Today, Explained - "Somebody's gotta explain this to Trump"

Episode Date: September 28, 2018

After tense words and a walkout, the Republicans got their man and the Democrats got their FBI investigation. Vox's Ezra Klein explains how both sides sorta won. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Getquip.com slash explained. After yesterday, it'd be no surprise if the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines. 11 Republican votes for Kavanaugh, 10 Democratic votes against. And that's exactly how it went down today. But something unexpected happened too. And it all centered around Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona. The day started with Flake being confronted by two women while trying to ride an elevator. What are you doing, sir? I was actually assaulted and nobody believed me.

I didn't tell anyone and you're telling all women that they don't matter, that they should just stay quiet because if they tell you what happened to them, you're going to ignore them. That's what happened to me and that's what you're telling all women in America, that they don't matter, they should just keep it to themselves because if they have told the truth, you're just going to help that they don't matter. They should just keep it to themselves because if they have told the truth, you're just going to help that man to power anyway. That's what you're

telling all of these women. That's what you're telling me right now. Look at me when I'm talking to you. You're telling me that my assault doesn't matter. That what happened to me doesn't matter and that you're going to let people who do these things into power. That's what you're telling me when you vote for him. Don't look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn't matter what happened to me. That you'll let people like that go into the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies. Throughout this confrontation, Flake alternated

between looking scared, awkward, pained, like a deer in headlights. Just a short time later, he was negotiating with Democratic senators in a back room to the chamber, and everyone was trying to figure out what was going on. When he finally settled back into his seat for the big vote, Flake had reached a decision. I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to, but not more than one week. We ought to do what we can to make sure that we do all due diligence with a nomination this important. He'd vote for Kavanaugh, but he had one caveat.

He needed to see an FBI investigation. The FBI should have... By the FBI. For the FBI to investigate... You specifically asked for an FBI investigation, did you not? Which is to say, the thing that Democratic senators spent the entire day requesting yesterday. Ask the FBI to investigate.

It's what we've always done. It left a lot of people confused. And somebody's got to explain this to Trump, so I guess that'll be my job. It looks like there'll be a one-week FBI investigation before the Senate takes a final vote on Kavanaugh. It looks like the Democrats' approach yesterday may have actually worked. The whole of the Democratic argument was, look, we have now a credible allegation from Professor Ford. We have a denial from Kavanaugh. Let's do an investigation. Let's call Mark Judge. Let's have the FBI look into this. Ezra Klein explained it all for Vox.

My pet peeve in this process, the thing that has been the most infuriating to hear again and again is to hear Republican politicians talking about presumption of innocence, talking about reasonable doubt, using legal terms for how we should treat Judge Kavanaugh. That's all fair enough. But things like a presumption of innocence, they exist in a legal context with investigations. The way the legal system works isn't that we presume you're innocent. So if you get accused of a crime, you say, I didn't do the crime. You say, well, didn't do it. We got to presume I'm innocent. He said, no. The way it works is that you have an investigation, investigations that last for months, investigations that last for years, a call every witness people can think

of that have subpoena powers, that have police and have lawyers. What Democrats are doing is saying, OK, yeah, fine. Like, let's try to find out what happened here. Maybe we can't, but let's at least try. Is this to say that the Republican strategy didn't work? What was it even? They made a decision after Ford's testimony, possibly before Ford's testimony, to not make it about Ford. By the end of the day, they had not discredited Ford. They had not said they don't believe Ford. They had just decided to ignore her. What happened is the moment Brett Kavanaugh began speaking, both in his testimony and in the way they responded to it, they made it about Democrats. If it was about Democrats, then it was about the way Democrats handled the letter. If it was about Democrats, then it was a tribal fight that Republicans could all be on the same side of. If it was about Democrats, then it was about the way Democrats handled the letter. If it was about Democrats, then it was a tribal fight that Republicans could all be on the same side of.

If it was about Ford, it would have split them. But it wasn't. As soon as Ford's testimony was over, they like put it on a shelf, turned around, and focused all of their ire on Democrats. Where did this strategy come from? Was it from Kavanaugh? Was it from the Republicans on the committee? So there was reporting Wednesday, I believe it was, that President Donald Trump had begun to take an active hand in the Kavanaugh nomination, that he was looking at this and he was listening to Kavanaugh give these categorical professional denials. You know, I don't doubt that something happened to Professor Ford, but it wasn't me.

And he decided this is absurd. This guy needs to go on offense. And he communicated that. And so if you really listen to Kavanaugh, that opening statement, it sounds like Trump. This confirmation process has become a national disgrace. The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process, but you have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy. Since my nomination in July, there's been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation. And by the way, there's an interesting tell here. When he came out,

he said, this is my statement. I wrote it alone. People don't usually say that unless for some reason to think somebody might have seen it. Right. You know, whether or not Donald Trump saw the final longhand draft, I don't know. But that was a very Trump statement. I mean, there was this part in the middle that was about the Clintons and it was about doubting Donald Trump's victory. I mean, there were moments when it really sounded like Donald Trump talking. But more than that, it was Donald Trump's whole vibe. It was his whole approach to politics. Don't apologize. Never back down. Always be on offense. And above all else, when you're getting hammered for something, make it an us versus them fight. This is not about sexual assault. It's not about the veracity of Christine Blasey Ford.

