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Kavanaugh Vote Set; Testimony Grips the Nation; Kavanaugh Testifies on Assault Accusations. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired September 28, 2018 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00] MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: At minimum, that's not the way to win.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Very quickly, does the White House, have they put any thought, or Republicans put any thought into the potential backlash of what happens if Kavanaugh is confirmed?
HABERMAN: I think that they think they don't have any choice. I think they think the midterms are going to be really tough anyway. What they have thought this whole time is that if you pull him, then you are dead, because you're depressing your base of voters. And I think that that is a logical argument.
They have believed they have had to go in with this the whole time. They considered a hearing a jump ball. And right now -- and what a Trump adviser said to me at the break yesterday before Kavanaugh came on was, he has to -- he has to win. It's not going to be just enough to kind of hold his own. And they feel like he did. We will know when the votes came in. But I think that they think the risk was worst if they lost, John, let's put it that way.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know. I feel like whoever speaks last gets the benefit. And so I think that if she had spoken last, we would be having a bit of a different conversation. She knew that in asking that she would speak last. So because he spoke last, he got the final word.
HABERMAN: I think at the end -- look, I mean, these kinds of allegations often come down to a he said/she said in a courtroom. But that having been said, I think that there are -- there are logical arguments on both sides. She deserves to be heard. She deserves to have this taken seriously. But I think then, the flip side is, he also deserves to defend himself and we are never going to know what happened.
I spoke to a Republican strategist yesterday who had initially been saying that this person thought that Kavanaugh was dead at the break, and then after Kavanaugh spoke, said, I believed both of them. I heard that a lot yesterday.
BERMAN: Maggie Haberman, great to have you with us. Thank you.
CAMEROTA: All right. Will yesterday's hearing became a where were you when moment, on planes, in doctor officers, everybody was watching. So we'll take a look at how Americans across the country marked this historic hearing, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:35:55] BERMAN: People across the country, many even midflight, gripped by the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Our Jason Carroll live here with a look at that.
Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you.
You know, the images all across social media show no matter where people were, the Senate hearing became must-see TV. It wasn't a trial, but those who tuned in became jurors trying to decide for themselves who was telling the truth and who was not.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL (voice over): Across the country on Thursday, images like this, Americans across the political spectrum captivated by the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh, from California, where Blasey Ford currently lives, to Chicago, to New York. People gathering by TVs, tablets and cell phones to watch the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing. Protesters and supporters of Kavanaugh seen watching the hearing together from a TV in Senator Chuck Grassley's office and on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the usual sounds of traders yelling and bells ringing, replaced by the hearing playing out on television.
CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, KAVANAUGH ACCUSER: I have been married to Russell Ford since 2002 and we have --
CARROLL: Inside the hearing, emotions ran high.
FORD: I am here today, not because I want to be, I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.
CARROLL: Many in the room shedding tears during Christine Blasey Ford's opening remarks. The mood growing more tense as the day went on.
Emotions escalating into the evening, as Republicans, who had relied on prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Blasey Ford, took over, making their anger known.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: God, I hate to say it, because these had been my friends, but let me tell you, when it comes to this, you're looking for a fair process, you came to the wrong town at the wrong time, my friend.
CARROLL: An extraordinary hearing stepping outside the beltway transfixing a divided nation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: And you think of some of the most-watched political events on TV, inaugurations, key debates come to mind. In September of 2016, well over 80 million people tuned in to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off for their first debate, setting a new record. Still waiting for some of the numbers to come in on how many people turned in yesterday.
CAMEROTA: Oh, that will be fascinating.
CARROLL: Yes.
CAMEROTA: Because everyone was talking about it.
CARROLL: Everyone was watching.
CAMEROTA: Yes, in every corner.
All right, thank you very much.
So, if you can believe this, it has only been 12 days --
BERMAN: I --
CAMEROTA: Since "The Washington Post " first published Christine Blasey Ford's name. Think of all that has happened.
BERMAN: I didn't have my driver's license back then.
CAMEROTA: I know.
BERMAN: I feel like it was 100 years ago.
