brett cavnay s nomination. but after christine blasey ford went on the record to accuse jung kavanaugh of attempted sexual assault when they were teenagers, a growing number of lawmakers are saying they need more time now. democrats on the senate judiciary committee say the vote should be delayed until all questions are answered. how much more time and who s going to decide? that is where the big political debate is at this moment. joining me now, kheeston pooes and julie pace. julie, if blasey says she s willing to testify, and republican members on the committee say that she should be allowed to, and they want to hear from her, and kavanaugh is now willing to testify, is that the beginning and end of if this is going to happen or not? how could it not now? well, you would think it would be, but it s actually not because we haven t heard from a lot of republican leaders, some
open, closed hearing, but what s interesting here is the timing. the republicans want to move ahead with this. they recognize that some want to hear more, but they think they could maybe even still have this vote on thursday. the democrats, they re in no rush. that seems to be the dynamic right now. let s get over to capitol hill and see where the dynamics lie at this moment. sunlen, what are you hearing from lawmakers at this moment? well, there s certainly a fast moving dynamic, to your point about in the next few hours, they re likely to have a lot of movement. we re out here outside of chuck grassley s office. he faces an incredible amount of pressure at this moment, as these allegations have come forward against brett kavanaugh. what his committee will do next. and certainly, mounting pressure on him to potentially delay the committee vote that as of this moment is still scheduled for thursday out of that committee. he just got a letter from the all democrats on the senate
let s look at phone records. this is not an incredibly complicated investigation. but it can be done or it cannot be done. right. what certainly can t be done is any sort of realistic investigation before thursday. and republicans really want to move this thing forward. and you know, wednesday is yom kippur, so where the senate tends to stand down in deference to its jewish members. there s no way to get any sort of real investigation before thursday. will they delay the vote? let s see. i don t know. i do wonder, i do wonder, joan, with everyone coming out saying, i m willing to testify, the alleged victim does, brett kavanaugh says i m willing and ready to answer more questions. if this can t be done by thursday, as jeffrey was laying out, can you make a case to not pause at this moment? at this point, kate, i think
of the most influential people in this decision, mitch mcconnell, chuck grassley. i think that the fact that blasey ford came forward and said she would testify and the fact kavanaugh says he will come forward as well certainly amps up the pressure on republicans. it s really difficult to see how they could say, well, if both of these parties are willing to testify, we re going to move forward without hearing from them. that being said, there s a pretty tight timeline that republicans are on right now. they really want to have this whole process wrapped up and done for kavanaugh to be on the supreme court by october 1st. and that means having a judiciary committee vote on thursday. there s just not a lot of wiggle room there. so while certainly you would assume that if two people say they re willing to go forward and speak, that people would take them up on that offer, but if that messes up the timeline, you re going to see some republicans really trying to push back on this. again,
judiciary committee en masse, sending a letter to grassley, calling on him to delay the committee vote on thursday. saying that the fbi needs time in the investigation to pursue these allegations and look into that. also coming from a key red state democrat, senator joe daonnelly his vote key if they face a full senate. he came out saying the allegations are serious and the committee should hold off on thursday s scheduled vote. certainly over the weekend, we heard from many other key critical swing votes like senator collins, saying more information needs to be learned and senator lisa murkowski from alaska. if there are more questions that need to be asked and answered, then i think it would be appropriate to allow for that time. so certainly the big question at this moment right up here on capitol hill is what will chairman grassley do. we heard in the statement, as