Donald trump Michael Schmidt has the details right ahead. Plus leaders gather in new york city with President Trump taking part in several events throughout the day we will bring you the first live right here on morning joe. Mean while, the president s personal lawyer, not secretary of state, Rudy Giuliani says irans government will be overthrown nikki haley reminds everyone that is not u. S. Policy. And with six weeks left, joe, its a 12 point spread, democrats lead republicans by double digits with nearly 60 calling for a significant course correction away from donald trump. We will have all the latest numbers, but the polls are fascinating this morning, joe. They are. Also we have we have the new yorker coauthor of that story on kavanaugh, jane mayer will be here later i want to go to kasie hunt just for one second we have so much in front of us, obviously so much at stake for republicans and democrats this week of course, we want them to do the right thing. We want them to search for the facts. We want justice to prevail, whichever way that what direction that goes, but at the same time theyre looking at polls and this latest poll thats out, one more example of just what largely democrats are having in the latest generic congressional ballot test, now up to 12 points. Weve seen other polls that way. How does that impact what republicans do this week and over the next month . Well, joe, i think each republican senator has to think about this in the broad context of this poll on the generic ballot as you point out, also their personal circumstances of the Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski plan to stay in the senate, they are the two to watch. Broadly republicans have a decision to make here. You can already see the fault lines starting to develop. You have i had one Top Republican aide send me a paragraph from the New York Times story off of the new yorker story looking at how they had trouble finding somebody who had a firsthand account that lined up with mrs. Ramirezs story that she told in the new yorker i can feel it sort of trending potentially away to a hardening of positioning for republicans, but it still were only a couple hours into this still and its a real question in my mind if this is something thats going to ultimately pull republicans together, harden them, make them want to fight for Brett Kavanaugh or if this could be the beginning of the end of his confirmation. Well, you know, mika, certainly i would think that its hardened the position of democrats who were considering supporting Brett Kavanaugh i think thats thats one take away. I dont think we will see the four, five, six democrats that were considering crossing over doing that now no. Theyre most likely hard nosed. That does bring in down to jeff flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and now of course another accusation coming out last night from the new yorker. Yeah, lets go there. Supreme Court NomineeBrett Kavanaugh issued a stern denial last night to a second allegation of Sexual Misconduct. This time as a College Student the new yorker magazine reports that Senate Democrats are investigating a claim from Debra Ramirez who says kavanaugh pulled down his pants and exposed himself to her during their freshman year at Yale University in the last week three sources familiar with the accusation told nbc about ramirezs claim ramirez, 53, is the same age as kavanaugh and they both graduated from the university in 1987 she referred nbc to her lawyer who did not respond to our request for comment. Last nights report says that in her initial conversations with the new yorker she was reluctant to characterize kavanaughs role in the alleged incident with certainty. Quoting from the article which includes graphic details, after six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, ramirez says that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis into her face and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. She is calling for the fbi to investigate. The New York Times reports they interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate ramirezs story and could not find no one with firsthand and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. The white house distributed kavanaughs response, quote, this alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen the people who knew me then know that this did not happen and have said so this is a smear, plain and simple Mike Barnicle, my god, this has become such an absolute mess and im sure you spoke to friends this weekend like i spoke to friends this weekend and we always hear about how tribal everything is what was remarkable was the complaints and the criticisms, where a stream of consciousness and one moment they were attacking republicans for accusing this woman of being or these two women of being liars, politically motivated, the next they were expressing their concerns about all those on the other side that have already convicted kavanaugh as an accused rapist or somebody i saw this weekend was talking about being a serial sexual predator weve got alcoholaltered memories, over three decades, we do have serious allegations. Serious allegations and it seems to me that both sides at this point should want the fbi to come in and investigate. Oh, absolutely. We are not going nobody nobody knows what happened it needs to be pieced together even those who are making the allegations, again, their memories are altered over 30 years and alcohol was involved, i believe, in both cases why wouldnt republicans want the fbi to investigate if they think their man is innocent . Joe, there is so much going on in this story that we could spend the rest of the morning and all day today and tomorrow talking about it, but the first point is the one you just raised, given