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Senate to Hold Critical Vote on Kavanaugh's Nomination. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 05, 2018 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He is an incredible intellect, an incredible person.

[05:59:30] SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: Judges are supposed to put emotions aside. This op-ed in no way frees up that basic failing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are four members who have not declared how they intend to vote.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I read the report. It was not intended to find the truth.

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Democrats, you made a mistake. It's going to show up in November.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Friday, October 5, 6 a.m. here in New York. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me this morning. Nice to see you.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: It's nice to be with you. A little bit going on today.

BERMAN: A lot's going on today. I'm just going to level with you. We don't know if Brett Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

The first procedural court is in four hours, and we don't know. There are some signs about where it might be leaning, some tea leaves that might be as big as palm leaves, some hints, which we'll get to in a moment, but we don't know for sure.

At this moment, it all comes down to these four senators: three Republicans and one Democrat. At least two of them need to vote in favor of Kavanaugh in order for him to advance.

So how uncertain is it this morning? Well, Brett Kavanaugh himself did something unprecedented overnight. He wrote an op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal." He conceded that he might have been too emotional in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and promised to be an independent, impartial judge if confirmed.

Ask yourself why did he write this? The answer? Because he thought he had to; because it's close; because he knows his demeanor in his testimony was a problem for some people, including now one retired Supreme Court justice, who overnight said that the incandescent testimony from Kavanaugh changed his opinion about whether he should be on the court.

HILL: Also breaking overnight, new details on that FBI report. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say the FBI reached out to 11 people, interviewing ten of them in connection with the allegations against Kavanaugh, those allegations leveled by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez. Neither Ford nor Kavanaugh were interviewed.

Ford's attorney blasting the move and the report, Democrats citing it as an example that the report itself is nothing more than an attempted cover-up, while the president at a rally in Minnesota says the resistance is starting to backfire, adding he has a real good feeling about Kavanaugh's chances.

A lot to cover this morning. Let's begin with CNN's Sunlen Serfaty, live on Capitol Hill.

Sunlen, good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Erica, good morning to you.

This has been such a contentious battle with so many twists and turns along the way.

But it all comes down to today and that critical procedural vote that will happen about 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on the Senate floor. Republican leaders are certainly projecting confidence going into that vote, but they still don't know for sure if they do, indeed, have the votes that they need to confirm him.

Meanwhile, the nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, makes his last-minute, 11th- hour appeal to save his future.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY (voice-over): Judge Brett Kavanaugh making an unprecedented last-minute pitch to secure support on the eve of today's critical vote, penning a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed vowing to be nonpartisan and explaining his anger in last week's hearing.

JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: You're asking about a blackout. I don't know, have you?

SERFATY: Kavanaugh writing, "I was very emotional last Thursday, more so than I have ever been. I might have been too emotional at times. I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said. I hope everyone can understand that I was there as a son, husband and dad."

The op-ed coming after these remarks from undecided senator, Jeff Flake, on Tuesday.

SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: The interaction with the members was sharp and partisan. We can't have this on the court. We simply can't.

SERFATY: Kavanaugh's temperament prompting former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens to withdraw his report.

JOHN PAUL STEVENS, FORMER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: He has demonstrated a potential bias and potential litigant who would not be able to perform his full responsibilities.

SERFATY: This morning all eyes are on the four senators who will likely decide Kavanaugh's fate, Senator Susan Collins and Flake signaling they are satisfied with the FBI's probe.

FLAKE: I was a "yes" before, and now we're -- we're in the process of reviewing it, and thus far it seems we've seen no credible corroboration. No new corroboration at at all.

SERFATY: Collins telling reporters, "It appears to be a very thorough investigation."

Remaining tight-lipped, red-state Democrat Joe Manchin and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski. Red-state Democrat Heidi Heitkamp, who is currently trailing in her bid for reelection announcing she will vote against Kavanaugh.

SEN. HEIDI HEITKAMP (R), NORTH DAKOTA: If this were a political decision for me, I certainly would be deciding this the other way. I can't get up in the morning and look at the life experience that I've had and say "yes" to Judge Kavanaugh.

