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New Day

Feinstein Calls for Delay; Voters Oppose Nomination; Farrow Talks about New Allegation. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 24, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: For our U.S. Viewers, NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Dianne Feinstein calling for an immediate postponement of Kavanaugh's confirmation after a new allegation.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Kavanaugh is saying this is a smear. She would like the FBI to investigate.

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh will live with the consequences of this for the remainder of their lives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's taking the opportunity, even though the process doesn't appear to be one that's set up to find the truth.

SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Everything I know about Judge Kavanaugh goes against this allegation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president questioned why it took so long for Ford to come forward.

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Accusers go through a lot of trauma. It's not something that we want to do to blame the accuser.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: :In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

BERMAN: If your head isn't spinning already, it soon will be.

Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins us.

And she joins us in the wake of major new allegations against Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein, is now calling for an immediate postponement of Kavanaugh's confirmation proceedings after a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh surfaced overnight. This report is laid out in graphic detailed by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer in "The New Yorker." It comes just hours after Professor Christine Blasey Ford agreed to appear at an opening hearing on Thursday to discuss her sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Kavanaugh and the White House deny the claim made by a second woman who was a classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale. Deborah Ramirez telling "The New Yorker" Kavanaugh exposed himself in her at a dorm party. She says he thrust his gentiles in her face and caused her to touch him without her consent. Ronan Farrow broke that story, again along with Jane Mayer. Ronan will join us in just a few moments.

BERMAN: All right, joining us now, CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, chief counsel and policy director at the Judicial Crisis Network Carrie Severino, and White House reporter for "The Washington Post," Seung Min Kim.

And Seung Min, I want to start with you, because you've got some fascinating reporting from over the weekend about how Brett Kavanaugh has been responding really at first to the allegations from Professor Blasey Ford, that he was frustrated in practice sessions when pressed about questions of his own sexual and drinking history. And that was before at least these new public allegations came to light.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": And the -- that's very accurate. And what these practice sessions are designed to make him uncomfortable because Judge Kavanaugh and the White House, even before we got the hearing officially on the books yesterday for Thursday, they knew that if this hearing were to occur, they were -- he was going to face very uncomfortable questions from Democrats who are planning -- who have already told me that they are going to probe essentially every corner of his personal life. So typically before a big confirmation hearing, Supreme Court nominees

go through one of these murder boards. Oftentimes they're talking about legal decisions, or past personal views on topics. But this time it discuss very personal details of his life. And it -- you know, our sources indicate that this was a difficult session for him. But it does shows just how deeply they are preparing for this major, dramatic confrontation that we are still on track to see this coming Thursday.

HILL: As far as we know, this Thursday at 10:00 a.m. We learned that -- a majority of the details that have been hammered out, not long before this new report from "The New Yorker" dropped.

Jeff Toobin, what's your sense? Does this new reporting change anything in terms of what's planned for Thursday?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I don't know if it changes Thursday. I think it changes the s the whole story because it is another credible, corroborated allegation of sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh a long time ago. And senators are just going to have to decide whether it matters to them. I think it does change things. But, you know, this -- this is an election with 100 voters, and we'll see if they're interested in these facts.

BERMAN: Jeffrey, I want to get your reaction when you first read this new piece in "The New Yorker," which you also work for, from Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer. The substance of the allegations are that Debbie Ramirez says that when she was a freshman in college Brett Kavanaugh thrusts his gentles in her face and caused him to touch them -- her to touch them. He denies it. The White House denies it.

So, again, on the substance, what do you make of it?

TOOBIN: Well, I mean, you know, the -- the -- the -- what's striking about the allegation, it is similar in atmospherics to the high school allegation. You know, the excessive drinking, the, you know, coercive relationship with young women. If you read Mark Judge, you know, the alleged accomplice in the first -- in the first assault, you know, the world he describes at Georgetown Prep of, you know, really absurd amounts of drinking, weird -- you know, weird hostility towards women, I mean it's all of a piece. It is all consistent with one another.