the extraordinary nature of the circumstances surrounding this, the charges by dr. Ford, the charges as leveled by new York Magazine by mrs. Ramirez, it is insane not to pump the brakes on this process, to take a breather, to have the fbi investigate the background as well as they can. I mean, it was yearso both women, but just to take a look at it, a fresh and the other aspect of the story and there are so many, we begin this program this morning talking about polls. What has happened within the Supreme Court story is a twotrack story. Its got to affect certain congressional candidacies in certain districts across the country. Are you for judge kavanaugh or not. Thats got to be a legitimate question now in many campaigns the other aspect of it that is truly dangerous, duly threatening is the incredible hyper partisanship now surrounding the Supreme Court of the United States. These are lifetime appointments, youre supposed to look at the law as a neutral observer and decide on the basis of the law not partisanship and yet partisanship has always been there in the Supreme Court, but the hyper partisanship today is truly, truly dangerous it really is on both sides. I did myself a favor this weekend and got off twitter as much as i could because, my god, there are so many on the left and some former republicans from the right just making terrible accusations about judge kavanaugh, one saying that hes a serial sexual predator, and then on the right we have some people that you and i know who have spent the last two weeks nonstop calling these women liars. The partisanship is so out of control when none of us really know what happened on those two nights. Right twitter doesnt really foster an environment of sobriety, it kind of rewards you going to level 11 so im not exactly surprised by that reaction. But as we said over the course of this segment, the story in the new yorker questions itself on several occasions, cant put prt in the room, notes that the story as alleged is something that the allegations were made after six days of interrogating her on memories with the help of her attorney which is itself something thats a little suspicious considering that ramirez according to the New York Times told her friends that she wasnt sure whether Brett Kavanaugh was there or not. People are saying that the fbi probably has a role in this i think are probably correct, i think they should say that the president should ask the fbi to beef up the background investigations the six of which that judge kavanaugh underwent over the course of his many confirmations, but the fbi is not the super Serious Police they have a jurisdiction, they cant just investigate everything because somebody says, look, my memory is a little foggy here, id really like the fbi step in and help beef it up thats not how this works. Those saying that we need more information here are correct, but anybody who is leaping toen could collusions is doing so i think for politically motivated reasons. We dont have enough information to draw a conclusion about either of these incidents. What we have are two very serious accusations and we have two sides to a story that were trying to cover and, kasie hunt, i think its not just twitter, its the media thats in a very serious position right now and if you watch, you know, 24hour coverage of this story you may see four or five analysts in a row being brought on to convict judge kavanaugh. Theres a need for balance here because the more that you put one side on or if you have a focus group with republican operatives in it, you know, pushing the other side of the story. There are allegations here, they are not proven there is the law and there is a push for an investigation. These are the parts that we need to report, but if were not careful, if the media as a whole is not careful covering this story, were feeding into that very negative narrative that President Trump himself really drums up in his base and that is fake news. Right now all we have are two serious accusations that are not proven is that fair am i correct the bar is always high for the media to get the story right, but in a case like this where there is so much at stake, there are so many strong emotions and frankly the stakes are so incredibly high, you know, we all have a duty to the American People, to the viewers, to the readers that we are all serving every day to make sure that we are getting it right, first and foremost, and that also, yes, that there is a fairness being applied across the board. I think politically speaking when you start to dig into that democrats are more concerned about fairness towards dr. Ford and ms. Ramirez in this case and republicans to judge kavanaugh i was talking to one source of mine who used to work on these nominations inside the Senate Judiciary committee and he is a republican, but he was saying that, you know, we have become so polarized and tribal as a country, you know, we shouldnt what party you are a member of shouldnt dictate whether you believe judge kavanaugh or you believe dr. Ford we should be able to listen to what both of them have to say, they are saying opposite things essentially, and think through it and come to a logical conclusion, but that is not how this is playing out. Its playing out as you are digging in in your tribal camp on one side or the other and there are a handful of people in the middle that are the ones that really matter and they are those critical senators that are going to have to vote on this, bob corker, jeff flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and they are all going to have to decide for themselves weve reached a point where this is going to be a historical moment in the context of, you know, our society, especially in the context of the United States senate jon meachum said