CAMEROTA: I mean you're still not shaving, but I'll get to that later.
Next, we talk to the reporter behind Ford's story about where we are now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:42:57] CAMEROTA: Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court hopes hang in the balance this morning after Christine Blasey Ford, one of the women accusing him of sexual assault, delivered dramatic, emotional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. The committee is set to vote on him in just three hours.
Joining us now is the journalist who first reported Ford's story, investigative reporter for "The Washington Post," Emma Brown.
Emma, thanks so much for being here.
EMMA BROWN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Thanks for having me.
CAMEROTA: We have been marveling that it was less than two weeks ago that you first broke the story and that we first learned the story of Christine Blasey Ford and all that has happened since then. What was it like to watch her testify in this moment that she never wanted to have happen, she had hoped to stay anonymous?
BROWN: It was a remarkable moment. And -- and, you're right, it has felt like much longer than 12 days. But I -- it -- I felt in watching her, like, I was listening to the same person I interviewed for this story that we published about her. She presented just as she presented to me really. And, you know, I wondered, how would she do in front of this -- in the face of this incredible pressure, under intense scrutiny by not just the senators in front of her, but really millions of people around the country. And she came across just the way she did to me.
CAMEROTA: I'm not asking you to reveal your sources, but I think that many Americans do want to know how the letter to Dianne Feinstein that was supposed to be secret and confidential got leaked. Do you have any information on that?
BROWN: I don't know who leaked the letter. And I think that that is a mystery that a lot of reporters in Washington today are going to be working on, trying to dig into.
What I can tell you is that Feinstein yesterday flatly denied that she -- that she or her office was the source of this leak. And what she said -- she sort of hinted that maybe Blasey Ford's friends, she had spoken to friends about it, perhaps that was a way that news of her story got out.
[06:45:03] I think Ford herself, and her lawyer, you know, we reported before that they feel Feinstein kept her confidence. She asked Feinstein to keep this a secret and she felt that Feinstein kept that commitment.
CAMEROTA: Let's talk about Judge Kavanaugh. His statement that he read that -- I think it was something like a 40-minute statement, was different. It deviated than his prepared statement that he had planned to read and it took a much more defiant, angry tone. Do you have any reporting on why he changed that?
BROWN: You know, my colleagues have reported that President Trump was not happy with Kavanaugh's appearance on Fox News a few days ago, felt it was wooden, felt it was not impassioned enough. And so, yes, you're absolutely right, Kavanaugh came into the hearing room, you know, the night before he had -- the Judiciary Committee had made public his prepared remarks and they were quite short. They really mirrored what he had said on Fox News. And what he ended up delivering was completely different. It was -- I mean the same message, I did not do it. I categorically deny this. But as -- it was much more impassioned, much -- much more partisan, you know, mentioning the Clintons and talking about how this was a coordinated attack to take him down, he said.
CAMEROTA: Let's talk about his honesty and whether there's a way to gauge if he was being truthful there yesterday. You've done reporting by talking to I believe some of his friends or college roommates or high school associates about his drinking. And we have seen in lots of reports that he drank in -- to excess. Here are some of the words that have been used in press reports. He was a staggering drunk, he was sloppy, he was incoherent, he was a belligerent drunk. These are the people who knew him best in high school and college. There have been at least five people who have reported that.
But yesterday he kept saying that those were all mischaracterizations. In fact, when Senator Amy Klobuchar asked him if he'd ever blacked out from drinking, he said, I don't know, have you, which was a stunning response that he then had to apologize for.
So do you think that he was being honest about his level of drinking in high school and college?
BROWN: Well, friends we spoke to from Yale, folks he went to school with at Yale, after the Fox interview, you know, he -- they said he painted this picture of himself as a choirboy and that's not the Brett Kavanaugh we remember. They -- they said a couple -- two women, Republican -- one Republican, one Democrat, said we drank with him. We were friends with him. And we just don't think it's credible that he never has blacked out, never had memory lapses because he drank heavily.