SERFATY: Senator Steve Daines also throwing a potential wrench into the confirmation process, telling Republican leadership that he will be in Montana at his daughter's wedding on Saturday when the final vote is scheduled. Daines's spokeswoman telling CNN that the senator spoke with Kavanaugh Thursday and assured him he's made arrangements to get him across the finish line as needed.

[06:05:03] Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley releasing a one-page document summarizing the FBI's probe, insisting it supports the Republican majority's conclusion that there is no corroboration of the allegations made by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez.

But Democrats voicing concern over the investigation's limited scope.

SEN. DIANNA FEINSTEIN (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, The most notable part of this report is what's not in it.

SEN. BOB MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: Is that's an investigation, it's a bullshit investigation. The reality is that -- that is not a full and thorough investigation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: And sources tell CNN that Kavanaugh's surprise op-ed was his own idea.

Meantime, up here on Capitol Hill, many key undecided senators seem to be still actively deliberating over their decision. Later this morning, Senator Manchin, a key undecided senator, he's expected, according to sources, to return to that secure location up here on Capitol Hill to get another look at that FBI report.

And we know that Senator Susan Collins, according to sources, was in that room three times yesterday, including what we believe to be a late-night briefing with many colleagues who are trying to convince her to get to "yes." John and Erica, really, all of this underscoring -- underscoring how there are so many question marks, so many unknowns headed into that vote in just a few hours.

BERMAN: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, up on Capitol Hill. Sunlen, chase them down and let us know what you find out.

Joining us now, CNN senior political analyst John Avlon; CNN political analyst and national political correspondent for "The New York Times" -- you can text him -- Alex Burns; and Alex Wagner. She is co-host of Showtime's "The Circus," a CBS News correspondent, and contributing editor to "The Atlantic."

Alex Wagner, to you first. Welcome.

ALEX WAGNER, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "THE ATLANTIC": Thank you.

BERMAN: Great to have you.

WAGNER: It's a thrill and a pleasure.

BERMAN: I don't want to set any unreasonable expectations, but I think this will change your life.

WAGNER: I'm sure it will. That's why I came at 6 in the morning.

BERMAN: I said at the outset we don't know for sure what will happen. We don't know for certain what will happen. But we kind of sort of know where this is headed.

Jeff Flake said that he thought the investigation was fine and there was no corroborating evidence for Professor Ford. So we pretty much known Jeff Flake is a yes. Then Susan Collins, for "The Circus," you had a chance to speak to her beforehand. What can you tell us about Susan Collins?

WAGNER: We talked to Susan Collins a few days before the hearing, and it was very evident that she wanted to get to "yes." This is someone who -- I asked her, I said, "Senator Collins, given the sort of tension and the conversation around this nomination as a woman, how are you grappling with this?" And her response was, "But I'm a senator." And that, I think, spoke

volumes about how she's thinking about this. She's thinking about this in terms of party, in terms of Congress, in terms of the institution.

And she -- you know, she said she was 90 percent before the hearing. She came out, as you point out, John, that she thinks the investigation has been comprehensive. The major sticking point with Democrats is, as Senator Menendez said, this is a sham. I think he used different language in private.

BERMAN: He used a different word. But I think she is a "yes." I think, actually, the wildcard in all of this is Lisa Murkowski, given the fact that the governor of Alaska, the lieutenant governor of Alaska, they are opposed to Kavanaugh. The native and indigenous population in her state is very firmly against him. Those are state politics that are definitely going to play into her decision.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, and of course Republicans can lose one vote and still get this across the finish line, but there's been an expectation somehow that Murkowski and Collins would stick together.

What's interesting to me is, given the fact that Collins said to Alexa that, you know, she's 90 percent there before all of this. Three times she went to review the FBI document yesterday, including late into the night. That indicates there is something in that 10 percent that is a real obstacle for her, morally or politically, that she's trying to get by.

BERMAN: Well, I don't want to be a cynic, but you could also --

AVLON: Oh, please.

BERMAN: You could also that when she votes "yes," she wants to be able to say, "I worked really hard."

HILL: Yes.

BERMAN: Really, really --

HILL: And here's how I got there. Here's the process that I went through. I didn't take my decision lightly.

