♪ hello everyone, welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. tonight -- midterm election season kicks off in washington with a contentious hearing on president trump's deeply religious supreme court nominee, brett kavanaugh. evangelical base is cheering him on, including mike pence. book on pence. also, last rebel holdout in syria, tabler tells me of the

dangers of another humanitarian crisis. welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in new york. and here the u.s. midterm season starts right now. one of the most pivotal issues is the president's pick for the supreme court, brett kavanaugh. if successful, kavanaugh is in a position to transform america's highest court for decades. senate hearings for the conservative justice got off to raucous start as democrats pushed to delay the hearing amidst a barrage of vocal protest. >> we cannot possibly move forward mr. chairman to this hearing. >> i extend a warm welcome to brett kavanaugh, his wife. >> we've been denied access to the documents we need. >> regular order is called for. >> turns this into a charade and

mockery of our norms. i move to adjourn this hearing. >> okay. >> this is a mockery of justice. >> many liberals fear it would jeopardize the landmark 1973 ruling, roe versus wade that legalized abortion. conservative christians are -- voted for trump despite his relaxed ideas of religion, acce "access hollywood" tape and extramartial affairs. but mike pence, tight to the community and millions of republican donors. new book "the shadow president: the truth about mike pence," unwavering faith but ruthless

cunning. michael, welcome. >> thank you. >> get to heart of what's happening now. hearings. you also wrote about president trump. very prescient. what do you think this does for president trump, as we said at beginning of the midterm season. >> this is what evangelicals were hoping for. they comprise a substantial proportion of his base. without them wouldn't be president. without 80,000 of them in certain states, wouldn't be president. he was promising to deliver a slate of judges, not only supreme court justices but appeals court, circuit court and district court judges drawn from the christian right pool of talent and brett kavanaugh falls into that category. >> all the others, have they been chosen? has he stacked the courts at

different levels? >> he's delivered, appointed more judges than any president i think going back to lyndon johnson. a momentous shift. and we've had complaints from the right for decades about judicial overreach. and the fact that judges are making law from the bench. that's now going to be happening from a conservative perspective. and this is what the evangelical right was hoping for. >> briefly sum up. potentially could change the legal landscape of this country if judge kavanaugh becomes a swing vote in the supreme court. he would take the place of anthony kennedy, sometimes voted with conservatives, sometimes liberal. >> exactly. conservative justice replaced scalia, who died last year, president obama denied to fill that seat. two trump appointees.

whole idea is shift the court to the right. main idea to get rid of reproductive rights for women in america. as mike pence has said for decades, i want to put roe v. wade on the ash heap of history. this is something think kavanaugh will do. >> you bring up mike pence, subject of your new book. call him shadow president. vice president of the united states. how deeply important is his presence on the ticket for trump's continued presidency or his presidency from the beginning? >> it was everything. funny story, i was on cnn the morning that pence was selected. there was a great deal of mystery about who will he choose. for some reason i had the instinct that it was pence because pence balances out trump almost perfectly. as pious as donald trump is

profane, serious and measured as trump is chaotic. balanced trump temperamentally and also in the culture war in the united states. until he ran for president, i would guess most evangelicals thought trump was on the left side, liberal side of the culture war because he was a creature of television, had been a democrat and independent and really out there. not their kind of man. >> i wonder why you decided to focus on the vice president. i think i get it, he's very powerful and if there is issue with president trump and presidency, would be next in line to step in. you describe him as a man on a mission from god, practicing what some evangelicals call christian dominionism. pence believes that lord intended him to halt -- in the united states. and avoided stating it himself

but many evangelical friends believe his purpose is establish a government based on biblical law. sounds like something out of "handmaid's tale," science fiction thing. but is it that plan? >> we already have attorney general who quotes romans from the bible to justify his policies. sa sarah sanders said the policy to separate asylum seeking families at the border was very biblical. already attaching scripture to policy. there's no doubt that mike pence is more devoted to this than sessions or sanders or anyone in the cabinet. this has been his main motivation throughout his life, bring america along and make it a christian nation. his nostalgia goes back before

the declaration of independence. he's much more comfortable with the colonial american relationship between religion and government, when we had state religion. >> is the country ready for that? does the country believe en masse in critical tipping point appalling that this would be good for the country or viable? >> not at all. but we're now in environment where minorities seem to have figured out a way to hold sway. we have almost a tyranny of the minority when it comes to national elections, especially the united states senate, weighted to favor rural states that have low populations but nevertheless get same number of senators as california or new york. we've got a dynamic in place that's about perfect for president pence. and we've got a setting in the congress that, if the

republicans hold it, would be amenable to many of his ideas. ironic. i talked to many trump voters, women in 2016 who said, you know, only thing i care about is roe v. wade on the liberal side of things. they're never going to swroefr tu overturn that, i'm going to vote for trump. i don't think that type of voter understood what mike pence represented. >> brett kavanaugh has told his senate interlocutors as he prepares for the hearing, he views roe versus wade as established law, precedent, set law. kind of indicating therefore it wouldn't be up for overturning. what has your reporting shown about that? do you think the evangelicals have a way to make him potentially swing against that? change his mind? could trump -- not trump, pence, affect that? >> may not be necessary.