Are they all lies? Perhaps. But, you know, it certainly has the ring of truth to me. And certainly, as you mentioned, you know, Ronan and Jane are colleagues of mine. They have impeccable reputations for accuracy and honesty. And, you know, I think the question is, what are people going to do with this? The idea that it's all made up seems sort of preposterous at this point.

[07:05:17] HILL: We've also seen -- as much as all of this is playing out, obviously, in the political arena and we're hearing from lawmakers over the weekend, who -- (INAUDIBLE) saying they've made up their minds. Yes, they'll hear -- they'll hear both sides out, but they've made up their minds. We're hearing that from Lindsay Graham. We're hearing essentially the same thing from Mazie Hirono. So this is not limited to one side of the aisle.

But there is also as we look at this, Karen, I want to get your take on this, there is the court of public opinion. These are not the people who are voting on the nomination. But, as we know, to the American voter, the Supreme Court and nominees are incredibly important when it comes to how they cast their votes and how it may influence them. And so we just look at some of the recent polling in terms of -- there's a Fox News poll in terms of -- the question was, would you vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh? There is a significant change in those who are now saying yes versus just last month?

CARRIE Severino, CHIEF COUNSEL AND POLICY DIRECTOR, JUDICIAL CRISIS NETWORK: Oh, sure. It's no surprise because he's been subject to a sustained campaign, a public smear campaign against him for the last two weeks. I think what we're seeing here is the initial Ford allegations are unraveling before our eyes. Now we have every single other person who was alleged to be at this event saying it didn't happen, you know, that one -- her friend even saying, I don't even -- didn't even know Brett Kavanaugh, this didn't happen at all. Now his calendars have come out from the time showing that he was out of -- out of the area for most of the time that this kind of vaguely timed allegation took place. So it seems even less likely.

Now the Democrats are going crazy trying to find something else they can do. And I've got to disagree with Jeff, this allegation is even less credible. You have a woman who initially when she talked to "The New Yorker" couldn't even be sure that Kavanaugh was there. And then only after six days of coaching with her lawyer decided maybe he was. Everyone she alleged was there also says it didn't happen. So there -- the parallel I see between these is you have -- you have an accuser here who, for whatever reason, has a story that absolutely doesn't line up with everyone they claim should be there to corroborate. These -- this is just now a smear campaign on steroids.

BERMAN: Let me just -- you just make clear what the calendars reportedly show.

SEVERINO: Yes.

BERMAN: They reportedly do not show any notation showing that there was a party that Brett Kavanaugh went to, but those who have reviewed it says it doesn't disprove the possibility that he went to such a party. And as for --

TOOBIN: And can we also --

BERMAN: Hang on one sec, Jeffrey.

TOOBIN: And can we also just like pause and ask ourselves, how many 17-year-olds have calendars that talk about, like, small drinking parties at somebody's house? I mean how absurd is that?

SEVERINO: Well, he has -- he has other parties on this calendar. I mean, look, it's not -- that's not -- that's not a rock solid alibi, partly because she doesn't -- she doesn't have --

BERMAN: No, I just wanted to be clear. I just wanted to be clear --

SEVERINO: Yes, no, but he has other parties on there. That's not fair.

BERMAN: The calendars don't show definitely that he was out of town when this party took place.

SEVERINO: That's because her -- that's because she has a year span that it might have taken place.

BERMAN: I understand. I understand. I just want to (INAUDIBLE) what we know about the calendars.

SEVERINO: Sure.

BERMAN: And as for the witnesses, Leland Kaiser (ph), who is a woman who apparently Professor Blasey Ford said was there, says she has no memory of such a party, doesn't believe meeting Brett Kavanaugh. But, to be fair, she does say she believes Professor Ford's allegations. I just want to make clear when we're talking about when we're laying out who is saying what at this moment (ph).

SEVERINO: Sure. She didn't say that, however, in her letter to the Judiciary Committee, which is what's under penalty of felony, just for the record.