In yesterday's hearing, he said frequently, I like beer. Is there -- you know, as if to say, is there something wrong with that? That he -- he was, as you just, with -- in the exchange with Klobuchar in particular, visibly frustrated by these questions about black out.
CAMEROTA: The -- I just want to read a little bit of your reporting. This is from two or three days ago. This is a friend of his from Yale, quote, Brett was a sloppy drunk and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He'd end up slurring his words, stumbling. There's no medical way I can say that he was blacked out, but it is not credible for him to say that he has no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.
And, of course, I mean, therein lies the entire question. The question of whether or not he does remember -- or he could remember what happened in that bedroom that Dr. Ford says that she was in. I mean that -- there -- that is the question. And so I don't know if we got to the bottom of that yesterday.
BROWN: Well, that is the question. But then layered on top of that is the question that you were just asking about, about honesty and credibility. And, you, with people -- people in our reporting contradicting now what he has said about himself, it adds -- it adds this other layer. It's -- you know, for these women who spoke to us about his drinking habits in college, this was not because they wanted -- they thought it was important for people to know that he drank in college. This is because they felt it was important for people to know they stretched -- that they believe he stretched the truth.
CAMEROTA: Understood.
Emma Brown, thank you very much for sharing your reporting with us.
BROWN: Thank you. CAMEROTA: John.
BERMAN: All right, terrifying moments in a plane over the South Pacific. It crashed into the ocean, leaving passengers in water up to their waists. How everyone was able to make it out alive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:53:32] BERMAN: The search for a missing six-year-old boy with autism is over. Police in North Carolina say they believe they found the body of Maddox Ritch submerged in a creek in Gastonia. They want to speak to a male jogger and a photographer who were seen in the park where Maddox went missing. The little boy ran off from his father last week and then vanished.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, what a horrible story. So many people were praying for him.
Now to this. Investigators are heading to the scene of a plane crash near Micronesia in the western Pacific. The Air Niugini flight overshot the runway. It ended up in the sea. All 47 people onboard survived. And they were rescued by locals in boats. One passenger described terrified passengers in water up to their waists using the emergency exit to escape. Incredibly, no serious injuries were reported.
BERMAN: Yesterday's Senate hearing, it was raw, it was emotional, but --
CAMEROTA: It was hilarious.
BERMAN: For some late-night comics. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Then it was time for Dr. Blasey Ford to read her statement. When Blasey Ford was finished, Senator Grassley asked if she needed a break.
CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, KAVANAUGH ACCUSER: I'm OK, I got the coffee. Thank you very much. I think I can proceed and sip on the coffee.
COLBERT: All she needed was coffee? I was just watching and I needed a venti Xanax.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Before you get to your testimony, and the chairman chose not to do this, I think it's important to make sure you're properly introduced. And I have to --
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I was going to introduce her, but if you want to introduce her, I'll be glad to have you do that. But I want you to know, I didn't forget to do it because I would do that just as she was about to speak.
[06:55:05] FEINSTEIN: Thank you.
JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE": So how long have those two been married?
NOAH TREVOR, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": Even people on planes were watching the hearings. And it was so gripping that it was the first time people were praying for a delay. Even the flight attendants were watching the flight, like, get your own peanuts, get your own peanuts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She does not look like some partisan hack who's trying to take down Brett Kavanaugh.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS: This is a disaster for the Republicans.
COLBERT: Although, to be fair, their last disaster is president now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: I didn't think it was possible.
CAMEROTA: I didn't either.
BERMAN: I didn't think it was possible that one could laugh over yesterday.
CAMEROTA: That shows how clever the comedians are.
All right, we are watching four senators this morning to see how they will vote on Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation. What impact did yesterday's hearing have on them? All that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. 7:00 a.m. on the East Coast.
A moment of choosing. Apparently an excruciating moment of choosing for four U.S. senators who have to decide in the next minutes, in at least one case, whether they want the supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to go forward. This is a decision that will affect the court, the politics and the culture of our country for generations to come.
[07:00:07] Republican Senate leaders, they are full speed ahead with Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process on the heels of the historic, emotionally raw hearing.
