--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
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--:-- Lee: Lizo, you cover Congress for Vox. The FBI finished its investigation yesterday. The Senate got it early this morning. They put it in a room that you couldn't enter with a cell phone. Were you allowed in the room?
--:-- Lee: I know you were on the Hill today. Yeah, I was not allowed in the room. Nobody is allowed in the room unless you're a senator or you're one of nine staffers who have been cleared to be in there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Wow. So it's like a secure vault kind of situation.
--:-- Lee: Yeah, yeah. It's incredibly secure. And I think they've really wanted to do that in order to probably cut down on leaks. And they said this is the way that they've dealt with all background check investigation information, which is typically confidential.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But there wasn't like a super secret vault for Gorsuch or Sotomayor or Kagan or anything like that, was there? So it's unclear because there wasn't really as much focus, I think, on how those background checks went.
--:-- Lee: I think what's interesting here is that you have this very awkward juxtaposition where last week we had a public hearing where Christine Ford talked to the entire country about a very sensitive subject and a very sensitive experience that she had with sexual assault. And then this week, you have all of these interviews that have been conducted with witnesses shrouded in secrecy. So it just feels like a very kind of awkward comparison.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think on the more just kind of procedural front, there are some legal reasons that these documents might not be able to be shared because Republicans have actually said some of them are open to just releasing the document to the public or at least releasing some kind of summary to everyone.
--:-- Lee: Have senators spoken about what's in the report since this morning?
--:-- Lee: They have. So what we know about the report is that the FBI talked to about 10 witnesses, one of whom I think did not actually end up wanting to be interviewed. But the report contains transcripts from nine of those interviews. It also has a series of tips that the FBI has received related to the Kavanaugh investigation. So it has all of those documents kind of jumbled together. And it's pretty raw. It's not a thing where the FBI has drawn any kind of conclusion. It's more just like, this is what we heard. Senators can read it and take from it what they will.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So though we might not ever find out exactly what these people said, do we know who the nine people are?
--:-- Lee: So we know for sure about who six of them are because of public news reports, as well as just people being open to coming forward via their attorneys and saying, I've been interviewed by the FBI for this investigation. And so the people that we for sure know about are some of the folks that Christine Ford has said were at that party where Brett Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her. So that includes classmates of Kavanaugh's, including Mark Judge, as well as Patrick Smith, and a friend of Ford's named Leland Kaiser. They also interviewed two other classmates of Kavanaugh's named Chris Garrett, as well as Tim Gaudet, who were purportedly at some kind of social event that was listed on Kavanaugh's calendar. And then the sixth person that they talked to is Deborah Ramirez, who is the former Yale classmate that has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And based on what senators have said after seeing the report, the remaining witnesses who are as of yet unnamed were related to Ramirez's claim.
--:-- Lee: And do we have any idea why they interviewed these nine people and no one else?
--:-- Lee: The answer that's been given by the White House and the Senate more broadly is that this is a list of people that a pivotal set of senators have put together. So last week Jeff Flake was at the forefront of demanding this investigation. So he and Lisa Murkowski Susan Collins other key swing seat senators purportedly had a role in picking who should be interviewed by the FBI. The White House is also really the one driving this investigation. So they're also kind of at the forefront of deciding who or who can't be interviewed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that was something that came up over the weekend, that they were limiting this investigation to just four people. And Trump came out on Saturday and talked a bit more about how he wants to let the FBI kind of have free reign. But it's very unclear how much actual freedom they had in deciding who they could talk to.
--:-- Lee: Are senators satisfied with this report or does it break down to Democrats being unsatisfied and Republicans being satisfied?
--:-- Lee: That's basically exactly how it breaks down. I think all the Republicans that we've heard from have said they think the report did a really good job investigating the allegations and that it's found no corroboration for anything that Ford or Ramirez has brought forward. Democrats, on the other hand, have really just said that this is barely an investigation at all, that it was too limited and that they didn't talk to a lot of people, including people that both Ford and Ramirez actually suggested as witnesses.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The FBI had a week to put this report together. That was decided late last week. They didn't take their whole week. Do you have any idea why?
