and if those votes stay the way they are right now, and the senator collins decides that she is going to not continue to suppo support, but going to confirm then judge brett kavanaugh will become a supreme court justice a and we should know more in three hours or so. "andrea mitchell reports." >> thank you. craig melvin, what a historic day. i am across from the capitol as we continue the breaking historical day here. the nomination of brett kavanaugh resting in the hands of three senators unless the others switch positions in the next 28 hours. the drama today, the west virginia democrat joe manchin, and retiring republican jeff flake, and more on him in a moment, and susan collins to help kavanaugh's nomination clear a procedural hurdle on the

floor after alaska's lisa murkowski say has she is a no vote after stopping that nomination from going further. she said she made that decision on the way to the floor. senator collins is going to be deciding her decision aye or nay this afternoon. and kcollins and murkowski are famously independent of the party labels when they both broke ranks to vote down obama care. and president trump is quiett today saying that the support of the procedural vote in the last hour. to break it down and the fast-moving developments, we have capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt, and peter alexander, and political director chuck todd, and moderator of "meet the press" and mtp daily and also "hardball" host chris matthews.

and kasie, what did jeff flake say when he got into the car. >> indeed, breaking news from tracking jeff flake who says he is voting yes unless something changes, and we don't know what that would be, and so, he had announced that he was a yes on kavanaugh before we went into all of this back and forth about the fbi investigation, the one-week hold and that is last friday, and so to a certain extent, flake is being consistent here in that he believes that the fbi investigation did not show any corroborating evidence. sof that, you know, really abrupt switch from lisa murkowski and you could see the tension on the floor, and her in conversation with john cornyn who is in charge of counting the votes and then she went and w k walked out of the floor and changed her mind and voted no. that is incredible pressure, and

we are outside of senator joe manchin's office and protesters on both sides of issue coming and going, and he is under incredible pressure now, but of course he is waiting on senator s susan collins, and as she goes, so will go joe manchin. i think that there is still incredible difficulty for him to be the 50th vote for this. so if collins were to come out to say she can't vote for him on the final passage that would suddenly put manchin in a difficult bind. if though, she comes out to say that she is a yes at 3:00, it is likely that you would see senator manchin voting as he did earlier today and saying yes to judge kavanaugh, and of course, now that we know where where flake stands and murkowski stands, it is really coming down to this senator from maine. and andrea, you have covered her for many years ark sheend is somebody who prides herself on being independent. she decided not to run for governor of maine and stayed here in the senate, because she felt partly an obligation and duty to in the age of donald trump to be somebody who could

have an independent voice, and who could potentially buck the party where it was needed, but she has been under incredible pressure here facing the potential of the democratic general election challenge if she votes yes, but the more immediate threat might be a primary challenge if in fact she is the deciding vote against. so this is all along, it has been a difficult position for her, but it is really hurtling towards at the moment for her in the spotlight, and it all comes down to how she says she is going to be voting today at 3:00, andrea. >> and kasie, you have broken it down so beautifully. chuck todd, looking at susan collins who is now looking at though she and whatever she is announcing at 3:00 today is going to be the pivotal moment, and susan kol lins from maine, a blue state, but as you pointed out governor lepage, and there is a deep conservative strain in maine as well, politically conservative strain and not just conservative in the broader context, but very right wing

conservative as well. >> and i would call it more of the trump wing of the party, right? i do think that i'd like to split sort of small c conservatives and the trump conservatives and they don't always agree, and paula page is more in the trump style of the governing and of politicking, and susan kol can lins is more really sort of in the george herbert walker bush school to go ahead to name dropping kennebunkport where bush 41 spends a lot of time. and so it is -- she comes from a different republican party in maine versus, and that is -- this is why it is a, you know, she is in a political vice. politically, it is a no-win situation for her. so every senator that i have ever talked to when you get to the point when you are in the vice, it really becomes which way, what will, what can help you get through the day, right?