What's fascinating, too, is these comments -- and we heard some of them from Sunlen there -- from retired Justice Stevens. One of the things he also said was senators should pay attention for the good of the court. And we heard some of that from Heidi Heitkamp, right?

Alex, when we look at this, we know, bottom line is we're waiting on these four senators, despite the large tea leaves that John Berman pointed out.

BERMAN: Palm leaves.

HILL: But as we look at this, it really is not -- it's not always, even as we're looking at Lisa Murkowski, it's not always about your constituents. It's not always about what's really going to be for the good of, perhaps, your state. It could be what is the good for your political future.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's absolutely right. I think that's true for -- certainly true for Senator Collins, certainly true for Joe Manchin.

Jeff Flake, he's retiring. He can kind of do whatever he wants. He has been sort of wildly candid about saying, right, that he wouldn't be doing any of his if he were running for reelection.

HILL: Yes.

BURNS: Lisa Murkowski is, in some ways, the most interesting one, because she, you know, to all outward appearances, does want to run for re-election, has no intention of sort of hanging up her career early. But she has lost a Republican primary before and been re- elected anyway. She's been abandoned by her party in the middle of a difficult reelection campaign, and she has won anyway, because she knows that state. She works that state. She's from a dynasty in that state.

[06:10:12] And it's a state where, you know, I think Alex is really right to flag the importance of the sort of native Alaskan community coming out against Kavanaugh, because they carried her through her reelection campaign in 2010.

HILL: It's refreshing, too, to hear a lawmaker say, "Listen, I know that I'm actually accountable to these people," as opposed to "I'm accountable to perhaps the party and the votes."

WAGNER: And you have to -- you talked about John Paul Stevens. There are two lines of criticism that opened up in the aftermath of Kavanaugh's testimony. One was he -- has he been truthful? Has he maybe perjured himself about his drinking and his behavior while drunk.

The second was look at how this man behaved. Look at his comportment. Is he really going to uphold the integrity of the court? You saw the American Bar Association came out and say there needed to be a hearing. I think that was difficult for Kavanaugh. And to have a former Supreme Court justice say this man is unfit for the court, these are the things that drive the op-ed that we saw.

HILL: Because of that behavior.

BERMAN: It's unprecedented. It is unprecedented to have a former justice come out and say what he said.

Also unprecedented is to have a Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, basically campaign to that concern, which is what that op- ed is. It's not an apology.

AVLON: No.

BERMAN: I recommend that everybody go read this op-ed very carefully. He doesn't apologize, but he wrote it because he thought he had to.

AVLON: And apparently, this was his idea. It wasn't, you know, the FOX News interview that he was pressured into in the White House. It wasn't necessarily an audience of one performance at a hearing.

But I think, in a very serious way, it was a recognition that his second performance, the second hearing, was a real problem for it. It's what Justice Stevens cited -- questions of temperament, questions of judicial independence -- that really contradicted his previous statements, his previous testimony. And he needed to clean that up and clear that up for the remaining undecided senators.

To say, "Look, mistakes were made." Not an apology, but "Mistakes were made. That wasn't the real me."

WAGNER: "I was emotional."

AVLON: "I was emotional," yes.

HILL: "My tone was sharp."

Here's the other thing that he didn't get into. So in that he says, "There's a few things I should have said," but he doesn't, Alex, go into any detail. So you're left wondering, "What are those things?" Is that left up to interpretation? "Oh, you know what? Maybe he didn't mean to go after the Clintons and call this a partisan effort by the Democrats. You know what, that's what he" -- we don't know.

BURNS: Yes. Right. We know that he has expressed regret for what he said to Senator Klobuchar, right?

HILL: Yes.

BURNS: His sort of shooting back at her about, you know, drinking and alcoholism, given the history in her family and the comments that she had just made.

Beyond that, he has not actually said, you know, "I probably should not have alleged a vast left-wing conspiracy. I probably should not have said what goes around comes around before seeking a lifetime appointment."

So, you know, look, I do think -- I agree with everything John said. On top of that, there is -- this guy, from everything we've seen in his career, also craves a level of mainstream respect and legitimacy that, you know, this is not somebody who's going to be comfortable, in all likelihood, going onto the court as a pariah for the rest of his life, as somebody who is seen as disgraced or sort of a punchline.