--:-- Lee: It's very unclear why. They wouldn't take the full-time window. The parallel that's drawn a lot is with the Anita Hill investigation in 1991, when there was a lot of time pressure to get it done in just three days. So it's very possible, I think, this time around, that the agency felt a similar pressure.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So we know how the senators feel about the report, but how will they vote? That's next on Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call milk sickness. My baby boy, she whispers before dying. Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is until Seth Graham Smith stumbled upon the secret journal of Abraham Lincoln and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time, all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near death of our nation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can find Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter on Audible, where your first book is free and you can get a 30-day trial at audible.com slash todayexplained or by texting todayexplained to 500500.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, Lee, it sounds like the Republicans were pretty uniformly satisfied with the report, but do we have any idea how the three key Republican senators, Flake, Murkowski, and Collins, are actually going to vote?
--:-- Lee: So Flake and Collins both signaled a little bit how they're feeling about things. Not very much, but both of them have said they thought this was a very thorough investigation. And Flake also added that he didn't see any evidence corroborating the claims, which is really what the Republican Party line has been.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So that gives you a sense of how they're at least processing the information. Murkowski has a tendency to hold her cards closer to the chest. And that's what she did today. She said that she is still processing everything. She still trying to read everything through And I think she going to go back into this secretive room to get more information
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I wonder how public opinion has changed I mean going into the testimony versus since it There was a Quinnipiac poll from earlier this week that shows that the proportion of people who think the Senate shouldn't confirm Kavanaugh has definitely gone up. So that basically was in the low 40s and it's nearly at 50 percent now.
--:-- Lee: It's also boosted enthusiasm on the Republican side for the midterm elections. And that's just based on one poll. But there was a piece that NPR did that suggested that before there was a 10 percent enthusiasm gap, which suggested that Democrats were more excited to go out and vote during the midterms. And post Kavanaugh, that has really dwindled down to 2 percent.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so Republicans seem more jazzed. I think that sentiment has also been reflected in Republican fundraising. There's been a little bit of data that's come out from last week, which shows that the NRCC, which is just a big fundraising arm for Republican candidates, saw a massive boost in how much money they were getting from people since the hearing took place.
--:-- Lee: And what does that suggest, that the Republican base thought Kavanaugh was treated unfairly at his testimony last week?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, I think that's exactly what it suggests. And I think it suggests that one of the goals that Republicans had of making this hearing a little bit less about Ford and more about Democrats ultimately did work in that they wanted people to be like, Democrats handled this not only poorly, but in a way that was deliberately misleading and deliberately intended to ruin a good man's life, a good man's character, a good nominee.
--:-- Lee: And meanwhile, on the other side, it seems that the week that's passed since the testimony has been about the veracity of a lot of the claims that Brett Kavanaugh made while he was under oath. People from Kavanaugh's past have actually come forward to question his veracity and say the way that he portrayed drinking was inaccurate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think he made very clear he's never blacked out from drinking too much. He's never had so much to drink, you know, that he's forgotten what he's done. And people from his college years and his high school days have basically come forward and said that's not true.
--:-- Lee: When Brett started saying things about his drinking and his use of certain words, sexually oriented words, I knew he was lying because he was my roommate. We were in a room together. Our beds were 10 feet apart for a couple of months. And what struck me and made me more interested in speaking out about it is not only did I know that he wasn't telling the truth, I knew that he knew that he wasn't telling the truth.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think the question of veracity is important both in the context of the case and the context of these allegations, but also in the context of the fact that he's vying for this role of Supreme Court justice where truth, honor, veracity is exceedingly pivotal. And so I think a lot of people are pointing to these discrepancies, which are small, that could just suggest flaws in his character that don't make him qualified for the court.
