To say its been a busy week is an understatement. Before we go, a quick programming note. Msnbc is teaming up with the Global Citizen festival to help bring an end to extreme poverty. The Global Citizen festival is tomorrow. There will be performances by janet jackson, Janelle Monet and john legend. Catch it all here starting at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on msnbc. Thank you for watching. Deadline white house with Nicolle Wallace starts right now. Hi, everyone. Its 4 00 in new york. Breaking news this afternoon on the Supreme Court nomination fight that has gripped the nation. Republican senator jeff flake dropping a bombshell on his Senate Judiciary Committee Colleagues saying he would only vote yes on Passing Kavanaugh Out Of Committee if the fbi investigates dr. Christine blasey fords allegations of Sexual Assault before any final Confirmation Vote on the floor. Flake will not support final confirmation until the fbi concludes its limited investigation. Here was that announcement. Weve had
this one apparently reported to senator chris coons, a democrat, who advanced it to the fbi, copied senator chuck grassley, the committee chairman, on a note, and then it went nowhere. yeah, we re told we saw this letter, it went to the fbi cc-ing the judicial committee. he told christopher wray, the fbi director, about this. according to coons office, there was no conversation with the fbi afterwards, they simply acknowledged receipt of this letter. you ll recall at the time there was a flurry of allegations coming out against brett kavanaugh. it was unclear what was real, what was not real. it opened up this vicious partisan debate which led to a second hearing for the woman who made these allegations that kavanaugh apparently did that he denied at a party in high school, and that led tie supplemental background check
beginning who started some of this, would you be anxious about the attorney general digging into this right now? i if i was somebody within the intelligence community and i did not do the right thing, of course, i would be i would be concerned, but you have to say that what if you did the right thing, if you did the right job and followed protocols and followed regulations, i don t think that you have anything to fear from this kind of a background check investigation. all right, sam ramer, thank you very much for your time and expertise. thanks, mike, appreciate it. arthel: hiker missing in hawaiian jungle survived for 15 days, how she survived the ordeal next.
witnesses, getting all of the evidence, not a haphazard, thrown together at the last minute because a senator finally felt guilty, calling for an fbi investigation, which is only a background check investigation. you can t have it both ways. and then in a situation like this, all these republicans running around claiming that it s also against american principles if the burden is on the other person, you know. tell that to minorities and women every single day that have to live with the presumption of guilt often in our unjust criminal justice system in a lot of instances. it s pretty rich. those same people are the same ones that don t apply that principle. they cannot have it both ways. got it, got it. i wanted to hear your response. i want to move past this and on to the senate and this key vote. it s this audience of through, murkowski, flake, collins. we ve heard all of their comments today. they say that are really disappointed in seeing the president and what he did last
that is not accurate. why didn t you raise these issues earlier, the concerns you currently have now about the previous six background checks and what was included in those background checks? we did raise them earlier. in fact, from day one we asked for an fbi investigation. just last weekend i led a letter that was released on monday asking for specific witnesses to be interviewed who would not have been covered in the previous background check investigation. the fbi has time or should demand time to make this investigation complete and thorough. in all of the interviews you and i have done, your democratic colleagues have done with us, i don t remember anyone raising suggesting that perhaps there were previous allegations of alcohol or sexual misconduct in the earlier background checks of judge kavanaugh. well, we are constrained as to what we can say in public about those background checks. they are generally not released,