Mitch McConnell is trying to hurry up and finish the job as Brett Kavanaugh nomination falls apart
How troubled and outright chaotic has the Brett Kavanaugh nomination process become tonight? Even some of the most pro-Kavanaugh Republicans in the Senate are unsure about how to proceed. John Cornyn suddenly says the vote shouldn’t be rushed. Other GOP Senators are saying the FBI report should be released publicly. Ben Sasse is saying he wishes Donald Trump had nominated someone else. So what is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doing about all this uncertainty?
Naturally, McConnell is pushing forward more aggressively than ever. He announced from the Senate floor tonight that he’s going to begin privately showing the FBI report to Senators tonight, with no plans for making it public. He’s also making procedural moves to try to lock in the vote for this week. This isn’t necessarily a surprising response.
If anything, the more McConnell’s own Republican Party begins to publicly fret and hedge its bets about Kavanaugh, the more the nomination is likely to fall apart ahead of a vote. So at this point, whatever the odds might be of Kavanaugh being confirmed right now – which aren’t great – those odds are probably going to become even worse with each passing day.
That means Mitch McConnell’s only two options are to either hold a vote right now, or give up on the nomination entirely. So it’s not surprising that he’s pushing forward more aggressively than ever. There is no possible way that McConnell could even know if he has the votes. He’s simply acknowledging that whatever the odds are of Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voting “yes” right now, those odds will be lower if this drags into next week. This nomination is falling apart by the day, which is why McConnell is in more of a hurry than ever.