through the night, and what are you most comfortable defending in yourself and all of those things. and so that is where susan collins finds herself, and in some ways an unenviable position, and you ran for the senator, and you wanted to be a sen or the, and these are the moments. >> and to follow up with you, chuck, for a second, because as you pointed out earlier today, when we were talking, these are human beings and there is a political calculus, and human calcul calculus, and heidi heitkamp the democrat from north dakota indicated the human and personal con t context when she decided yesterday to vote against him. she is from a red state and tough election and she could very well lose her senate seat next month on this issue alone, and she is going against the trump wing of the both parties in north dakota, because she is a former attorney general, and she has are represented cases or prosecuted cases of rape and she felt strongly that she believed dr. ford for her, and that is the decision and how she would

look at herself in the mirror, but for susan collins, the tell is that she believeses the supplemental fbi investigation was full and complete and a lot of the critics say it was not the case to them, and to her eyes, she believed the affirmation that roe is settled law and a lot of people looking at the past opinions disagree with. >> and andrea, look, at the end of the day, i can understand a rational for any senator to -- >> exactly. >> and for them to look at the situation they are in and on one hand vote yes or no and rationalize for it the same reason and meaning that i nknow that it is a tough vote, and but, you know, this is one of those that i think that i will vote this way or maybe they don't say it this way, but if they vote yes, and let's say that you are a centrist democrat or the centrist republican and you vote yes, because you say that i want to be -- if i vote no, and then i lose and i'm not here for the other fights that i care about and push for this, so i think it is a -- i understand

the dilemma of other senators have in if they are in a state that is as swingy as maine or take a red state like phil bredesen who is running for united states senate and he announced a few hours ago that he would have voted yes on kavanaugh, and perhaps enough cover for joe manchin to be yes and be the lone democrat who does that, but i understand the rational both ways and in fairness, i hope that the public understands it that the senators may have deeply held beliefs on other issues that i have to stay here for that, and they are politicians for a reason. >> and talk about joe manchin, and he is a very popular former senator and governor in west virginia which donald trump won by 42 points. >> right. >> and his colleague, shelley more cappito has signaled she s

gois going to be a yes vote, and she went to holton arms and she is an alumna of the school that has ral lied in the alumni groups around the fellow alumna dr. ford. >> it is a conservative state, and getting more conservative every time, an i think that he will vote with the state, simple as that. and generally, the republican party is voting with the president, but i think that the most profound reality of the time is that 9 of 10 republican vo voters support this president on any issue that he chooses to raise on either side. he aches in the issue. and that is a powerful reality, and i think that is why we are only talk about a couple of people here. murkowski has always been tough as nails, and she has got guts and she is a profile in courage, but she also was able to prove that she could beat her party. she was knocked nout the party and got right back in the general and won the seat in. >> and she was a write-in vote, and she does not have a easy name to spell. >> and she is tougher than trump

and that is a deep political stateme statement. >> and so, now we heard senator grassley saying that 99% of the time you know what the votes are, and he was not aware, because lisa murkowski said that she made up her mind at that moment, and so they must have been nervous for them, and the backers of judge kavanaugh to go on fox news with a television interview on the eve of the procedural vote of his confirmation, and a op-ed of a little bit of the apology saying that he may have gone too far in the forceful self-defense and he said it is the passion of the defense of his reputation, but it is the scripted defense that crossed the line for many court watchers which saying it is a left wing conspiracy and with what goes around and comes around and payback for the clinton years. >> and andrea, you are right. and the fact that he wrote the op-ed is just as important as anything, and it reveals the real concerns that white house,

and brett kavanaugh's a ale lies belie -- allies believed it could go down to the wire and he had to say something about the judicial temperament, and i would not describe it as a apology or regret. he never says i'm sorry or i should haven't have, but better explain why people will look at me in the moment as a father, a son and a husband, and so that is sort of the good way to cast that moment there. and in terms of the moment we now face right now, there were a contingent of the white house officials including the white house counsel don mcgann who has been the ally here behind the scenes in the senate chamber and in the gallery when the vote took place and i spoke to one there who said that they are cautiously optimistic, and this morning the white house officials to yuse the language said 70% or 80% of the confidence scale getting through this and the focus on collins, and flake and joe man can chin

and -- joe manchin, and i know i said it to you, but remember, that the president has been making a lot of stops in west virginia and campaigning heavily against joe manchin, and it is a state that donald trump won in 2016 by 42 point, and the white house official said to me that if manchin is a yes, he is going to secure his re-election, but if he says no, he is in a knife fight with the white house. >> and another thing that happened, peter, that is unprecedented in a series of unare precedented things is that a retired supreme court juses tis, 35 years on the court, john paul stevens appointed by gerald ford last night in florida saying that while he had supported merits, and he is a republican, john paul stevens is, and he changed his mind because of the political and the belligerent approach that he took in the last hearing last week. we will play a little bit of