BERMAN: Well, she won't be able to testify in open court about that, which is interesting, because as of now, Seung Min, and this gets to, I think, where we are in this back and forth, there still won't be other -- any other witnesses on Thursday. It's just Professor Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, even with this new allegation.

And in your head, does this draw questions about the argument over the potential delay back and forth? If you look at Ronan and Jane Mayer's report, they suggest that Democrats knew about this charge last week and also some senior Republicans knew about this new allegation last week. So you could see why Democrats wanted to delay, perhaps, and why Republicans, perhaps, didn't.

KIM: So we had immediately after "The New Yorker" report came out last night, we reached out to a lot of the offices that you're referring to right now. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office tells me that, no, the Senate Democrats who appeared to have this allegation, according to "The New Yorker" reporting, did not come to them with this, that they did not know about this until, you know, the report came out. Senator Grassley's office also, I talked to them, and they said we did not know about these allegations until "The New Yorker" story published again tonight and then again Senate Democrats did not come to them with this allegations because that's been one of many, many contentious points throughout this whole -- throughout this whole episode.

You know, Senator Dianne Feinstein had initially received these allegations from Dr. Ford back in -- back in July. And because Dr. Ford wanted to remain confidential and Senator Feinstein said she wanted to respect her wishes, it -- she knew about these for a long time. And then until this accusation -- this accusation came out into the open, and whether you believe Senator Feinstein did the right thing or not, this clearly had been a point of contention, particularly between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. I'm sure there will be more questions asked later today about who knew what, when.

[07:10:24] But, I mean, what I can say from our reporting last night is that particularly Mitch McConnell's office and Chuck Grassley's office say that they -- that they did not know about this in advance.

TOOBIN: Can we just ask, you know, just step back and remember that Republicans kept the Supreme Court at eight seats, at eight -- you know, eight justices for a year. They had no hearings, no vote on Merrick Garland for a year. Why is the rush -- why does this hearing have to be this week? Why not have it next week? Why not -- if these allegations are so controversial, let's investigate them. Let's have the FBI. Let's, you know, see, you know, why -- what's the big rush?

SEVERINO: Well, I would say, the Senate has been conducting an investigation. The Democrats have been asking in front of TVs and rallies asking for an investigation while actually boycotting the real investigation going on. They would have had an opportunity already this week to question everyone from Judge Kavanaugh, to all of the other people alleged to be at that party. That -- that was a bipartisan investigation that's supposed to be going on. But when you have the Democrats refusing to show up, it kind of rings hollow as they're asking for an investigation.

TOOBIN: There was no hearing. What are you talking about?

SEVERINO: The -- no, the Senate -- the Senate staff has been conducting an investigation this entire week. Immediately, for example, after yesterday's allegations, the Judiciary Committee staffers reached out and said, if you have information, we need to -- we would like to talk to you. We need to go back and forth.

The normal procedure would be that Senate Democrats would also be in charge of this and Senator Feinstein, as ranking member, is right in the middle of it. She absolutely was asked to participate when they -- when they questioned Judge Kavanaugh. And, again, these are under penalty of felony. So, yes, they're going to have the hearing later. But they have (INAUDIBLE).

TOOBIN: Carrie -- Carrie, did you just say the Democrats are in charge of this?

SEVERINO: No, no, Senator --

TOOBIN: Are you -- have you been in the United States (INAUDIBLE)?

SEVERINO: No, no, no, Senator -- Senator Feinstein, as ranking member, is -- was --

TOOBIN: Yes.

SEVERINO: Is responsible for helping bring her members to that committee into that process as well. Chairman Grassley has invited them. They are refusing to participate in these internal investigations, which strikes me as pretty ridiculous when they're claiming they want to have an impartial investigation. Yes, let's get everyone on the table --

TOOBIN: An impartial investigation. Have you ever met congressional staffers? Their whole job is to help confirm Brett Kavanaugh. That's their job.

SEVERINO: That's why -- that's why we needed people from both sides to be there during this process this week. The Democrats have simply been sitting it out in favor of having -- having media calls for investigations. They're not actually doing the investigation. That is shameful.

