhood was it in . I dont know. Wheres the house . I dont know. Upstairs, downstairs, where was it . I dont know, but i had one beer. Thats the only thing i remember. Disgusting. And judge kavanaugh claiming the charges against him were a partisan political hit job. This whole twoweek effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pentup anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside leftwing opposition groups. Im going to say it again. Nobody is coming out of this looking good, certainly not chuck grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. When asked today whether he thinks there should be more women on the committee i just talked about diversity, right . Representing all of the country. This is what he answered about more women on the judiciary committee. He says, youve gotta have a desire to serve. Weve tried to recruit women, and we couldnt get the job done. Oh, but theres more. In answer to a question about why he cant recruit women, he answered this. Its a lot of work. Dont forget, compared to a lot of committee meetings, we have an executive every thursday. So its a lot of work. Maybe they dont want to do it. I bet there are plenty of women who want to do that work and can handle it and do it very well, especially after hearing that. But in the middle of all of this, heres something to consider. Whether or not you agree with senator Susan Collins decision to support judge kavanaugh, this moment is something we should all think seriously about. We live in a time of such great disunity as the bitter fight over this nomination both in the senate and among the public clearly demonstrates. It is not merely a case of differing groups having different opinions. It is a case of people bearing extreme ill will toward those who disagree with them. In our intense focus on our differences, we have forgotten the common values that bind us together as americans. So lets talk about one word here, conscience. Conscience is the key to all of this. Senator Lisa Murkowski said it. In my conscience, because thats how i have to vote at the end of the day, is with my conscience. I could not conclude that he is the right person for the court at this time. Democracy doesnt work the way it should if all we care about is who wins and who loses. Who squeaks by with just enough votes and who doesnt. Thats the tyranny of the majority, or some might argue in this case the minority. When you look at the percentage of the country that supports President Trump, 41 in the latest quinnipiac poll, or the percentage of the country who supported Brett Kavanaugh, 42 . But my point is youve got to be able to vote your conscience no matter where that takes you, no matter how much pressure your party puts on you, no matter how loudly other people protest. You and i both know that some people vote strictly on the basis of whats best for them politically, not whats right. That happened in this situation as well. And it can be pretty easy to vote your conscience when your conscience and your party are in sync. But when theyre not, whether youre a red state democrat or a blue state republican, you should still be able to vote your conscience. And if you cant, well, well never be anything other than a polarized, partisan mess. By the way, just as youre entitled to vote your conscience, protesters are entitled to have their voices heard. [ chanting ] are you going to let our democracy die . Are you going to let our democracy die . That is what america is all about, giving voice to everybody. Its messy sometimes, and this whole process proves that. A lot of people will argue that the result of this confirmation process is not good for america. But do you want to live in an america where we silence people who, in good conscience, dont believe what we believe . Thats not america. Thats not what i want. Every night on this show, people speak their minds, and i disagree with some of them. I hold them to the truth because when you come on here, this is a privilege, not a right. And if youre speaking directly to the american people, then i think you owe them to be honest to them. You owe them that. But there are voices, even if i disagree with them, deserve to be heard. They deserve the chance to argue their positions in good conscience. Thats what truly makes america great. Lots to talk about including whether the best day of the Trump Presidency may be a bad day for america. With its historical records. Ancestrys dna test. You could learn youre from ireland. Donegal, ireland. And your ancestor was a fisherman. With blue eyes. Just like you. Begin your journey at ancestry. Com. My gums are irritated. I dont have to worry about that, do i . Actually, you do. Harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. Crest gum detoxify works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. And, now theres new crest gum and enamel repair. 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And theres no question that a fifth consecutive justice, conservative justice, is a big victory for President Trump and for his party. But what does having kavanaugh on the bench mean for the court itself . Lets discuss it now. Carl bernstein is here, Abigail Tracy and david kaplan. David is the author of the book the most Dangerous Branch inside the Supreme Courts assault on the constitution. Now, that is the name of a book. Okay. Thank you all for joining us. So, carl, im going to start with you because President Trump has been remarkably effective in reshaping the court, not just the Supreme Court but even at the appellate level, right . Even statewide hes been appointing conservative judges. So hes going to get a conservative justice now. So its good for trump, but is it good for the country . Well, i think this whole