Afternoon. In a private ceremony kavanaugh was sworn in by both chief Justice John Roberts and retired Justice Anthony kennedy. The courts long time swing vote whom he will replace. Tonight President Trump will hold a swearing in ceremony with Justice Kavanaugh at the white house. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is monday, october 8th. With us we have msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle, former adviser to president george w. Bush now cocreator and executive producer of the circus on showtime Mark Mckinnon, i cant m Yamiche Alcindor and joe meacham. Joe, why dont you try to set the scene for us what this will mean for the midterms, what this will mean for democrats and republicans, the senate. I could go on. What does this mean . Well, well hear from our esteemed guests, but a lot of talk, mika, this weekend about how this was going to be different, the Supreme Court would never be respected again, the Supreme Court wouldnt be able to Work Together again. Of course, in that swearing in ceremony also justice kagan, Justice Sotomayor was there. The Supreme Court will go on and United States congress will go on, the government will continue its business. The only question is who is going to be running it . Is it going to be run by Mitch Mcconnell, is it going to be run by people who did what they did over the past couple of weeks, and then were cheerleaders. Thats going to be actually our first story after saying that we were trying to get a justice on the Supreme Court that was impartial, that was neutral, that was going to be an umpire and ref and tell it down the middle, they spent all weekend gloating like they had just won a High School Football game on friday night. It was shabby and it was sad. Yeah. But, mika, 30 days. If you dont like what happened. Right. You can scream in restaurants all you want. You can protest all you want, but youve got 30 days to register, to register your friends, to register your family members, to get them out to vote, to change washington and to change the world. Yeah. And if you dont like what happened this past week, or if you love what happened this past weekend, youve got 30 days. All the talking, all the screaming, all the shouting over the next month means nothing. What matters is getting out the vote for your side, whatever that side is. I cant i cant think of a big term election, mika, that has carried more weight and that has meant more. As if americans needed more evidence of just how important voting in a month is going to be, we have what happened over the weekend. Well, this weekend was a real opportunity for a dignified, respectful response. Republicans celebrated the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a victory for republicans. Activists tweeted photos of their alcohol with the beers for brett. John cornyn posted a photo of sparkling wine reading not quite beers for brett, but bubbly for brett instead. I dont know why this is funny. Its actually not funny. Its not. Its distressing. They are talking about the United StatesSupreme Court. Lindsey graham, why dont we show what he did. He wrote, im not tired of winning. Victory. Press secretary Sarah Sanders invoked the 2016 election, quote, congratulations jawed. Instead of a 63 liberal court under Hillary Clinton we now have a 54 conservative Supreme Court under President Donald Trump cementing a tremendous legacy for the president and a Better Future for america. I want to top right there really quickly, then we will get to Mitch Mcconnell and everybody else. Jon meachum to say it is hard to see barack obama or george w. Bush or bill clinton or george h. W. Bush or Ronald Reagan, their parties gloating this way keep going. You have 40 more to go. Jimmy carter. Ive got 40 more to go. This is, again, so unbecoming and it proves what day traders they all are. I have to say classless in this respect that theyre acting like its a High School Football game when, in fact, we are talking about a deciding vote on the u. S. Supreme court. No dignity and not at all. And its the great tell of the process, as you point out a second ago. On the one hand when it serves their purposes they argue that this is about justices is blind, this is about qualifications and then when it serves their purposes five seconds later you get the dancing around, you get that a historical and ill informed and Worst Nightmare reaction from the White House Press secretary actually putting the court under trump and putting these justices in these boxes, which you had just been saying wasnt really what this was about. So its the i guess we should be shocked, shocked that theres partisanship in washington, but what we can be if not shocked, we can continue to be concerned about, is the this idea of the court as just another battlefield in this tribal era. Court has always been political, always will be. One interesting thing, i think, is that we now have a court where we have one president just justice appointed by the oneterm president george h. W. Bush, two by clinton, two by 43, two by obama, two by trump. So to some extent we now not only the way harry truman said we always get the government we