TOOBIN: Well, we have the FBI. I mean we have the FBI to exactly do this. Why isn't the FBI involved?

SEVERINO: The FBI's role is to allow for a confidential investigation after the hearings --

TOOBIN: Yes.

SEVERINO: The allegations became public. It goes to the Senate because ultimately the senators are the ones who are going to be making the judgment call, not the FBI. They're --

TOOBIN: No, wait. Carrie, you're making this up. I mean, that's not true.

SEVERINO: That is -- that is absolutely true.

TOOBIN: I mean it's like the FBI -- I mean this is what happened with Anita Hill, is that they brought the FBI in to ask --

SEVERINO: No, they did -- Jeff, we've had this discussion already.

TOOBIN: Yes.

SEVERINO: They did the FBI investigation while it was confidential. After those things break, they didn't go -- they didn't go and say, we're going to send the FBI in now to investigate allegations that are already public. They had a hearing. And the senators have to make that judgment call as to how credible they find the allegations after the hearing. That's their job.

BERMAN: All right.

TOOBIN: They sure do. They sure do. We agree about that.

BERMAN: All right, Carrie Severino, Seung Min Kim, Jeffrey Toobin, I appreciate it.

The fact is, if the president wanted, he could ask the FBI to add to the background check, to go back and investigate more in the background check. They don't have a finding of fact -- the FBI won't have a finding of fact --

HILL: They could, yes.

BERMAN: But if the president wanted, he could ask them to collect more evidence.

All right, this new report that came out overnight suggesting a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh. Ronan Farrow is one of the reporters who broke this story. He joins us live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:04] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Brett Kavanaugh and the White House are denying new allegations from a second woman against the Supreme Court nominee. These allegations are published in "The New Yorker." Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale, says that Kavanaugh thrusts his gentles in her face at a dorm party and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.

Ronan Farrow, who broke this story with Jane Mayer in "The New Yorker," joins us now.

Ronan, thanks so much for being with us. And thanks for helping us try to understand the reporting here which is very much part of the pushback against the claims this morning. So let me go right at that first because in the very second paragraph I think it is of this piece, you note that Ramirez was reluctant at first to characterize Kavanaugh in his role. But after six days of reassessing her memories and talking to lawyers, she felt confident enough to come forward.

So what does that mean that at first she was reluctant to say this happened this way, but after six days of thinking about it she came forward?

RONAN FARROW, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE NEW YORKER": So I think it's important to note, this is behavior that is not atypical in cases of trauma, in cases that stem from claims of many years ago and in cases that involve heavy drinking. She readily admitted this was.

This is a woman who did not come forward with a press release. Her story was recounted unbeknownst to her to senators who began looking at this claim and she was placed at the center of a firestorm. The fact that she took several days to carefully think about whether she wanted to cast herself into this maelstrom is, I think, certainly, you know, an acknowledgment of the fact that there were gaps in her memory, as is so often the case with traumatic memories influenced by alcohol, but also an indication of her extraordinary degree of caution. This is not a woman who appears to be behaving in a way that suggests she has an agenda, that suggests she's making something up. This is a woman who is being very judicious and conservative in how she renders this allegation.

[07:50:01] BERMAN: All right, so gaps in her memory. So people understand what exactly does she or did she remember or what did she not?

FARROW: She remembers vividly Brett Kavanaugh laughing at her during this incident, pulling his pants up afterwards. Another classmate who she identified yelling down the hall, Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie Ramirez's face. She remembers finding this extremely traumatic. She was devoutly religious. She had not engaged in this kind of activity before. And it was a significant incident for her. So much so that, you know, even given the fact that she was inebriated, not blackout drunk, capable of remembering things confidently but inebriated, this was something that always stayed with her.

BERMAN: But she doesn't explicitly remember the moment, correct, Ronan, that -- that Brett Kavanaugh --

FARROW: She -- she does -- she does remember at all. She does remember the moment as well.

BERMAN: OK. She does remember it.