process has been awful for the country in the following way. I mean i listened like most americans, i think, to Susan Collins civics lesson today. And what i did not hear from Susan Collins in this civics lesson was anything about donald trump and how he conducted himself through this search for justice, anything about what judge kavanaugh said that was an offense to the senators and an offense to the court as well as an offense to the truth during his confirmation hearings. By offense to the truth, im not going to address the specifics of dr. Ford but rather about his life. There was an fbi investigation that has been constrained by the white house and the republicans on the judiciary committee. And like the mueller investigation, the president of the United States does not want to see the truth, whatever it is, wherever it leads, and im not going to say where it leads because i dont know. But they the president , those on that committee, on the republican majority, did not want that fbi investigation to go forward in an open way to whatever conclusions it should have by talking to the proper people, including kavanaugh and ford. Yeah. As i said in the open, no one really came out of this looking good. My colleague bob woodward has called this a war on truth in this presidency, and this is part of it. We had the opportunity with what flake and his colleagues did by calling for this investigation to find out what we needed to know. But sticking with the courts and it didnt happen. I want to play this. I think its important. This is justices kagan and sotomayor. They were at an event today. They both spoke about the image of the court. Watch this. Its an incredibly important thing for the court to guard, is this reputation of being fair, of being impartial, of being neutral, and of not being simply an extension of the terribly polarized political process and environment that we live in. And, you know, this is a challenge. Now were eight justices, eight justices that we have to rise above partisanship in our personal relationships. That we have to treat each other with respect and dignity and with a sense of amicability that the rest of the world often doesnt share. David, the significance of both of them speaking out now . Well, this was a previously scheduled appearance at princeton, and no doubt theyre both upset that they had to be there in the current maelstrom. But carl mentioned this is bad for the country. This is terrible for the Supreme Court, and those two justices and all the others recognize that they will now be in the center of the storm for years and potentially decades. They hate this. This further politicizes the institution. But at the end of the day, as i argue in the book, theyre fundamentally responsible. The reason Supreme Court hearings have become a circus, the reason a single vacancy is so freighted, is because the court for decades now has insinuated itself into so many key social and political issues instead of deferring to congress and state legislatures. Abigail, Jeffrey Toobin here on cnn emphatically says that roe v. Wade will be overturns, perhaps as soon as in the next couple years. Do you agree with him, with that assessment . I think you saw today both collins and murkowski come out and say they dont believe kavanaugh will do that. I think one of the interesting things when you look at the departure of kennedy and if kavanaugh is officially confirms, sort of how that changes the dynamic. Ive spoken with a number of sort of experts on the court who say that somebody like john roberts, he might not want to see sweeping social change or really frontal attack on Something Like roe v. Wade, but theres a lot of ways you can sort of tear down the law and the ruling, sort of killing it with a million paper cuts type of a thing. I would disagree with jeff. I think roberts and probably kavanaugh will not vote to explicitly overturn roe, but they will still uphold any number of more restrictive regulations. It will be challenged on the state level . It will be. But there will be a state regulation that cuts back on the right, theyll uphold that, but they wont specifically overturn roe because they dont have to. This is what ive been saying when i talk about the representation of the court because in the last two elections lets see. Six out of the seven last elections, republicans have lost the popular vote, yet theyre on the verge, carl of having a 54 conservative on the conservative side. Do they risk do they risk the court being out of step with americans politically . Well, the president gets to appoint the justices of the Supreme Court and that was denied. That opportunity was denied by the republicans. Merrick garland. In the garland case during the Obama Administration by the republicans. I think the idea of the court being a reflection of the people is not really the notion of the court we need to consider. That what we want to look at is the history of the court in terms going back, say, to brown versus board of education, in dealing with the great problems of this country and applying the constitution to those problems and establishing a body of law that is consistent with the history of the country, with the history of the constitution, and also somewhat reflective of what is going on socially and culturally in the country. We now have a court, if it moves to the right as far as some people think it might, that might no longer be that reflection. At the same time, now, this is probably just whistling at nothing, but Susan Collins today, in what she said about the paragon that she thinks that judge kavanaugh is both legally and in terms of his person, has given him an opportunity to succeed Justice Kennedy and be a swing vote. Now, i dont believe its going to happen, but i