that. >> sure. >> he is -- he has demonstrated a potential bias involving enough potential litigants before the court that he cannot fulfill his full support. >> and he is seeing bias and nonjudicial demeanor and how much that might influence senator collins who said that she did not believe that dr. ford's accusations of sexual assault were proved by the fbi report, and that she was reassured by what brett kavanaugh told her about roe v. wade and so is she going to be influenced in the final hours or has she been influenced by his demeanor this final hearing? >> i think that senator collins has always wanted to be a yes, and that is going to tilt her no

matter what. she knew from the testimony that kavanaugh was not treating in his writings roe is settled law, and she knew that, and the fbi investigation turns out to be a kind of the brilliant stroke by the leadership to give republicans on the fence a reason to vote for kavanaugh. because she said it did not show her anything that's, that's going to change her vote. on stevens, you would think that his view would be heavily weighted. you know, he has been on the court, and he knows what it takes, and that "wall street journal" editorial did nothing. in it, kavanaugh blamed the process and blamed everybody else for him being angry and not himself, and he forgets what we all know, it is easy to have a judicial temperament when you are not in a hot spot, and when you are not.

if everything is going well for you, you are not angry, but when it is not, you may get angry, but if you have the right term permit, you don't display it, and the only angrier man in america is elon musk. >> and chris, now that we know where jeff flake is and if susan collins coming out in favor of brett kavanaugh this a afternoon, that is going to take joe manchin off of the hook and he can vote the politic s of s state. >> yeah, he wants to survive. every former governor who is a senator still wishes they were a governor, because you are still the boss. but he is not the boss. the people back home are the boss. i think they manchin wants to survive and he is not going to die on this hill and he won't matter on the hill, and that is interesting, isn't it? he won't decide it. >> but it would be better because if he did not matter, it could be easily, and it is going to define him. >> i will say something about your point in wall street, and if they thought this picture of the nominee looked good to the american people, they wouldn't have come up with a new picture on the election day basically. "the wall street journal" op-ed was to cover up what everybody

saw on television and so i think that they know that they have a problem, and bill shein, is still there on the p.r. and put him on fox and the "wall street journal" but they knew some makeup work on that guy. that guy, he was not the picture of to supreme court justice. he just wasn't. >> and chris matthews and margaret carlson and of course, peter alex sander and chuck tod and kasie hunt, and join chris matthews this evening for "hardball" and tomorrow the evening for the final vote to confirm or not judge kavanaugh for the final vote. and join chuck for the 2018 "meet the press" film festival, and i will be there with afi here in washington featuring the documentaries on the most press ing issues facing the country. tickets are on sale right now at

nbc.com/mtpfi nbc.com/mtpfilm. senator, we have been through some supreme court battles before this, and you certainly and i have been a correspondent covering you and the judiciary committee and i have not seen anything like this, and not even the thomas hill hearings. >> no, i have been here for 19 supreme court justices, and ironically beginning with john paul stevens, a republican nominee by a republican president. seen as a conservative nominee, and i was really struck by what he said about judicial temperament, because i had voted for him as i did for most republicans. but i was struck by what he said, because he was very accurate. and this is not just whether you know the law. a lot of people know the law very well. but it is what kind of temperament do you have as a judge. can the american people look at

you and say i trust that judge to do the right thing no matter what side i'm on. >> and senator, right now, we understand that jeff flake has signaled to alex moe, our colleague on the hill, that he would be a yes unless something else happens in the next 24 hour hou hours, and we know that we will be hearing from senator collins, and lisa murkowski made a last-minute decision she says as she was heading to the floor. and so now this is all going to rest on what senator kol can lins says at 3:00. >> i think that a lot rests on how the american people feel. are you going to have somebody that you can confidence with in the supreme court. judge kavanaugh has misled the senate judiciary committee numerous times, and long before this. there were the e-mails that were stolen from the democrats years ago in the judiciary committee and he said that he knew nothing

about it, but now it turns out, that yes, he was involved. he was consulting with the person who stole them. and one occasion after another. so then of course in this case, we had this last-minute fbi investigation, and i have a lot of are respect for the fbi, but they were told by the white house what they could look at, and basically told don't look at anything that is going to ink m incriminate judge kavanaugh. >> i want to play a little bit of what senator murkowski can said, because we have audio from her coming off of the corridor of the floor, and explain or show how she made her decision at the last moment. >> i believe that the brett kavanaugh is a good man. i believe he is a good man. it just may be that in my view he is not the right man for the