to me last night his test for a lot of these political figures is, okay, when people look at the oil painting on the wall, what do they think of when they see you . And these critical senators have a decision to make thats of that magnitude when it comes to judge kavanaugh. I think to circle back to Mike Barnicles point, there are legitimate questions about why does he need to be potentially confirmed by the end of the week, which is what republicans have been talking about. Well, and that is a great question it seems to me for republicans the deadline obviously would be before the november elections. The only reason you would try to rush a vote is because you are afraid more information was going to be coming out we saw that with Mitch Mcconnell last week saying were going to steam roll this over, dont worry about it, lets get this done as quickly as possible and then this weekend another accusation came out. There are reports that possibly a third accusation according to avenatti, a third accusation is going to come out. That doesnt mean that any of them are factually accurate. We dont know. It could be that theres one accusation piled on top of another accusation piled on top of another accusation but they could be. Just because there are accusations does not mean that any of them are accurate, but does mean they need to be investigated these women that are coming forward are coming forward at a great personal price to themselves and i personally find it hard to believe that anyone would put themselves on the political firing line unless they unless they believed that something terrible happened to them three decades ago, but again, what i believe, what mika believes, what you believe really doesnt change the facts. I mean, the facts will be determined by an investigation and, mike, i have absolutely no idea why the republicans cant do exactly what you just said, pump the brakes, investigate this for a couple more weeks and if they are correct and these women are lying then judge kavanaugh will be in great shape and if its an fbi investigation these women will be going to jail so the question is what are republicans afraid of if the truth is on their side joe, you just raised maybe one of the most critical aspects of this entire story and it is the human nature aspect. So now we are surrounded with allegations leveled against judge kavanaugh from two women, dr. Ford and ms. Ramirez, given how we live today, begin the culture around us we are all familiar with it with social media, you would have to be mentally ill to inject yourself into this argument and to fabricate or lie about these things you would have to be totally mentally ill because youve ruined a huge part of your life immediately. Youve ruined it youve ruined your life, youve ruined other peoples life, youve set yourself up to be absolutely ripped to shreds in the national media. So it doesnt really make an awful lot of sense but again, lets get the facts lets get the facts to the American People, we will late the senators and the people that they represent make the decisions. Steve, kasie was maybe it was me i think mika was talking about that focus group i hate to mention another network, but that cnn focus group where you had these five, six women saying were behind judge kavanaugh. It ended up they were all republican operatives. Another example of how the press has to do a better job this is important. You cant say, oh, we just have six random women here or five or six and then put them in front of a camera, then they end up being all republican operatives or former republican candidates. Well, obviously thats not a great example of journalism at its finest and but i do look, i think a couple things. Weve talked about the question of whether these women are telling the truth or not, we havent really talked about the question of what is the right standard by which the Senate Judiciary committee should judge. Obviously in a criminal situation its beyond a reasonable doubt, in a civil situation its a preponderance of the evidence. What is the standard here once we know whatever facts were going to know . By the way, i think you could send the fbi out there to investigate for a month. Youve had a whole bunch of investigative reporters out there. Its very possible theyre going to come back and we will be in the same place we are in, with one woman who has a specific remembrance, one woman maybe a little less certain, a lot of doubt around the whole situation and how are we to judge . What is supposed to be the standard by which we decide whether this guy should be on the Supreme Court . Another thing i would say, its not dis qualls in my mind, but it is having interesting as we hear more about judge kavanaughs character. There are groups of people that followed different practices and im not saying i was in the boy scouts, but there were groups on these campuses that were in heavy drinking, heavy partying and in some cases im not saying in kavanaughs case were into doing things with women that i think we would regard as inappropriate by any standard today. I think some of that has come fairly clearly out that he was part of the jail campus. Can we lean on that evidentiary standard notion for a minute as you said, theres, you know beyond a reasonable doubt is an inappropriate standard for Something Like this, this isnt a courtroom, this is Public Opinion those who have said that the burden is on this justice to prove himself a competent justice are correct, but we are not talking about how you judge cases here, your legal philosophy, we are talking about potentially criminal allegations. Even if we use a preponderance of the evidence standard, we dont meet that threshold. We dont have enough people who are corroborating this story all the named witnesses in the ramirez st