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hello and welcome to crossfire where all things considered i'm peter lavelle america is a house deeply divided and that division only continues the entire brett kavanaugh saga has turned into blood sport demanding each and every one of us pick a side we're in new territory and that place is called winner takes all. cultural wars i'm joined by my guest christopher i'm in washington he's a republican strategist in los angeles we have robert barnes he is a trial lawyer in criminal and constitutional law and in chad going to go we cross to brian joyce he's the host of the brian joyce show all right jim cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it who gets the go first of all the guy that got up early is for this program that means it's robert. ok it's talk about the brett kavanaugh thing in a much broader cultural and political sense. here what does it represent to you

because i can i i am even willing to admit my introduction is a bit over the top but i'm trying to make a point here because it does seem like we're in an era an epoch where one wins one loses and that is not part of the american tradition go ahead robert. no doubt we have these evidentiary standards and due process standards and legal standards that we've created over hundreds of years in the united states and basically all of them are being scratched and scrapped overnight and what's happening is we're in a you know i'm just waiting for when the next nominee comes up he said well when he was in kindergarden he pulled susie's hair so i mean it's getting to that kind of place where we're going back twenty years thirty years forty years we're going back to disputed events of what happened at a party on a particular night and when we get to that place then at some point we're no longer in a place where truth matters we're no longer a place where justice matters and where the me two era has gotten has gone so far out of reach that it's no longer about justice or fairness it's only about power

and it is about just who wins and who loses ok brian the criticism of the left to go through this i think this utter nonsense i'm sorry that's my opinion of the whole thing is that the left just continues to move the goalpost and they're being very disingenuous when they say they want justice i think robert already said that they just want power because advice and consent is about if you're competent to serve on the court that's all the senate committee is really supposed to ask how do you respond to moving the goalposts go ahead brian well i think it's absolutely true that democrats are playing politics with this nomination and they're trying to delay the nomination but to that point i would argue why shouldn't they i mean when you talk about well really the only litmus test should be sure that this person be qualified for the court we did have somebody who was qualified for the court in merrick garland. and last i checked it was the republican party not democrats who

left him sitting on the bench without a hearing for a year now they're trying to shove brett kavanaugh through in a month or less why did mitch mcconnell leave merrick garland who was a phenomenally qualified justice why didn't leave him sitting there for a year without even giving him the decency of a hearing but what democrats are doing here is they're taking the obstructionism and they're just shoving it right back in the face of republicans i think it's just par for the course in washington d.c. ok fair enough christopher but one could make the argument i certainly would make the argument that this is different in the sense that it's just not playing politics it's really it's destroying a process and it's destroying a tradition i mean sure fine you get your power but what's it worth when you don't have a process that is that everyone could agree to and i think this is that the the new

territory were even go ahead christopher in washington. i think you're correct i think that the real loser here is the american citizen in terms of the faith in the process their faith in what's true what's not true i think the truth is the furthest thing from the interest of all these try of tribal forces i think you're right peter there's almost kind of puts you in this default position of which tribe meddling this man kavanagh on any fronts that they can and they just don't want to see a competent conservative justice on the court i would remind you that neal gorsuch never faced this kind of scrutiny he never faced these kind of accusations john roberts never faced these kind of accusations and on the other side of the aisle neither did elana kagan or sonia sotomayor i mean the fact of the matter is we've had three different justices in the past ten years placed on the supreme court two democrats one republican none of them faced these allegations of you know settling that since you don't think. i don't i don't think the evidence they are to conclude

that that brett kavanaugh is a serial sex predator i think there's more than enough evidence to suggest that it was a little bit of a wild child and the reason why these allegations are coming out and they didn't come out on so many you'll gorsuch is because there are none of these allegations against you all right chris or so i can just to kind of condense what brian just said there then then allegation is conviction ok but i don't understand that that's the that's the leap of faith i don't agree with don't understand think it is wrong ok just says he just because other people want to accuse doesn't mean cavanagh is guilty go ahead chris. or i mean first i mean i agree with with robert in terms of the process and my recommendation was i don't think these confirmation hearings should be televised anymore i think we should be able to hear and read transcripts and actually look at the rule of life like everything is just become so so fanatical and then for brian i wouldn't disagree but i think fox has been more than

fair i think to that doctor for it seems very credible and that it's been concerning here's my only issue is here's my issue i don't believe it's a civic duty to hold something for thirty five years and then to come out and refuse to do it in your home state of california i think there's a lot of suspicious things that have been coming out in terms of motive and you have the democratic party coming out there saying well many people are trying to recruit mr haven't i need to run for president here's a guy who represents adult film stars digging up fake news stories left and right and that's going to be the guy to take the lead and it's no surprise because as was just pointed out there's a police report with keith ellison there is evidence and you have the woman that's running to replace him in congress saying well the first thing i want to do is impeach the president and when asked what she did peaches she had no clue what she was talking about so and we've got the list goes on senator jila brand i really really believe dr ford you're friends with harvey weinstein i mean the democrats have absolutely become uncredible from head to toe on. issues of

sexual assault in my view ok let me go to let me go to robert before we go to the break here i mean if you look at the pattern from the letter from the ford letter. to feinstein all the way to now convinced me it wasn't all preplanned unpackaged convince me it wasn't go ahead robert sure i mean i think the only thing that could defend of ford is that she does give off signs of a misplaced memory so i defended a lot of people that have been victimized by various forms of abuse and salt and i learned early on how to try to distinguish between what was a good case and what was not a good case and she gives all the signs of a bad case now that means that she could possibly sincerely believe it and she could have misattribution issues so that for her it may not be a politically manipulated ivette i have no doubt however that senator feinstein and her so-called attorneys in this case were in fact politically manipulating this from beginning to end so i think that the only question is whether ford was a co complicit participant or just another victim of a politicized witch hunt process that has made the advice and consent process and