And if you are somebody who wants to be a Supreme Court justice, and if you are somebody who's going to be a colleague of his on the Supreme Court, you have to be really concerned about that right now.

WAGNER: You -- you can imagine that Chief Justice John Roberts, who is all about the integrity of the Supreme Court, who loathes bringing before the court cases that could result in a 5-4 split, because it undermines the integrity and the nonpartisan nature of the Supreme Court, he looks out at this and says, "This is going to forever change the tone and the tenor of the Supreme Court. It is going to undermine American belief in the court and the impartiality of the court."

BERMAN: We're going to talk to Joan Biskupic, terrific Supreme Court reporter, a little bit later in the show. And she makes the same point you make. But she does add that, when Kavanaugh is confirmed, John Roberts and the rest of the justices will rally around him. That's just how they roll once you're in the court. They all --

HILL: That is how they roll.

BERMAN: That is how they roll. I want to point out one other thing about Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote this op-ed. The one other thing he told us that he wrote himself with no other input was his opening statement before the Senate, where he said this is, you know, revenge for the Clintons; where he said what goes around comes around. That wasn't impromptu; that was, as he told us, written by him.

AVLON: Yes. That's actually a great point. Because it wasn't just, "Look, I was totally emotional, and I said some things I shouldn't have in the heat of the moment." He wrote them down and read them in front of senators.

And that's why the -- you know, the Clinton line, and the "What goes around comes around," and the implied "I'm going to get you back," you know, that's not entirely off-the-cuff language. The tone in this op- ed and that statement could not be more different.

And I think this is more consistent with who he has tried to be on the bench in his first statement and, presumably, how he sees himself. But you know, as Robert Caro says, power doesn't corrupt; it reveals. And that moment was very revealing, when he thought his --

WAGNER: Well, it's clear he was speaking to an audience of one, President Trump. He needed the White House backing in that critical moment during his testimony. And now he's trying to speak to the American public and people who witnessed that and have their doubts.

[06:15:05] BERMAN: An audience, also, of four, right? An audience of 350 million.

HILL: Sure.

BERMAN: But really an audience of four.

HILL: Yes, yes.

BERMAN: That op-ed written for Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake. That's three. Joe Manchin also.

HILL: And got them copies, maybe?

BERMAN: Yes, exactly. "I just want to make sure you saw this."

BURNS: Do you think Joe Manchin is a "Wall Street Journal" guy? BERMAN: Sorry?

BURNS: Do you think Joe Manchin is a "Wall Street Journal" guy?

BERMAN: You know, I think he reads all the papers, all of them.

WAGNER: He only really --

HILL: On that note -- on that note, from the Supreme Court to the midterm elections, just how will a confirmation battle over Brett Kavanaugh impact our nation in the weeks and years to come? We tackle that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HILL: As the Senate prepares to take that procedural vote on Brett Kavanaugh later this morning, many are looking forward to just how this debate could shape the court's future and, of course, the mid- term elections.

John Avlon, Alex Burns and Alex Wagner are back with us now.

And John Avlon, I'll start with you on this one. There's been so much questioning about it. There's been some polling about it. If Kavanaugh is not confirmed, right, that could actually have more of an impact, I would argue, on Republicans than if he is in the midterms, that's much more --

AVLON: Sure.

HILL: -- galvanizing.

AVLON: Sure. I mean, look, there's always the argument that actually losing a battle rallies your troops, you know, in the next big fight. And, you know, you already see Republicans holding this out, that the Kavanaugh fight isn't only a new front on the culture wars, which always rallies their base, and Republicans tend to win culture-war elections.

[06:20:04] But also, it's a sign of coming attractions: "They want to delegitimize your vote. They want to delegitimize President Trump; impeachment's coming." They're running more on impeachment than the Democrats are, and they've had a big fundraising haul. This has been the one thing. There have been a lot of demoralized Republicans who can't explain or excuse what Donald Trump may say, even though they point to the economy. But this has been a rallying point for Republicans in fundraising and in terms of GOTV. We'll see how it translates.

BERMAN: Alex Wagner, you have seen this. For "The Circus," you went out to one of these battleground states in Missouri, where Claire McCaskill is running against Josh Hawley, and you got a sense of how this is playing.

