--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're covering the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings today, and we're doing it in two parts. There's already an episode in your feed about Christine Blasey Ford's testimony, and this one's all about Brett Kavanaugh's.
--:-- Noel King: Thanks. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Feinstein, members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to make my statement.
--:-- Dylan Scott: We heard from Christine Blasey Ford this morning in the afternoon. We heard from Brett Kavanaugh. Tell us about his opening statements.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Kavanaugh was mad. My family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false additional accusations. When this allegation first arose, I welcomed any kind of investigation. Senate, FBI, or otherwise. The committee now has conducted a thorough investigation, and I've cooperated fully. I know that any kind of investigation, Senate, FBI, Montgomery County police, whatever, will clear me.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Nearly from the moment he opened his mouth, he was very aggressive. It was a stark contrast to the interview he gave to Fox News a couple of days ago. We heard that President Trump was not particularly enamored with his performance on Fox News. He was too contrite. He appeared too remorseful, just soft, which we know President Trump doesn't really like.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And so Kavanaugh really came out of the gate at the Senate hearing today, very aggressively defending his name, casting these as spurious allegations that had been brought on by the Democrats. This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And he spoke for nearly 50 minutes in a sort of, at times, rambling, at times, hard-to-follow defense of not only denying that he had done what Dr. Ford said he had, but going through his resume, talking about all these women he know, all these women he supported professionally, and really trying to give, I think, as comprehensive and aggressive as possible a defense of himself and his nomination.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And like Ford, in her opening statement, he also got very emotional. In particular, when he mentioned that his 10-year-old daughter had said the night before that they should say a prayer for Dr. Ford.
--:-- Dylan Scott: The other night, Ashley and my daughter Liza said their prayers. And little Liza, all of 10 years old. said to Ashley, we should pray for the woman. It's a lot of wisdom from a 10-year-old.
--:-- Dylan Scott: That was fairly early in his statement, and for another 30 minutes, he continued to, yes, be very visibly emotional, which was certainly an unusual look for a Senate hearing and for a Supreme Court nominee appearing before the Senate
--:-- Dylan Scott: And not only was this a stark contrast to his appearance on Fox News on Monday night but it was a much starker contrast from his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee some weeks ago
--:-- Dylan Scott: Yeah, everything had been normal until now. We had, you know, there were obviously hard questions from Democrats and Republicans at times. But this was a Brett Kavanaugh that we had not seen before today.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And that contrast only widened once he started answering questions from Democratic and Republican senators. How did that go?
--:-- Dylan Scott: At first, Kavanaugh was questioned by Republican outside counsel. This is Rachel Mitchell.
--:-- Rachel Mitchell: Who also questioned. Who had also, yes, questioned Dr. Ford before.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And it was very, you know, it looked like a courtroom proceeding. There were yes or no questions. He gave very flat one-word answers.
--:-- Dylan Scott: But as soon as Democrats had their turn to ask him questions, he was, again, very aggressive.
--:-- Dylan Scott: He actually interrupted Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was the first Democrat to question him.
--:-- Dylan Scott: We hear from the witnesses, but the FBI isn't interviewing them and isn't giving us any facts. So all we have is what they say. You're interviewing me. You're interviewing me. You're doing it, Senator.
--:-- Dylan Scott: I'm sorry to interrupt, but you're doing it.
--:-- Dylan Scott: At one point, he asked Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the Democrats, whether she had been drinking.
--:-- Dylan Scott: He clearly, you know, he gave the Florida Republicans to sort of make their points.
--:-- Dylan Scott: But with the Democrats, he was combative. He was defensive. And he was clearly trying to show a sort of aggression towards the charges that they were bringing against him.
--:-- Dylan Scott: He talked a lot about how much he likes beers as far as accounting for his high school actions.
--:-- Dylan Scott: He said, I like beers a lot. I drank beer with my friends. I liked beer. Sometimes I had too many beers. I still like beer.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Other than that, he didn't really get into too much of admitting to any sort of wrongdoing in high school.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And he, of course, vehemently denied any sexual misconduct.