FARROW: She -- she remembers the moment. She describes it in detail in the piece. I'll leave it to her rendering it to describe it.

BERMAN: OK, very good, she does remember the moment.

FARROW: Yes.

BERMAN: All right.

And then just, again --

FARROW: She does.

BERMAN: One other piece about the reporting before we go back and discuss the substance here, you again state in the piece -- in all the arguments against this, I should note, you lay out -- it's not as if you were not very careful in explaining exactly what the doubts and the questions about this were, but you note that you have not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was at the party. Explain that.

FARROW: So we called several dozen classmates who were around at the time in general. Many didn't respond. Many didn't wish to comment. Several were working, in fact, with Brett Kavanaugh's team and signed on to a statement saying, you know, they didn't have direct knowledge of this, but they didn't think it was the kind of thing that he would have done, and we included that.

It's worth noting that half of that list either were individuals she said were directly involved in this, were people who egged Brett Kavanaugh on as he did it, urging her to kiss it and -- and other things, or the wife of one of those alleged assailants. But, you know, we did include those statements. And there were several other who were not alleged to be involved who said, you know, we trust Brett Kavanaugh on this. No direct accounts from that side.

We did receive, however, several direct accounts from people who said they were told right after or saw her describing it right after, and who independently of Ms. Ramirez recounted the same fact pattern about Brett Kavanaugh doing this.

BERMAN: That's interesting. And that's something that doesn't always exist when you're dealing with allegations of sexual assault or allegations of sexual battery, correct?

FARROW: I'm glad you make that point, John. This is a fairly high level of evidence for this kind of a case. When you look at the other reporting I've done, for instance, on sexual assaults and harassment, the last story Jane Mayer and I did was about a Democratic politician, Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, and, you know, we used the same caution and standards there.

Very often there are not people in the room willing to speak in these cases. In this case, the primary people who were likely to be witnesses are people alleged to have been egging him on and to have been part of this, you know, alleged misconduct against her.

Now we held this to the same careful standard, but I would say that this exceeds that evidentiary basis than we've used in the past in -- in several cases that were found to be very credible ultimately.

BERMAN: Because you do know, and we have heard over the last, I guess, what is it, 12 hours since this came out, why did "The New Yorker" print this? If there are all these doubts -- and I'm not sure that doubt's the right word. If there is no eyewitness confirmation, if no one can definitely say Brett Kavanaugh was there other than Debbie Ramirez, why did you feel so comfortable running with this story? FARROW: Two reasons. The first is, there is a strong evidentiary

basis. Her claim is corroborated, as you said, to an extent that is not always possible by people who did not know her, have not interacted with her, and yet independently recounted the same fact pattern. Some of those people are on the record in this story, so I point you to the piece.

The other is I think the same reason that she decided to speak, John, which is, this is a story that is out there on The Hill. It is being investigated. It is a matter of news whether she tells her own version of this story or not. That put her in an exceptionally difficult position. And I think, you know, the public deserved to hear her version of this story because it will be a source of tremendous conflict on The Hill in the coming days. Already there is a very significant, conservative PR apparatus that has been fully directed at her and at this story.

BERMAN: All right, let's talk about that. Kellyanne Conway, of course, who's a counselor to the president, just commented on this story. Let's listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: Is what I read, Nora, which is that she has said she can't be sure. She has said there are gaps in her own knowledge, that she was -- she was inebriated that -- that -- as well. But she can come and -- and tell that story. I -- I do think it's very circular, though, to have a "New Yorker" story come out with much thinner evidence than Ronan Farrow is used to having in his articles and then the Democrats saying, oh, my God, look at this, we have to investigate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:25:16] BERMAN: Your reaction?

FARROW: As I said there is corroboration in excess of what's been typical of several of those articles. And we accurately and fairly present any pushback. We err on the conservative side. Whenever we report something this serious, we are very careful. You know, and one of the results of that is also, I would point out, John, we are on the side of not including things. You know, there are always, in these stories, things that are not placed in there. Anything that we feel we run is something that we feel is news and significantly corroborated. That's the case here.