deserve, we now have the Supreme Court that follows the president s we elected. Mark mckinnon, you certainly know george w. Bush very well and have known him for a very long time. Whats the likelihood that anybody that worked for him putting out a Statement Like that after, lets say, Justice Roberts went to the Supreme Court, talking about the Supreme Court now under george w. Bush and painted in such stark ideological terms, whats the chance that they would still have their job by the end of the day . Not great, joe. In fact, what he always used to tell us was dont dance in the end zone, act like youve been there before. To your question, joe, about turnout i think the fundamental answer is easy. Its who is madder. Who is mad. Thats whos going to turn out. It was interesting to see the swing over the last couple weeks. It looked like the vote was going to be rushed through democrats suddenly got energized, suddenly when it went into overtime last week and i was in tennessee and texas and republicans were really activated, but i suspect now given the outcome there may be complacency on the republican side and democrats being activated. I thought about last week john mccain. We missed his voice. Im not saying where he would have landed or ended up, but he would have put everybody through an acid bath through the process on both sides. What would john mccain do, i want to send it to all 100 senators to think about that because the process was ugly, unfair, unjust and needs to be changed. Ive got the first person you can send that to, his name is Lindsey Graham who is behaving hes just the antithesis of what john mccain was through his entire career. He obviously learned absolutely nothing working alongside of him. So, mike, a bigger question for democrats, they now are well, they now have a court with four people appointed on that court from republican president s who got elected while losing the popular vote and the United States senate now is controlled by about 18 of the population and if you look at the primary process the most extreme elements in that 16 of the population. This is not a time to say that we need to rework the constitution of the United States. Thats not the problem. The problem is that the democrats dont seem to know how to win west of the hudson or east of reno. Isnt this a good time for the Democratic Party to reexamine who they are and figure out whether they want to get outside of their blue bubbles on both coasts so they can start Winning Senate races in Middle America again and start figuring out how to appoint Supreme Court justices . Well, joe, i think the democrats have to sit down as a group and decide who they are and decide what the country is all about. I dont think they know what the country is all about. This was an extraordinarily depressing sequence of events that this country has just been through and headed by what happened over the weekend where you have the Senate Majority leader, Mitch Mcconnell, choosing ideology over the country in terms of his celebration. Where you have the press secretary to the president of the United States clearly unaware that there are three independent branches of government, the legislative, the executive and the judicial, and as jon meachum pointed out in her tweet or whatever it was or statement, you know, that under Hillary Clinton, a Supreme Court justice we wont have them under Hillary Clinton. The justices are supposed to be independent. The politics of the process, people are used to that, but its just extraordinarily depressing that what has happened over the past few days and its even more depressing, i think, for democrats to see that not a single democratic voice really was raised in opposition to what Lindsey Graham did during the hearings by calling out democrats. Not a single democrat said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Not one. Something wrong there. Amid celebrating the confirmation of Brett KavanaughSenate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell defended his previous decision to block president obamas Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland saying the move was entirely consistent with the history of the senate. Senator, how broken is the senate . The senate is not broken. We didnt attack Merrick Garlands background and try to destroy him. We didnt go on a search and destroy message, we simply followed the tradition in america which is if you have a party of a different a Different Senate of a Different Party than the president you dont fill a vacancy created in a president ial year. That went all the way back to 1888. You would have to go back to 1880 to find the last time a senate controlled by a Different Party from the president confirmed a Supreme Court justice to a vacancy created in the middle of a president ial election. They also conveniently forgot that joe biden said in 1992 when he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee if a vacancy occurred they wouldnt fill it. They also conveniently forgot that Chuck Schumer and harry reid 18 months before the end of bush 43 said if a Supreme Court vacancy occurred they wouldnt fill it. Talk about hypocrisy. But, mr. Leader, i