--:-- Dylan Scott: But one of the first really tense moments between Kavanaugh and a Democrat came when Dick Durbin asked him if he would hear in front of everyone, in front of Don McGahn, White House counsel, ask the FBI to investigate the Ford claims.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Yeah, Democrats harped on this point a lot when they were questioning Kavanaugh. They said very plainly, if you're as confident in your innocence as you project here at this hearing, then why not ask the FBI, an impartial body, to investigate these claims and then we'll all know what the facts are.
--:-- Dylan Scott: I welcome whatever the committee wants to do because I'm telling the truth. I want to know what you want to do. I'm telling the truth. I want to know what you want to do, Judge. I'm innocent. I'm innocent of this charge.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Then you're prepared for an FBI investigation? They don't reach conclusions. You reach the conclusions.
--:-- Dylan Scott: No, but they do investigate questions. And you can't have it both ways.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Durbin spent his whole five minutes questioning Kavanaugh on this point and did at one point ask Kavanaugh to turn to White House counsel Don McGahn and ask for an FBI investigation to be opened.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And Kavanaugh was, he was evasive. He didn't want to give a flat answer.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And at one point, Durbin asked him. Judge Kavanaugh, will you support an FBI investigation right now?
--:-- Dylan Scott: I will do whatever the committee wants to. personally, do you think that's the best thing for us to do?
--:-- Dylan Scott: And Kavanaugh was silent
--:-- Dylan Scott: It was one of the most striking moments of the hearing
--:-- Dylan Scott: It was a silence that was interrupted by Dick Durbin
--:-- Dylan Scott: I wonder if Durbin spoke how long that silence would have continued. It was uncomfortably long as it was.
--:-- Dylan Scott: So yeah, I can't imagine letting it linger much longer.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And then Lindsey Graham speaks the opposite of silence, I believe.
--:-- Lindsey Graham: I think what was notable about this too was, as I said, Rachel Mitchell, an outside counsel, had been doing the questioning for the Republicans up until now. But as Democrats were interrogating Kavanaugh with their own lines of questioning that Republicans find offensive, yes, as forcefully as Kavanaugh defended himself at the beginning of the hearing, Lindsey Graham came out, accused Democrats of slandering a good man, of permanently scarring the process of Senate confirmation of Supreme Court justices.
--:-- Lindsey Graham: What you want to do is destroy this guy's life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020. You've said that, not me.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And he spent a good five minutes just railing into the Democrats in a way that we hadn't seen from Republicans up until that point in the hearing.
--:-- Dylan Scott: When you see Sotomayor and Kagan, tell them that Lindsey said, oh, because I voted for them. I would never do to them what you've done to this guy.
--:-- Dylan Scott: This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And that, again, just seemed totally out of place for what is usual in congressional hearings and testimony like this.
--:-- Dylan Scott: I asked Laura McGann, you know, the real audience here, though we're all watching this, is the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is about convincing senators on the committee one way or another. Was anyone swayed by Kavanaugh's testimony? Did it seem that way?
--:-- Dylan Scott: There's only one person I'm interested in and that is Jeff Flake.
--:-- Dylan Scott: So the Senate Judiciary Committee is almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. I believe there are 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And Jeff Flake is the only Republican on the committee who has expressed any concern about these allegations or any concern about Kavanaugh's nomination in light of these allegations.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Mitch McConnell can bring Kavanaugh's nomination to the floor regardless of how the Senate Judiciary Committee votes.
--:-- Dylan Scott: But it would certainly look bad politically if Kavanaugh gets an unfavorable vote in the Senate or in the committee and then McConnell brings it all in front of the entire Senate.
--:-- Dylan Scott: One thing that occurred to me watching this as Kavanaugh grew more and more petulant as he was, you know, what anyone would agree on straight up rude to Dianne Feinstein, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was that he didn't seem very judicious.