BERMAN: One of the -- Kellyanne suggested at the beginning of that sound bite we should hear her story. I'm not sure whether Kellyanne was suggesting she would like to see Deborah Ramirez come testify. But do you have any sense that Ramirez would be willing to appear publicly and answer questions about this?

FARROW: It appears she is on the same page as Kellyanne Conway here. She and her attorney have called for an FBI investigation., She wants this to be fair. She wants this to be accurate. She was careful and took her time before she came forward with this. She wants it to be looked at more closely to see what other evidence comes to light.

BERMAN: Would she testify before the Senate?

FARROW: I would point out this is -- this --

BERMAN: Would she testify before the Senate?

FARROW: So, she hasn't made a decision on testifying specifically. We say that in the story. She's going to wait to see how this evolves. But she has certainly called for a further investigation. I think that also, you know, corroborates her character and her caution in this case.

I would just point out, this is exactly the same tenor of the response Dr. Ford has received in response to her first allegation against Kavanaugh. Same questions about gaps in memory, age of allegation, potential influence of drinking. These are typical responses to these kinds of claims and I think in this case she has very persuasive responses.

BERMAN: Who knew about these last week? Who knew about these allegations last week? Because you lay this out also in the piece, that there were offices -- Senate Democratic offices which knew. But you also suggest that senior Republican staffers knew about this as well.

FARROW: Yes, there was a wide group on The Hill that was aware of this claim to varying extents. You know, we talk about four Senate offices being read into the details of the allegation. We do talk about Republican staffers reaching out and being concerned about another allegation coming. You know, I'm not inside those offices, so I'll -- I'll leave it at that level of detail, which is what we reported.

BERMAN: McConnell's office and Grassley's office deny that they knew about this. But, again, your piece does say that the Republican staffers who knew and Democratic staffers, in your piece, you make -- they were involved actually in connecting Debbie Ramirez with her first attorney on this?

FARROW: That's correct.

BERMAN: And, Ronan, go back to one point here, and I -- and I think this is important because, again, while you state clearly there are no eyewitnesses other than Debbie Ramirez, who corroborated the fact that Brett Kavanaugh was in the room, you do have other people who say they heard about this immediately after. Who and what did they hear?

FARROW: That's correct. There is another classmate who, you know, we find to be extremely credible, who is not someone who knows or has been in touch with Ms. Ramirez, but independently recounted the same fact pattern as something that he was told immediately afterwards. There is still another classmate who witnessed a woman who Debbie Ramirez believes to be herself, crying under specific circumstances she remembers after this, recounting the same fact pattern. We have classmates on the record saying that this is something that they heard about and e-mailed about prior to the emergence of Dr. Ford's claim. This is a story that was known in these Yale circles, and then, as we

recount, came to be known on The Hill.

BERMAN: And, again, you talk about these Yale circles. Brett Kavanaugh, some of these people you talk to, in terms of what his behavior was like at Yale, there were a lot of people who knew Kavanaugh who said they never saw anything like this, they never saw him behaving in any ways even close to this. Do you have anyone saying anything different besides Debbie Ramirez?

FARROW: We do. And we very evenly strive to present both of those perspectives. There are clearly people who had wonderful experiences of Brett Kavanaugh in college, and we want to fairly represent that. There are also clearly people with a different view. We quote his roommate at the time of this alleged incident who says, you know, this is someone who drank to the point of incoherence frequently, who described him as a mean drunk, who said that, you know, this kind of behavior alleged by Ms. Ramirez, who he found very credible based on his memories of that time at Yale, was not atypical of Kavanaugh and his social scene.

BERMAN: Ronan Farrow with the story, along with Jane Mayer in "The New Yorker" that people will be talking about, I think, for days to come.

Ronan, we appreciate you being with us. Thank you.

FARROW: Thank you, John. Good to be here.

[07:29:55] HILL: President Trump has a big week on the world stage at the United Nations. So what is the international community expecting to hear from him. Christine Amanpour joins us next.

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