what may happen is court may permit states to hollow out roe v. wade. already happening. states adopting impediments to abortion. many states just have one clinic and big regions have no clinics for women to seek safe and legal abortions. it isn't necessary for the court to go all the way and strike down this precedent, it could simply permit erosion of the right. that's something that i think is under way and that pence would encourage. >> i'd like to play this sound bite that gained a lot of traction, went viral because people thought it was obsequious. vice president trump congratulating president trump. >> heard the president say if democrats take over the congress, their goal is turn back everything we've done for the american people. our agenda is to continue to

focus on making america safe, prosperous, a positive future for this country. democrats' whole agenda is simply to undo everything that the president has done, including prevent the president from continuing to appoint strong conservatives to the federal courts at every level. that's the choice we face and what i took the president to say. >> that wasn't what i was talking about but how do you describe what he just said. >> what he's doing, something i did before. i didn't hear what everybody else heard. i was in the room -- we all know, you can read the transcript, president was saying there will be violence if republicans lose the election because there are violent people on the left. he didn't say they're going to do violence to our agenda, it's mike pence interpreting donald trump. like the parent whose little boy has acted out at school effeven.

he didn't mean to hit your child, i'll interpret it this way, he really likes your son. this is pence as trump interpreter. >> see if we can get the actual expression of the trump whisperer. just play that. >> i want to thank you, mr. president. i want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of america. because of your determination, because of your leadership, the forgotten men and women of america are forgotten no more and we are making america great again. >> clearly music to president trump's ears but "washington post" reported that he praises trump once every 12 seconds for three minutes straight. i could say, he would do that,

vice president, connected politically. but question many have i think, if vice president pence is such a committed christian, how does he square and how do evangelical voters square some of the issues that president trump has exhibited in his life with evangelical vote. the "access hollywood" tape, extramartial affairs, or allegedly paying for an abortion. how do they square that? >> by george will of the "washington post," great conservative opinion maker calls mike pence -- not just in washington. pence is the ultimate sycophant. doing it in part because christian america, the christian right, has come to believe that trump represents the heathen who is nevertheless serving god.

this is the cyrus story or nebuchadnezzar, men who use power in favor of in this case the christian right, imperfect vessel who nevertheless did the job and pence is president in waiting. every day inch by inch, robert mueller and other forces bring us closer to trump perhaps leaving office and who do we get? mike pence who could be the longest serving president other than franklin roosevelt in american history. were he to succeed and then get two terms. ten-year mike pence presidency. >> describe his legislative record in the public offices he's held and been elected to. have they been that dramatic in conservative agenda that you outlined and liberals fear? >> he's voted for every

conservative bill that comes along. relates to reproductive rights, gun control, taxation, you name it. and 12 years in congress never authored single successful bill with. never that interested in lawmaking but in appealing to the emotions of the christian right. he became a favorite of the tea party. one of his first speeches on the house floor was about creationism, how the science of evolution is in fact not true and god created the earth in seven days. antiscience when it comes to climate change, one of these fellows who went around crying about voter fraud, even headed president's voter fraud committee, which found no voter fraud. >> in the 2016 election. >> and he tried to suppress

black votes in indiana. he's fulfilled every partisan mission that he could without actually governing in any serious way. >> i read in the introduction something that you had determined, a man of unwavering faith but also ruthless cunning. how did mike pence get to this point? by all accounts not distinguished legislator or charismatic politician. he even stood against candidate trump with muslim ban, at that time said it was unconstitutional. but describe the ruthlessness that got him where he is today. >> early in his life ran for congress as 28 and 30-year-old man. in his second campaign, quite ruthless. used campaign tricks including putting up ads that portrayed arab sheikhs as even people and

associated his opponent with drug dealers. none of it relevant to the campaign but pursued aggressive strategy anyway. wound up having to publish confessions of a negative campaigner and indicated that he was sorry for what he had done. then went into radio and television broadcasting. he has broadcasting in common with the president. >> sorry shrewd manipulator of this media. >> absolutely. very smart about how to use the airwaves to move public opinion. he called himself a conservative who is not mad about it, rush limbaugh on decaf. lot of it was signaling. final element was fundraising, a favorite of the koch brothers and betsy devos. devos said we admit it, trying

to buy influence. one of the guys she bought was mike pence, willingly sold himself to her. combined gods, guns and money. three elements of his strategy to gain office. and he's been quite aggressive about climbing ever higher. >> and very successful. heartbeat away from most powerful office in the world at this particularly fragile time. >> probably vice president most likely to become president in more than a century. >> thank you so much. "mike pence: the shadow president." other issues around the world. amid heightened and heated politics at home, president is monitoring situation in syria. warning basser al-assad not to attack the idlib. if uses chemical weapons u.s.