--:-- Lee: Meanwhile, there's like 1,700 or so law professors in the United States have signed this letter saying that they don't approve of Kavanaugh's nomination.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Will that end up making a difference in this debate?
--:-- Lee: I think it will depend on what senators make of that letter. So what law professors are saying is definitely significant given that these are his peers and these are people from Yale Law School and other places where he's been very proud to say he's associated with. So to have them basically say that they don't think he's qualified and they don't think he has the temperament needed for the court is significant.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think that will still come down to whether or not the key senators we're looking at actually think it matters. Right now, based on the Republican response overall, Republicans, I think, are really not affected by letters like this.
--:-- Lee: At the same time as people are questioning Kavanaugh's credibility, his honesty, and certainly his temperament, the same is happening to Christine Blasey Ford, right? I read that an ex-boyfriend of hers has come out saying that he thought something she said under oath was untrue as well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah that definitely true Yeah He said that she had helped a friend prepare for a polygraph exam in the time when he was dating her And she had indicated during the hearing that she had never done something like that And her friend actually spoke out after that letter came out and said Ford had nothing to do with helping her prepare for any kind of polygraph exam.
--:-- Lee: But it's definitely true that there are other people from her past coming out as well and saying that things that she said weren't entirely true either.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And of course, the president isn't helping Christine Blasey Ford's credibility with his base. I think he took everyone really by surprise with how aggressive he was in his response to her this week.
--:-- Lee: How did you get home? I don't remember. How'd you get there? I don't remember. Where is the place? I don't remember. How many years ago was it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He just was outwardly mocking her as a survivor of sexual assault. And I don't think that that is totally out of character compared to some of the other responses that we've seen from him in the past at different rallies. But it marks a significant shift from where he was before the hearing and even after the hearing when he said she gave credible testimony and broadly expressed deference for her presence on the committee.
--:-- Lee: Those remarks at the rally were pretty shocking.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so this all comes to a head tomorrow. There's a committee vote. And is it Saturday where we'll have a final vote on Kavanaugh?
--:-- Lee: The whole Senate's going to be working on the weekend?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tomorrow is actually also it is going to be a full Senate vote as well. But it's a procedural vote. And what that vote does is it limits debate on Kavanaugh to 30 hours. So if it's taken in the morning, which is currently what's expected, that would mean that debate on Kavanaugh's nomination stops completely around Saturday afternoon, early evening, and the full Senate is forced to vote on him at that point.
--:-- Lee: The procedural vote is an interesting test for the full vote because depending on how Collins, Murkowski, and Flake vote on Friday morning, that could be an indicator of how they'll actually vote on Saturday afternoon.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So who are the senators that everyone should be keeping an eye on? Because this only comes down to a few votes, right?
--:-- Lee: Yeah, that number has actually dwindled. So it used to be five. But Heidi Heitkamp, who is a red state Democrat, who had previously voted for Neil Gorsuch, actually just announced that she is going to oppose Kavanaugh's nomination. So the only four others who are undecided and who will really be the people that ultimately swing the vote one way or the other are Joe Manchin, who is also a Democrat, as well as Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who are all Republicans.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What do you think, Lee? How's it going to go?
--:-- Lee: I don't know. I think the entire Capitol has been like a ball of anxiety all week because it's been such a holding pattern and it's an ongoing like will they, won't they situation. I think if you're reading between the lines, there have been some signals from Flake, Collins and Manchin specifically that indicate that they might be leaning a bit more favorably toward him than they were before. But I also think that's just purely speculation at this point.
--:-- Lee: Leezo reports on Congress for Vox. I'm Sean Ramas-Firm. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Audible has audiobooks, sure, but it also has audio fitness programs and Audible originals, podcasts even. You can start a 30-day trial and your first audiobook is free at audible.com slash todayexplained or when you text todayexplained, all one word, to 500-500.