is sort of a laughing stock in a joke and well i just going to say we're going to have to go to a break here but rachel michel she is a compelling person and what she wrote we might talk about that after our break after a short break we'll continue our discussion on political correctness in the united states stay with. the church secret indeed priests accused of sexually abusing children can get away with it literally. to call this to do graphic solution so what the bishop robert could speak to that ok but crystal wright i really think it's a. it's proof this is providing the the popular culture right now it started the

universities now and it says it's winner take all i get everything shut up nod your head and do what you're told that's it in a nutshell chris for i'd lords of the curia i mean i i would disagree that this is on precedent i mean look at the clinton presidency certainly he wasn't ph and there was enough there are further precedent for a president which the congress would look into but i think we have to look at the broader aspect of what's going on if you look at the platforming you look at what's happened with twitter and others where you have someone like for example alex jones who's d. platform but then you have someone like louis farrakhan said much crazier stuff he's not the left is trying to diminish the first amendment. rights of those that they disagree with they're absolutely becoming everything they supposedly object to and we've seen it again and again we've seen it in this particular outfit where you know this is a big concern in terms of the issue of being heard and and sexual assault and yet just look at current noosa look at look at they've been on the wrong side of almost

every one of those issues so in terms of burden of proof i don't think it's there i think there's a lot of doubt and i think i'm just looking at that objectively in terms of not being able to know how they got to that location this conclusion and now that the left's narrative is well the oh you know this man's temperament apparently you're supposed to be ok with getting falsely accused of sexual assault so i think he reacted probably the normal way but in terms of burdens of proof it's just not there and in terms of course it who knows i think the left is looking at the health of other members on the court and realizing oh if we get cavanagh confirmed what if the republicans go ahead and get another justice if exact for example ginsburg steps down exactly about how or they're in there for peter they're swinging for the fences for a reason because they're losing power you know robert and one and one point in time i don't think it's finally backfired whether it's c.n.n. people crawling into potholes and pretending like this column is worse than it is it's just it's become so ridiculous it's real i know i know fake it i know and so.

ok so i just think what might do tell me about it i live in russia and i watch with c.n.n. and then most of the season is about i do mean. well good fiction not bad fiction i would say what i. had brought i just got bryan in and jump in because you're the odd man out ahead when you when you have a presidential candidate when you have somebody like donald trump calling mexicans rapists when you have somebody like donald trump cheating on three wives having sex with a bill and saying he many may think he's talking about certainly no i'm talking about oh excuse me i'll finish thank you donald trump has it made it he paid hush money to stormy daniels if you're going to call mexicans rapists and have sex with oranges are they are turning up they might want to expect some negative headlines guys might want to let me go to robert because robert's a lawyer i mean to go at all of the oh yeah all these things look i think even his

supporters he donald trump is no choir boy they know they didn't vote for him because they thought he was a choir boy he's rude he's boisterous he's an ego to cicle maniac sometimes but none of these things are you legal and none of the things have to do with anything with policy that's what i'm interested in is policy i personally would like to see a conservative judge on the supreme court because i'd like those policies but the democrats don't talk about any of those things robert. yeah i mean i think they've got away from sort of policy principle debates and have become enamored and meshed in very much personality debates and often frankly that's good terrain for trump i mean trump's belief is that if he's dominating the news he's winning the news no matter what the nature of those news is so i think they've sort of got into the reality t.v. environment where they've lost a sense of perspective and in the process lost their sort of long term institutional and intellectual edge that they could have with the american

electorate in the process so they they've gone from being people who wanted to be the high brow professors to being the jerry springer's of politics and i don't think that's ultimately in their institutional interest that's fair and i think they should re-examine that that's very very brian do you think that there's going to be a backlash against this campaign against cavanagh do you think that that might be a reason for people republicans to go out and vote. i don't think there's going to be a backlash no i think democrats are going to retake the house there are polls out this week indicating that a majority of americans right now don't feel very good about the kavanaugh nomination i think it's going to backfire with democrats with the same people that would have backfired with them anyway i mean the fact of the matter is look they are playing obstructionism yes i mean that's that's of course what they're doing they're trying to delay this nomination through the midterms that's politics you know when people ask why did it take so long for them to bring these allegations of

the table well obviously yes they're waiting till the last minute to try to screw the republicans i i think it's only going to help their cause with their base and right now it looks like most independents are not exactly and they are murdered with great capital christopher all i can say to that is that what about the polls in two thousand and sixteen and the polls today why should we believe the polls now first of all we just have to think we just have to think we just have to think brian for telling the truth right there what he just said is what senate democrats won't say which is that they waited to the last minute to try to to try to pull that i think you know it's really interesting to see but did anyone else find it odd that the attorneys were working pro bono or that they were covering polygraphs i've been searching my whole life peter for attorneys that work program also thank goodness we have actually found attorneys that are just so honest and they're so great they work for free i need their number because last i checked i know lots of innocent people that have been working with attorneys and bankruptcy everywhere i

be like i think but you know what i say you don't trust the process and i think if you had debra katz as your attorney she would make sure you were convicted of the most heinous crime even if you didn't do it all right gentlemen would run out of time many thanks to my guests and while she did los angeles and in chattanooga and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember. cooked additional note of what was an ounce of to linger some of these it's just.

the most. simple yet so anyway if you. look at the showing at the brentwood ship is going to. do you think it'll show. you the state senate. vote of shipping. most of the book via the work of the person you will have still to say no i don't know what the move. was the latest news in the press. boys and you throughout the show you have put this was going to. move listeners through the summer in the store. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

what politicians do sometimes even. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or some of the.