WAGNER: I did. We went to visit Josh Hawley in Hannibal, Missouri, the birthplace of Mark Twain. And he was at a Christian college having an event. It is -- I came from Washington, D.C., right, where the hills are

alive with the sound of protests. There is -- the tenor, the fractious nature of Capitol Hill, I mean, we show it on television all the time. You cannot underscore enough the emotional nature. And it's largely female protestors in the Hart Building and the Dirksen Building.

You go to Missouri, it is a different story.

BERMAN: Let's watch. We have a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WAGNER: What are the voters of Missouri telling you about the Kavanaugh confirmation process?

JOSH HAWLEY (R), MISSOURI SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, they think it's disgraceful. It's the worst of Washington. It is the absolute worst. It is dysfunction. It is hyper-partisanship. It is a smear for all involved. I mean, nobody, nobody comes out of this having had a good experience, to put it mildly. It's terrible.

WAGNER: Your race is on a knife's edge.

HAWLEY: It is a close race, you've got it.

WAGNER: Is this the thing that tips the race?

HAWLEY: Could well be.

WAGNER: Lindsey Graham said today he has never seen the Republican Party so united, that the fundamental issue of the 2018 midterms has changed, and this is that issue. Do you think that's right?

HAWLEY: I think that's probably right.

WAGNER: There is a narrative that women are furious, that they feel like this is part of a reckoning around gender and power. Are you hearing something different when you talk to voters?

HAWLEY: Well, I'm hearing the voters are furious. What they are telling me is they are furious at what's going on in Washington. They are furious at what looks to be a smear campaign. They are furious about how Dr. Ford has been treated, and they're furious that this has happened. And the reason it has happened is because Senate Democrats wanted it to happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: It seems like he wants them to be furious. He's using the word "furious" a lot. Did you see that?

WAGNER: Well, you can see sort of the narrative emerging here on the right. One, it's comprehensive. It's not vilifying Dr. Ford. It's saying, "We're angry about how her anonymity has been compromised. We're angry about the way she's been treated," which provides safe harbor for people who don't want to feel like they are somehow attacking this victim of potential sexual assault, right? So that's -- it's very comprehensive narrative.

The other piece is it's been folded into a Republican narrative that's found a lot of -- it's been resonant lately, which is that Washington is broken. It's the swamp. It's a Trump narrative. The Democrats are trying to break it; they're obstructionist.

And look, you talk to voters out in Missouri, and they say this is horrible what has been done to this man. This is a smear campaign. They want a restoration of American values as they see them.

And Josh Hawley is running neck and neck with Claire McCaskill. This could be, very well, the thing that tips the balance of the Senate.

BERMAN: What do Democrats say, Alex?

BURNS: Well, I think Democrats in states like Missouri pretty much acknowledge that this is a galvanizing issue on the right. I think that there's, you know, some discomfort on the Republican side that, you know, this sort of careful message about how, you know, Dr. Ford has been treated.

You know, President Trump pretty much drove a truck right over that, right? But if you're Josh Hawley, and you're trying to appear respectful to somebody who says she was a victim of an attempted rape, you know, the president makes that very, very difficult right now.

On the Democratic side and, frankly, the Republican side, too, I think there's not a lot of disagreement about how this plays across the broader political landscape. The Democrats recognize that, in these red Senate states -- Missouri, West Virginia, North Dakota -- this is going to rev up the right.

You know, on the other side of it -- and House Republicans are very conscious of this -- in the big picture, Brett Kavanaugh is not a popular nominee for the Supreme Court. And he's certainly not popular with women. And so in House races, in governor's races, where Republicans are trying really, really hard to get those moderate white women who dislike President Trump to feel more comfortable with the party, this probably isn't what they're going to want to be talking about for the rest of the campaign.

AVLON: And look, we knew going into this, both parties are more motivated than in a typical midterm, but Democrats have had the edge in motivation. This may close that gap.

But that soliloquy from Hawley was a thing of beauty, right? I mean, it wasn't just you see the Republican line of, you know, Democrats exploited Dr. Ford. Real, you know, expression of compassion but not identification. But also the running against Washington of "the vicious hyper-partisanship" up there. It's Donald Trump is not president. Republicans don't control Washington. There's no historical memory or context. It's just this is terrible.