court at this time. >> so we don't know how senator collins is going to vote, and we don't know how joe manchin is going to vote depending upon e senator collins, but it is teetering on the edge. >> it is. it is. and they should step back and think about this. they are trying to rush it through before anything new comes out, and afraid of with what might come out. i think that they should look at the nominee and say, fine, he might know the law well, but he is not somebody who should be on the u.s. supreme court. we are a at this difficult time where president trump has demoni demonized our federal courts, our law enforcement, and our intelligence and he has made it very clear that he wants the supreme court to be an arm of his partisan white house. that is not what the american peoplen't want. step back and there could be a great number of people who could

get democrats or republicans, and put them on, and the country would breathe a sigh of relief. but no matter which way the vote goes with judge kavanaugh, there has been damage to the u.s. senate and to the supreme court and certainly it shows that the president trump does not care about the independence of the federalle judiciary. >> i want to also play in case you had not heard it what the president said in minnesota last night at a rally about one of your former colleagues al franken. >> we are also joined by the next united states senator from minnesota c oshoran housely and is running against tina smith, which nobody knows who she is. and she a is appoint and took a wacky guy's place. that guy, he was wacky. boy, did he fold up like a wet

rag, huh? man. he was gone so fast, i don't want to mention al al franken' name, so i won't, but he was gone oso fast, and it is like, oh, he did something, and oh, i resign, i quit, i quit. >> i don't know what your reaction to that is, but is that the norm? and he seems to be criticizing him for doing something that donald trump would not do which was to -- >> well, that is -- >> -- to protest and fight against that kind of the accusation. >> well, first, he has tot attack tina smith, and he has the ability to, a desire to attack women more than anybody else. he attacks a wonderful senator. senator smith has worked extraordinarily hard. she had a good reputation as an office holder in minnesota before. now, he wants to go on attack people. i am not going to repeat what he

said in the other corners of the way he wanted to grab women and certainly everything else that we know about donald trump. this is not a man who should talk about how men should comport themselves or what they should do. he can't talk about that. he is not an example for our children or our grandchildren. >> senator the le leahy, thank being with us on an important day. >> thank you. >> and coming up inside of the fbi investigation, was it enough? you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" right here on msnbc. hrimp you want, any way you want them. try new crunchy fiesta shrimp, tortilla chip crusted and topped with a creamy blend of three cheeses. favorites like garlic shrimp scampi are back, too.

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democrats still critical of that limited investigation in which the white house says supports judge kavanaugh's denials of the christine blasey ford's allegations. and now joining us is fred --

frank from the fbi, and also our msnbc contributor. a and you said that it was a handcuffed because of the number of interviews that they could conduct, and so tell me your understanding of what is going on inside of the bureau, and what happens when they have names of people who could be corroborating witnesses, and saying that you cannot proceed or follow this thread? >> yeah, this is a painful moment for the fbi. imagine a group of very talented tenacious type a personalities u used to going through the doors and perhaps with bullets flying, being told, hold on, we'll tell you who you can talk to and who you can't on an investigation. so there is tremendous frustration with the process and understand that there are written protocols that exist between the white house and the fbi and longstanding protocols,

and in my opinion, it is time to re-examine them, because the concept of the client being the white house or whoever appoints the nominee, you are working for them instead of for the american people is a flawed process. >> and to joyce, as a prosecutor and someone who is seeing the cases in court, this is not a burden of proof, and so when they set it up as almost a trial standard of well, no corroborating evidence, you could argue that dr. ford and judge kavanaugh were presenting evidence to that committee and you had to decide which one you believed. >> you know, that is exactly right. many of the republicans in the leadership positions tryied to portray the proceeding to the american people as if it were a criminal trial to where judge kavanaugh would be at the end of the day led off in handcuffs, but it is not what it is about. he is a job interview, and if he does not get the new job, he keeps the old job.