--:-- Dylan Scott: His temperament really came into question.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Yeah, I think a lot of people look at a guy who, I mean, he was haranguing the Clintons in his opening statement.
--:-- Dylan Scott: He very pointedly attacked the Democrats on the committee, not the Republicans.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And that's not how we think of what our impartial judges are supposed to be like.
--:-- Dylan Scott: They're supposed to be even-handed. They're supposed to just have self-control in their temperament and they're supposed to treat both sides fairly.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And Kavanaugh sounded much more like a partisan operative attacking Democrats and sort of kowtowing to the Republicans both in his opening statement and throughout the hearing.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And maybe that doesn't matter now
--:-- Dylan Scott: We live in a world where nobody has any illusions that the Supreme Court is some nonpartisan body where ideology never factors into things
--:-- Dylan Scott: But it certainly this isn't how it's supposed to work
--:-- Dylan Scott: The Supreme Court and Supreme Court justices are supposed to be impartial and Kavanaugh was anything but that during his testimony.
--:-- Dylan Scott: It feels like this great irony of this political moment that if Christine Blasey Ford's accusations are never investigated and if all the Republicans vote to support Kavanaugh anyway, if he proved himself unworthy of the position just by behaving the way he did today?
--:-- Dylan Scott: Yeah, it's a great question.
--:-- Dylan Scott: I think something that's important to keep in mind is, first of all, as I understand it, Clarence Thomas took more or less the same approach to the Anita Hill hearings.
--:-- Dylan Scott: He was very aggressive in defending himself.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And, you know, you can understand if somebody actually feels they're wrongfully accused, being angry isn't too hard to understand.
--:-- Dylan Scott: But, you know, the point I want to make is Republicans are playing a very long game with the Supreme Court.
--:-- Dylan Scott: These are lifetime appointments.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for almost 30 years.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And so it's really about getting through the confirmation process.
--:-- Dylan Scott: In 10 years when potentially Justice Kavanaugh is ruling on a litigation about EPA regulations, nobody, especially if you're a conservative who wants him to strike down a regulation or what have you, you're not going to be too worried about the temperament that he displayed at the Christine Blasey Ford hearing.
--:-- Dylan Scott: At the end of the day, it sure seemed like Christine Blasey Ford was convinced that Brett Kavanaugh did this.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And Brett Kavanaugh was convinced that Christine Blasey Ford was wrong.
--:-- Dylan Scott: It doesn't seem like there's any in between.
--:-- Dylan Scott: The Republicans and Kavanaugh have been as respectful as they can be when they're saying that they don't think her story is true, making a point to say she deserves to be heard.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And maybe something did happen to her at some point in her life.
--:-- Dylan Scott: But as Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, put it, and she's one of the most important votes to watch if a Kavanaugh nomination comes to the floor, this is about whether a woman who says she has been assaulted is to be believed or not.
--:-- Dylan Scott: And as you say, she left no room to wonder whether it was actually somebody else.
--:-- Dylan Scott: She said with 100 percent certainty that Brett Kavanaugh was the man who did this to her.
--:-- Dylan Scott: None of these allegations are true. Correct.
--:-- Dylan Scott: No doubt in your mind. Zero.
--:-- Dylan Scott: I'm 100% certain. Not even a centella. Not a centella.
--:-- Dylan Scott: 100% certain, Senator. You swear to God.
--:-- Dylan Scott: I swear to God.
--:-- Dylan Scott: So add, Judge.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Judge Kavanaugh, thank you very much.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Hearing adjourned.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Thanks to Dylan Scott.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram for him.
--:-- Dylan Scott: This is Today Explained.
--:-- Dylan Scott: One last thank you to Quip Electric Toothbrushes for their support of the show today.
--:-- Dylan Scott: Quip electric toothbrushes are less bulky and less expensive than your average electric toothbrush.
--:-- Dylan Scott: You can find out more at getquip.com slash explained, getquip.com slash explained.