And then the message that Democrats don't get, which is this is -- this is the politics of personal destruction on the Republican side, tearing a good man down. And that really does resonate.

WAGNER: That resonates very, very, very much. And the sort of quality of the conversation around drinking, sexual assault, potential rape.

[06:25:09] There are people that look at that and say, "We don't want our politicians talking about that. We don't want our Supreme Court justices talking about that. What happened to the nobility of office? What happened to the Washington we once knew?" What happened to politics, that you know, was -- a different era, right?

AVLON: Yes.

WAGNER: And they look at that holistically rather than specifically.

BURN: And this is where there is a question on the Democratic side about whether Senate Democrats have sort of badly mishandled this over the last week by making this a debate about a whole lot of things: drinking, yearbooks, the fine points of his high school and college experience, as opposed to this really, really big allegation that is hanging over the confirmation that they've been talking about less than they've been talking about the process.

HILL: Well, even and not even honing in as much. I mean, we saw this from "The New York Times" editorial board. But there are two points where their first point was, you know, misleading testimony and how concerning that was. That hasn't even been as much of a talking point for Democrats as if they really wanted to use it as much as it could have been.

I do want to go back just for a minute to your interview, because what really stood out to me was when you asked him specifically, when you asked Hawley about women, he didn't answer your question.

WAGNER: Yes.

HILL: Did he ever come back to it?

WAGNER: No.

I mean, I think there is a very calculated avoidance strategy to actually get into what is truly a reckoning about gender and power. This is -- this is the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the #MeToo movement sort of proper with the Weinstein allegations. Getting into that debate is not where Josh Hawley is going to win.

Where he is going to win is by saying the tried and true talking point: Washington has become a swamp. We need to clean it up, and it's the Democrats' fault. And that's where -- that's the party line. That's what he --

BERMAN: Can I just play one sound bite as we go? We have to end this segment. Else, they're going to fire me from the control room here. But I want to play what the president said about Al Franken, because I just want this to sink in and so people understand where this discussion might be going in the next few months and years. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Boy, did he fold up like a wet rag, huh? Man! Man, he was gone so fast. He was gone so fast. I don't want to mention Al Franken's name, OK? So I won't mention it. He was gone -- he was gone so fast it was like, "Oh, he did something" -- "Oh, I resign, I quit, I quit."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Alex, is it just me or was the president of the United States making fun of a U.S. senator who resigned over sexual misconduct allegations? And when he -- was he suggesting that the mistake he made was own up to it?

BURNS: It was resigning. It was resigning. I mean, it goes to the president's world view that the worst thing you can do is admit that you've done something wrong. And it's also just -- it exposes what I think we all basically know, which is that so much of what the president says is in totally bad faith.

That he was calling on Al Franken to take a responsibility for the allegations against him a year ago, right? That he was out on Twitter and on other platforms talking about how Franken should be embarrassed, how Democrats should be embarrassed by Franken.

This is going to fuel what is, on the Democratic side, already this toxic strain. You see it on Twitter all the time, of people saying that Franken was set up, that he was wrong to quit and that his -- the women of the Senate were wrong to turn on him.

WAGNER: Well, you also have to keep in mind that part of Trump's brand is the humiliation. Doesn't actually matter what you did, but whatever you did is reason to call you out and humiliate you, especially if you're a Democrat. And that's what's on display. I mean, that works in those crowds.

HILL: It does.

AVLON: Deny and fight, deny and fight, that's Donald Trump's basic bottom line.

HILL: And that comes from Roy Cohn from the very beginning. And we know that, yes.

BERMAN: That's his takeaway from the Supreme Court saga --

AVLON: That's right.

BERMAN: -- that has engulfed the nation for the last month.

That was great. Thank you all very much for being here.

HILL: Thanks, guys.

And a reminder, "The Circus" airs this Sunday, 8 p.m. on Showtime. BERMAN: All right. Coming up, the first lady's trip to Africa, in Kenya now, her encounter -- yes -- with a baby elephant that left her a little startled. That's next.

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