and what we have here is women who came forward with great bravery and others to krobb rate them, and the fbi was more than capable of doingane vestigation and perhaps not getting to 100% truth, but strong evidence that the senators could use to make up their minds and as frank says they were handcuffed. that is not how this process works. the hiring process means that the white house asks the fbi to give it the information it can use to decide whether a candidate is fit. with a normal white house that is great, because they will reject a candidate who has indicia of a lack of fitness, but that is not how this process worked. >> and it is interesting that retired justice stevens came forward, frank, and raising judicial temperament and lack of bias is what changed his mind and it is from his testimony last week that made him take a different tact. >> well, yeah, i think that i

want people to know that as joyce said when you are doing a suitability inquiry, you are not focused on the criminality, but whether or not this person has the capacity, the character and the sbintegrity and the reputatn to do his job well. so all of this is fair game. i hear people saying, well, we only had to focus on the allegations of sexual assault, and that is not true. i have done hundreds if not thousands of background investigations or supervised them in my career, and you are absolutely -- you absolutely ask questions like does the candidate abuse alcohol. does he have a temperament issue for anger management problem, and you take all of that information down, and again, the bureau was not permitted to look into any of the concerns. >> well, thank you both so very much, and joyce, finally, what s is the inport of what happens today and tomorrow in terms of how it goes in terms of the effect on women and girls and some men who have suffered sexual assault?

>> i think that this is a problematic time for all of us, because now we have learned that the voices of women, the voices of survivors, the voices of victims apparently don't count with enough senators to keep someone who has been credibly accused of an assault to keep him out of the supreme court. that could ultimately destroy confidence in the institution, and it is not a good day for us, and it is not a good day for democra democracy. >> joyce, thank you so much. joyce vance and frank fullicy. >> and susan collins was the -- is the critical swing vote facing moupt iin receiving moun pressure from back home. and she voted yes on cloture, but now her h decision will be whether to announce support of kavanaugh, and she is going to

announce it 3:00 in a speech. and we are going to morgan who is in bangor, maine. and we know that the newspaper in portland came out against confirmation this week, but there are two more strains or more of thought in maine and notably the independent state, and she has a reputation for being independent. what are the constituents telling you? >> which why this area is so important. we are actually in the middle of the dine er here in bangor, maine, and as you mentioned, andrea, this is a blue state, and red district which means that the reaction here on the ground is intense, and it is personal. we spoke to earlier, republican voters who are among the 42% of the state who think that senator collins should vote in fact no on brett kavanaugh and the other people say yes. so there is an interesting tension. we are with some voters here who think that as you have said that senator collins needs to

absolutely say that the brett kavanaugh should not have a chance to sit on the bench, and why do you say that, melissa, because you mentioned your feelings as a female voter. >> yes, as a woman, i stay that this is an emotional and painful time for women who are being retraumatized by the news. >> so you feel like this is that she needs to stand up for the women? >> stand up for the the women, and the idea that senator collins would even consider voting for a sexual assaulter is galling. >> i want to bring in because we have to be brief, and michael, you had interesting thoughts on what you think that the senator should do. >> absolutely. she should vote no on him, and there is a ton of other qualified conservative judges that would make the gop very happy, and i don't know why they need someone, and remember, this is a job interview, right? why is if somebody made it through the job interview, and then credible accusations of is

ex yule assault would you give them the job? you wouldn't. >> and andrea, this is intense on one side and these people are protesting to the ask can her at 3:00 p.m. when she announces the decision to say no. >> but it is a state divided and personal and not just a political decision. thank you, morgan, and it is great to hear from the mainers there in bangor. and the final vote will be tomorrow, but we may well know today when susan collins announces her decision at 3:00 p.m. eastern what she is going to vote. and we will have more on the reaction no k shuction to today c.

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and in lez and the three hours, senator susan collins the republican from maine is going to announce how she is going to vote on brett kavanaugh's nomination, and it could be the decisive vote. joining me is democratic senator from connecticut chris murphy. thank you for being with us. well, does it boil down to your colleague susan collins? >> well, you know, i was here of course during the affordable care act debate in the last summer when everybody thought that all was lost as i was heading to that vote, and it seemed as if the repeal was going to move forward and then a all of the sudp en, it wasn't, and john mccain changed his vote, and susan and lisa obvious

ly remained as no votes, so i am not going to give up until that final vote tomorrow. i know that susan's speech today later is going to be important o one, but i will be on the floor of the senate all night tonight with some of the colleagues to try to make the case that the damage that is going to be done to the credibility of the supreme court is too immense to push it through to the finish. so i know that it feels as if it is, you know, more than likely than not that kavanaugh will be confirmed, but it felt more likely than not that the affordable care act would be repealed before that vote. >> and this is more intense because of the involving sex, and drinking, and the political smear, and going back to left wing conspiracies and clintons and so emotional arguments on both sides. how does the senate restore the comity, the c-o-m-i te y, and the past reputation for to a collegial group who cools it off and slows things down to not get

