Sen. Susan Collins explicitly told CNN that she does not believe Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Said Collins: “I found Dr. Ford’s testimony to be heart-wrenching, painful, compelling, and I believe that she believes what she testified to.”
But she added: “I’m 100 percent certain that this did not happen.”
Nate Cohn: “A favorable national environment, strong Democratic candidates and a wave of Republican retirements have combined to produce a long list of vulnerable Republican seats. But Republicans remain competitive in the districts that will decide control.”
“The sheer number of highly competitive districts means a wide range of possible outcomes. Democrats could win in a landslide, or Republicans could run the table and narrowly retain a majority. Both possibilities are evident in data collected from The New York Times Upshot/Siena College surveys in battleground districts.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) “descended on Iowa Saturday night with ideal timing to strike a chord with Iowan Democrats,” ABC News reports.
“The senator from New Jersey, a long-rumored 2020 presidential candidate, arrived at the Iowa Democratic Party’s fall gala fresh off the Senate floor, where he voted not to confirm President Donald Trump’s embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.”
Said one attendee: “This whole thing feels like a therapy session and Sen. Booker is the therapist.”
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HuffPost: “Newly released documents from the Department of Homeland Security show more clearly that Pence’s early departure was a stunt — and not a cheap one at that. The Secret Service on Friday released receipts and folios indicating more than $75,000 in expenses, including hotels, travel and additional security measures.”
“But this is hardly the extent of the bill. As The Washington Post reported in the days after the game, Air Force Two costs approximately $43,000 an hour to operate, which the Post estimated meant a total bill of $250,000 for the flight alone. That’s to say nothing of the cost of local law enforcement, an extra ambulance and extra trauma teams at the local hospitals, with many of these supernumeraries making overtime for Sunday work. None of those expenses was included in the Secret Service’s cost breakdown. All told, it cost $325,000 at the very least for the vice president not to watch a football game.”
McClatchy: “To Republicans, McConnell is now a 21st century political hero, a leader who refused to surrender to political correctness or to the loud, angry, persistent voices of the left.”
“Party loyalists are enthusiastic about McConnell’s ability to harness collective rage over what they saw as Democratic gamesmanship, and laud his strategy of directing that disgust towards a cherished outcome: Giving a conservative judge a lifetime appointment on the most powerful court in the land and the power to shape the judiciary for a generation. Back home, he has all but assured himself an easy sail to victory in his 2020 GOP primary election.”
“Democrats, on the other hand, have never been more energized to take McConnell down, from inside the state and beyond.”
President Trump predicted that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) “will never recover” politically for her vote against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as he celebrated his nominee’s ascension following an extraordinarily brutal confirmation process, the Washington Post reports.
He added: “I think the people from Alaska will never forgive her for what she did.”
For members: How Murkowski Could Decide Control of the Senate
“A deeply divided Senate voted on Saturday to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, delivering a victory to President Trump and ending a rancorous Washington battle that began as a debate over ideology and jurisprudence and concluded with questions of sexual misconduct,” the New York Times reports.
“The final result was expected; all senators had announced their intentions by Friday, after the nomination cleared a crucial procedural hurdle in a 51-to-49 vote.”
“But while the brawl over Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation may be over, people on both sides of the debate agree that it will have lasting ramifications on the Senate, the Supreme Court and the nation.”
“Senate Democrats believed they had Brett Kavanaugh on the ropes… Then came Michael Avenatti,” CNN reports.
“The combative lawyer… revealed a stunning new allegation: A woman, Julie Swetnick, said she had witnessed the Supreme Court nominee attending more than 10 house parties… She also alleged that at some parties, boys lined up by a bedroom to ‘gang-rape’ incapacitated girls and claimed those in the lineup included Kavanaugh and Judge.”
“But the eye-popping nature of those claims suddenly gave Republicans an opportunity to shift the narrative away from Ford’s allegations and make a broader case that the growing accusations of sexual misconduct amounted to an orchestrated Democratic smear campaign, something Sen. Susan Collins, the swing GOP vote, cited herself when announcing she’d be the decisive vote to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation.”
Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Politico that he isn’t done with his “project” to revamp the nation’s courts.
“Hours before the Senate was set to approve Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the Senate majority leader said in an interview Saturday that he plans confirmations of more lifetime justices before the November election. The Kentucky Republican plans to meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) about a package of nominees — and Schumer’s response could determine when or whether Schumer’s vulnerable members will be able to go home and campaign for their seats.”
Said McConnell: “There are still tools that I have available, that’s why I canceled the August recess. And that’s something I’ll discuss with Sen. Schumer before we leave for the election.”
“All of us need to be aware of that — every single one of us — and to realize how precious the court’s legitimacy is. It’s an incredibly important thing for the court to guard is this reputation of being impartial, being neutral, and not being simply extension of a terribly polarizing process.”
— Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, quoted by The Hill.
“At the heart of President Trump’s political movement is this paradox: A wealthy reality television star who lived in a gold-encrusted Manhattan penthouse was able to gather a dedicated following of the less privileged and launch a war against his own social class,” the Washington Post reports.
“Brett Kavanaugh — who has lived most of his life in the Washington area, attended elite schools and worked in George W. Bush’s administration — was exactly the type of ‘political elite’ whose swamp Trump and those supporters once said they wanted to drain.”
“Yet Trump and his rally crowds are now firmly behind Kavanaugh, to the point where audiences sometimes chant “Kav-a-naugh” in addition to “Drain the swamp,” two ideas that would seem to be in forceful opposition to one another.”
Philip Bump: “There have been five presidents who assumed the office after having lost the popular vote. Between them, they nominated 12 justices who ended up serving on the Supreme Court. On Saturday, with President Trump’s nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh poised to pass the Senate, the number will climb to 13.”
“Kavanaugh, though, has a distinct honor: He will be the first justice nominated by someone who lost the popular vote to earn his seat on the bench with support from senators representing less than half of the country while having his nomination opposed by a majority of the country.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Washington Post that he never considered urging the White House to withdraw Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court and called opposition to the judge a “great political gift” for Senate Republicans in next month’s midterm elections.
Said McConnell: “It’s been a great political gift for us. The tactics have energized our base. I want to thank the mob, because they’ve done the one thing we were having trouble doing, which was energizing our base.”
Playbook: “The Senate is poised to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. The final vote is scheduled to happen this afternoon around 5 p.m. Senate Democrats have taken to the Senate floor this morning giving impassioned speeches against Kavanaugh’s appointment to the court.”
The vote is expected to be 50 to 48, with Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) absent for his daughter’s wedding and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voting “present.”
Steve Bannon texts Jonathan Swan: “The fight for Judge Kavanaugh became a proxy fight for Trump’s presidency. Senator McConnell showed real leadership and the rest of the Senators real spine. This should stand as a lesson for the future — when Republican band together, stand up for the grassroots and take the fight to the Democrats and the opposition party media, America wins.”
Adds Swan: “You know something rare has happened in the Republican Party when Steve Bannon is gushing over Mitch McConnell — the man he spent months trying to destroy.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) “was already one of the Democrats’ biggest Senate targets in 2020 when she took to the Senate floor Friday to announce she would vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But Collins’ decision to back the Supreme Court nominee after he was accused of sexual assault was instantly controversial with not only the hundreds of activists who flooded the Capitol this week but also with Democratic activists in her home state of Maine who have opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination for weeks,” CNN reports.
“By the time she finished her speech, Democrats in Maine had begun speculating who might challenge the moderate Republican. And progressive activists are pouring in money to fund the eventual challenger, raising millions of dollars online to unseat Collins.”
New York Times: “Brute partisanship in the Senate is a symptom of a much larger national contagion. To the right and left alike, Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination appears less like a final spasm of division — a sobering trauma, followed by calm resolution — than an event that deepens the national mood of turbulence. The country is gripped by a climate of division and distrust rivaled by few other moments in the recent past.”
“A reporter for an NBC affiliate in Minnesota was fired Friday, one day after he was spotted wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat while covering a Trump rally for the local TV station,” BuzzFeed News reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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