dont think thats right. In 1956 eisenhower nominated brennan, the 84th congress was democrat controlled. And also on the biden rule, joe biden was talking in the abstra abstract. There was no nominee, no nominee was blocked and he said to not have the nomination come up before the election, but that it could come up after the election. So democrats say when they hear you doing this they say hes creating new rules to essentially do what he wants to do and as youve written in your book the long game when you do that it actually hurts democracy. Thats not exact thats not at all what happened, joe. You are completely misconstruing what happened. What i gave you is the history of this. I know the history of this. Ive spent a lot of time on this throughout my career. What i did was entirely consistent with what the history of the senate has been in that situation going back to 1880. Well, i think the 1956 example and also in 1968 later in the election cycle when a democratic president put somebody forward the republican leader worked with him to get that person a hearing and get him towards the Supreme Court, which is not something that you did. A vote then there was a democrat in the white house and a democratic senate. But the republican leader at the time tried to help the democratic president. John, you are not listening to me. The history is exactly as i told you. Oh, really . Its like a used car salesman. The history is what i told you. This car only has three tires on it. No, no, its got four tires on it. You are not listening to me. Its got four tires. That was, first of all, good job by John Dickerson. Amazing. Now theyre moving the goal post to different parties pretty soon, yamiche, i suppose if it serves him there will be a leprechaun rule, no, we can do it if there is not a leprechaun who is a vice hes changing history, adjusting facts to suit his purposes today, but, of course, the great concern is the longterm ramifications even when democrats get back in power. Perhaps it goes, you know, harry reid moved the goal posts, now you have Mitch Mcconnell moving the goal posts and the question is what comes next . How undignified can this process become . Well, ive talked to democratic sources who say if only we had a Mitch Mcconnell. There are a lot of democrats who are looking at Mitch Mcconnell and say, yeah, what he did was changing the rules, what he did was in some dis despicable in many peoples minds but he bet the long game and bet his partys future on the idea that he could Supreme Court if he just had enough time and he did that. He was able to say im not going to even look at Merrick Garland even if it hurt the republicans in the 2016 election for whatever reason it didnt urt hurt them enough to not get donald trump elected. Then you have donald trump elected and he was able to fill that seat. You have a lot of democrats who are saying we need to make sure that when we talk about changing our democratic leadership im thinking of nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer we still have to remember that these are people who understand how the senate works and can deal with the same rules in the same way that Mitch Mcconnell does. There is a win there for republicans thats undeniable. What it does of course for the Republican Party when you look at millennials, when you look at women and you look at the way that they see what Mitch Mcconnell did is a whole other story. I cant help but think, john meesh chum, meachum, as you say, Mitch Mcconnells actions are a good starter, pretty lousy finisher. In the end people will look back in this period of history in the senate as a shabby senate with a shortsided selfish cynical majority leader who compared more about his Political Party and own political ambitions than the country itself. Yes, i said that. Than the country itself. Read history. Doesnt it seem fairly obvious that thats exactly what Mitch Mcconnell has done . Well, senator mcconnell has become, if you are looking for a partisan warrior in chief, if youre looking for an archetype of a hugely effective party leader in a Party Leadership position in the senate i was trying to think of arguably a more effective one. I suppose the legend of Lyndon Johnson in the 50s, but imagine in 30 years, almost 40 years now this shift from howard baker, the tennessee senator, revered, long time minority leader becomes majority leader, think about leaders like bob dole, and you move from institutionalists to a figure who has unapologetically become not as much the leader of the senate as the leader of his party in the senate which is a difference. Those other men who were not perfect did see the institutional role as being critical to what how they conducted themselves. I dont know if youre defining victory in terms of seats confirmed, which is the way senator mcconnell had done this, its hard to its impossible to argue really with his record. He has not single handedly because his majority, lets be clear, he didnt do this by himself, he had the rest of his caucus with him and joe manchin who is now an honorary member of the caucus, then youve got someone who has defined his mission. Again,