will respond quote swiftly and appropriately. heavy russian air strikes are under way in that province. up to more than 3 million civilians at risk. andrew tabler is author of "the lion's den," joining us from washington. welcome to the program. syria has dropped off the agenda for the silly season of the summer, really looks like it will come right back into the top of the agenda. how imminent is assad attack on idlib do you think? >> good question. seems imminent, to occur after friday when there's a summit in tehran between russia, assad regime and turkey. what's at stake here is last rebel stronghold in the western part of the country outside of

president assad's control. and with it that pending military offensive could send literally millions of refugees into neighboring turkey, substantially destabilizing this part of the outcome of the syrian civil war. >> you mentioned this tehran meeting, but what is it giving assad, if this happens, feeling that he can now do this? this is the last stronghold as we said. all forced into idlib after aleppo and others were taken back by assad. why now? >> i think that president assad is desperate to show he has wherewithal to retake his entire country. he knows neighboring countries and international community know he didn't win the syrian civil war on his own steam but military of iran, russian federation on his side and

turkey and united states on the side of the rebels. he's desperate to show that he is the king, at least in western syria, to his own people and can impose a settlement on that part of the country that will be cheaper for him and that international community, he feels will eventually have to capitulate to. >> do you think he will have backing? iranian backing? russian backing? mindful of the unprecedented russian naval maneuvers in the mediterranean, i don't know if it's a coincidence it's happening now. will he have their backing? >> seems for the moment he will. there are iranian units mixed in. assad's forces were -- brought in conscripts for the north. mingled with shiia militiamen who are poised to push into that

area. doing so with iranian help and russian air cover, he can retake some territories. however that area is home to about 3 million syrians, mostly civilians. up to 50,000 fighters of different elements across the spectrum, including extremists. push into that area to burst that bubble might have disastrous impact because al qaeda is so strong in that area. instead of wiping out extremism as they've been promising, could be spreading it out to neighboring turkey, who could then turn the taps back on for people to run to europe. >> talk about the tentacles. at heart of our political upheaval over the last couple of years certainly, that region or reached all the way to the west, spread of refugees, migrants and others coming into the west and

causing this populism and backlash. what happens -- how strong is turkey could be able to resist this kind of push into their country if that should happen? >> i think it's very difficult for them to do so. they have about 2.3 million refugees already in turkey. many of which will probably stay there. if you push 2 million more refugees into neighboring tur y turkey, where are they going to go. and could simply turn a blind eye when they go northward. they then set off right-wing elements in european countries who are very critical of european countries hosting laws and permissiveness for the settlement of these syrian refugees. this is an example of the russian federation using military means to push turkey into a dilemma and drive the

political process towards an outcome favorable to moscow. >> is there anything that turkey, united states or nato allies could do to prevent this push? already the russian federation has pushed back again donald trump's warning. said nest of terrorism in idlib, and saying speak out without taking negative potential for full situation in syria is not a full comprehensive approah. russians would say that, wouldn't they? but what is the u.s. option here? >> good question. u.s. doesn't have forces in that area, do not support rebel groups per se in that part of syria, at least militarily. main cards are turkey, with military personnel and outposts within idlib and neighboring areas. one card. other card, that is over the use of air strikes against assad

regime units poised to use chemical weapons. because they lack manpower, assad regime prefers strategic weapons like sarin or chlorine. and u.s. strikes on assad units would have devastating effect because so few of them. those are the two cards. then diplomatic option. doesn't look promising unless there is something in the offing out of this meeting in tehran or if the u.s. and russia can come to agreement that doesn't seem clear at the moment. >> okay andrew, got to wrap it. but president trump has said his activity in pulling out of the iran nuclear deal and being hard line has changed iran's posture in syria and elsewhere, is that

true? >> certainly driven up cost of deployment in syria, used proceeds from the agreement to fund activities there but iranians are able to carry out these opportunities on the cheap. but under economic pressure, activities, the force which backs up assad are increasingly under scrutiny. question is, drive them out of syria, do air strikes diminish capacity or push equation towards something much more chaotic. that's the question at the moment. >> andrew tabler, thanks for joining us from washington. that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs. join us again tomorrow night.

>> you're watching "beyond 100 days." the journalist who helped bring down nickson now turns his sights to donald trump. >> bob woodward >> he quotes the chief of staff john kelly saying it is crazy land. the opening day of hearings for the next u.s. supreme court turn rioters with loud protest. >> so here are the fact, judge cavanaugh is one of the most distinguished judges -- mr. chairman, we ought to have this loud mouth removed. >> the