involved in these kinds of the emotional debates? >> well, it is raeally hard, an unfortunately, the dissent continues. remember, mitch mcconnell has taken all of the remarkable steps to make this the senate look much more like the house. we are now a 50-vote body on all judicial nominations -- >> and in fairness, it started with harry reid. he changed that. at least for some of the nomination, and so then mitch mcconnell took it the next step. >> right, but listen, remember why harry reid changed it. he changed it, because there was unprecedented levels of the filibustering and obstruction from the republicans on the circuit court. so, listen, i get it. i just am saying that i am saying that we are continuinging the go in the wrong direction. yesterday, this fbi are report humiliating and the idea that senators had 60 minutes to look at the report the tear apart and

share one page at a time so that we could read enough of it to be credible before the 60 minutes was up, was humiliating and em bar a razzing ingrazz -- embaro mitch mcconnell has to work with the democrats to restore some of that comity. >> is that what took place in that room, because a lot of people are objecting just to the limits that the white house placed on the fbi when you had other witnesses who were not interviewed, but then you went into the room, and you had to do it page by page and share it around within an hour or so? >> right. we had the hour before we were kicked out of the room. there were, when i was there about 10 to 15 democrats, and weer to apart the report by the staples, and passed the pages around hoping that we would read as many of them as we could in the 60 minutes that we had, all of the while trying to ask questions of the staff who had a little bit more time with it

than us. that is a farce. two things could have solved that. one, the senate republicans could have negotiated the white house to have more than one copy or we could have of course not moved forward with the vote today, and had the weekend and the next week to look at the fbi report, but be clear that the fbi was told not to pursue certain leads and what is clear in reading the are report certain topics were off limits. >> chris murphy, senator, thank you for being with us today. we are now looking at a live protest on caple toll hill and the debate continuing of whether or not to confirm judge kavanaugh, and it is continuing outside of the capitol, and ali has been out there with the protesters and charlie sites, and msnbc contributor and jeff ri goldberg and a chief editorf "the atlantic" had many people sitting down with him, and

making news at the forum. and ali, the protests are continuing, and are they discouraged by jeff flake signalling that he is going to likely vote for judge kavanaugh which means between now and 3:00 is the last moment that they will have to have an impact on susan collins and what is the de decisive vote. >> andrea, what we have heard from the folks here is that immediately after susan collins a made the vote, and cheers for lisa murkowski and people coming up to us to say that they were disappointed in susan collins not listening to women, and not siding with the women on the kavanaugh vote. i think that generally here what is interesting to me is that as much as the protests have moved this ro process along and you are talking about jeff flake confronted in the elevator and in part to push for the fbi investigation, and the pause button, and the protests have had an impact, but at the same time the folks here said that they do believe that at the end of the day, that kavanaugh is going to be confirmed, but what they are sure about is that they are voting in november and looking at joe manchin, and heidi heitkamp and joe donnelly

in tough states for reelection and where their electorate may want him to be confirmed, so maybe the protests here won't have that impact, but certainly come november, voters will. >> and we have had protesters inside as well at the elevator before the procedural vote today and they were surrounding susan collins as she was getting on and off tof the elevator inside of the capitol, itself. and charlie sykes in wisconsin, it has narrowed the gap that the republicans in terms of the enthusiasmle for their candidate s in the midterms has gone up, and it is narrowing the gap and basically within the margin of error with democrats who had a big lead before this. >> yes, there is no question that there is a kavanaugh bump. conservatives have rallied around kavanaugh, and, you know,

this is wone of the rare moment where even in to a anti-trump conservatives seem to have gotten on board, but i wonder whether it is a sugar high or a game-changer, because as we have seen, we have a short attention span in american politics these days, a and i'm guessing that whoever loses this vote this weekend will have the rage edge if in fact judge kavanaugh is confirmed. i think that democrats are going to be highly motivated and maybe, republicans are going to be feeling a little bit more happy and complacent, and so they will have that rocket fuel of anger which is the ultimate voter motivation, but we don't know, and remember, like two years ago this weekend, and are remember, we had the access hollywood tape come out with donald trump talking about what he could grab. we saw how that played out. it does strike me that the republican rationalization to support kavanaugh is similar to the republican rationalization to support donald trump. >> and to jeff who interviewed

lindsey graham today, jeff goldberg at "the atlantic." and you had an angry lindsey grah graham, and the one that we saw at the judiciary committee, and the passions on both sides over this are something that we have not seen in a long time here on capitol hill. >> right. you know, i was surprised by it. but i was also not shocked by it. i was surprised, because it is lindsey graham, and because we have become accustomed to over the years of the lindsey graham who works with hillary clinton and the iconoclastic john mccain, fwbut this is the linds graham reflecting the feelings of the base in south carolina and this is a lindsey graham who understood that the republicans rank and file are highly motivated by this and this is part of the culture war and the war in their minds for the soul of america for the next 30 years and not to say that he does not feel this as well, but he is a political creature and like

everyone on the hill. and he understood just how motivated people were by this. i think that charlie has an interesting point which is to say that if the republicans win this, some of that rage will dissipate, and rage becomes joy, but thien it dissipates, and th democrats have may have the edge going into november, but right now the republicans are unify and enthusiastic and angry, and think they lindsey graham was channeling that. >> and what do you they the impact of all of this is on susan collins as we count down towards her decision at 3:00? >> well, you know, i mean, i don't know, i only understand this directionally which is to say the following, if a republican doesn't go with kavanaugh right now, and given the height of the emotion, and the state that we are in, that prn is not going to have a wonderful or easy future in the republican party. so the pressure on her from that direction has got to be

something north of intense. >> well, jeff goldberg and of course charlie sykes as we count down this countdown to the nomination of the supreme court. and so the fever pitch of how will the kavanaugh vote play in the midterm elections. we will look at the red and blue next with steve kornacki and his new book. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. e wa mitchell reports" on msnbc. your paycheck. your family depends on it.

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discover what over a million families know. we shop... you save. the fight over brett kavanaugh as we have been reporting has sparked partisan fury that's shaping as a key issue for the voters in the midterms. how will it play in critical red and blue states? no one knows better, smartest guy we know, joining me steve kornacki, the authority of "the red and the blue: the 1990s and the birth of political tribalism." in washington tonight, politics and pros. be there. buy books. >> absolutely. >> it's great! your timing, obviously, perfect.

your wisdom, smarts. tell me what you thinks happens here. susan collins, following her heart, following her brain, following the political instincts of maine? >> you know, we were going to find out in a few hours. i'm wondering if there's something significant in the scheduling 3:00 p.m. today and not stretching it out any further. you know? getting through the procedural voterier today. you know? i think everybody's got a hunch here. i kind of think she's trying to get herself to a yes on this. but we'll find out in a couple of hours. >> jeff flake signaling he's gone to -- likely to be yes putting huge pressure then on joe manchin because collins is a yes then -- the pressure goes off manchin. collins goes the other way -- >> there's manchin being the deciding vote in the senate on the most important piece of business, certainly to the trump base, a month before facing re-election in a state that trump won by 42 points. >> where the president of the

united states is in very short ream one distance to commute every day. can be in west virginia. not that he doesn't have a -- he's been there almost every other day. how do we get back to more of a purple or bluish or reddish but not sharply defined red and blue as, of course, it all started in 2000 and that campaign with tim russert and -- >> upset at first. the red and the blue. yeah, yeah. doing the book i was trying to come up with that answer because it's -- you can go back to a time, everybody has complaints of washington but there was a functionality to this system that lasted really into the -- broke down over the last generation and so forces. i think at the root of it what i realized writing this as lubes there's part of us that's hard wired to be tribal. we don't like to admit it and may not know it. we are hard wired that way and the evolution of politics and the evolution of media over the last generation or two it's so

conducive to tribalism and to hyper partisanship and human nature kind of got us into this. maybe we get tired of it and human nature finds a way out of it. >> might be other definitions or distinctions. what i'm hearing from women mostly is that there is a tribal fury that has erupted in a lot of women and women with recovering memories because there's some thing that is you repress so much you don't want to remember them and people are remembering things they haven't thought of for years and that may be another whole -- >> i write about in the book the year of the woman in 1992 which pales in comparison to seeing in 2018. year of the woman is much bigger this year. >> we have to leave it there. the book is "the red and the blue." steve kornacki is our treasure. stay with us. easure stay with us

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thanks for being with us. here's ali velshi. >> thank you. have a good rest of your afternoon. stephanie is on assignment. brett kavanaugh is a step closer to being a supreme court justice. here's how this day unfolded so far. >> i saw what they did to robert bork. i saw what they did to clarence thomas. that was nothing compared to what we have witnessed here in