It's about Democrats. It's about the media. It's about fake news. It's about an orchestrated smear campaign. And I think it speaks to Donald Trump's understanding of the tribal nature of modern American politics that at least on the Republican side, it seems to have worked. And when you talk about tribalism, we're talking about what Fox News talking points. We're talking about the base, right? When we're talking about tribalism, what I think we're talking about is things are resolving into a question of group loyalty. This was not a strategy over the past week aimed at, say, a swing voter. It wasn't even a strategy aimed at Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, the swing Republican votes in the

Senate. It was a strategy aimed at the Republican base. So where did Kavanaugh give his interview? Fox News, right? He didn't go do it with Lester Holt at NBC where he'd be talking to a lot more people. Fox News, he was shoring up the base. Where did Lindsey Graham, after his unhinged rant against the Democrats? This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics. Where did he go that night?

Sean Hannity. I am now more convinced than ever that he didn't do it, that he's the right guy to be on the court, that Ms. Ford has got a problem, and destroying Judge Kavanaugh's life won't fix her problem. By making sure that Fox News and the hardcore conservative activists and Donald Trump are on your team, yeah, maybe there are people on the center right of the Republican Party who want to waver, but they don't want to cross that side of the tribe. They're afraid of them.

At this point, I know very well how 10 Democrats and 11 Republicans plus the president feel about Kavanaugh, but where's the rest of the country? Something to know about the Kavanaugh nomination is it has been unusually unpopular. He's been upside down in approval and whether or not people want to confirm the whole time, which is not something you normally see. This is the most unpopular nomination that we've ever seen sailing through to confirmation. So there was a poll. It was released Wednesday, I believe it was. It was an NPR Marist poll, and it showed a couple of things.

One of the things it showed was that by – I believe it was a 43 to 38 margin, the country did not want Kavanaugh confirmed. Another thing it showed is that if what Ford was alleging is true, if people believe her, then 59% don't want him confirmed. But there's something really interesting. When you looked at the if Ford is true condition, a huge majority of Democrats wanted Kavanaugh kept off the court if Ford is correct. A huge majority of independents don't want Kavanaugh confirmed if Ford is correct. A majority of Republicans wanted Kavanaugh confirmed if Ford is correct. A majority of Republicans wanted Kavanaugh confirmed even if everything Dr. Ford says was true. You can look at this whole process and say, well, it doesn't look like Senate Republicans cared about the truth.

And in fact, maybe they didn't. I think the big question is, how did those hearings change public opinion going forward, right? If these numbers move sharply towards Ford, but Republicans confirm Kavanaugh for a lifetime appointment anyway, that's quite a thing to be carrying into a midterm election. Is the way this is now playing out a sign that this body has progressed in some incremental way even since Anita Hill? I think there is an interesting difference between the Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford hearings, and it's this. The strategy, the Republican strategy on Anita Hill was to discredit her completely. Famously, there's the David Brock line that Anita Hill was a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty. I mean it was awful what they did to her.

With Ford, they actually took the opposite tact. They tried to never be seen discrediting her. The Republican senators on judiciary seen discrediting her. The Republican senators on judiciary wouldn't directly question her. They called in this female sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona, Mitchell. Mitchell did not ever try to question the core of Ford's account. They did not have to do anything about Ford's allegations, but they were not attacking her. They were not discrediting her. And so what ended up happening is this weird thing where they decided to listen but not hear.

They listened to what Ford said, and they just moved on as if they had never heard it. Up next, we listen. Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. Hey Izzy, Sean Ramos from Today Explained, your co-worker. Rumor has it you might be at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, and I wish I was there with you. However, we did have plans for you to finally try and buy a Quip electric toothbrush within the space of one minute today. Here's hoping you make it happen on your own time. I think what we learned this week is that it helps if you already have an account, if you have your credit card information handy, if you've already sort of pre-selected which one

you want. I believe you're doing like the one-year subscription, $65 with all of your free refills taken care of. Just as a reminder, the Quip starts at $25 and your first set of refills is free when you go to getquip.com slash explained. Have a great weekend, Izzy.

To send your message with normal delivery, press 1. To send your message with urgent delivery, press 1. To send your message with urgent delivery, press 2. My name is Eileen McClure-Nelson. I live in Burke, Virginia. It happened in 1980.

I was 18 years old. I was a freshman in college. I was at a fraternity party. I was there with my friends. We had gone for the night. We had been drinking. I saw a boy there that I had gone to high school with, but he was a year older than I was. I'd always thought he was very cute. He was blonde. He was blue-eyed. He had one of those smiles that are just very engaging. I went to go refill my beer. He was there.

We started talking. We talked the whole evening, and then he offered to walk me home. So I let him start walking me home. And we got maybe three or four houses up the row, and he pushed me up against one of the houses, and he started to kiss me, which I was fine with. But then he got really aggressive, and he reached inside my coat, and he started to try to undo my pants, and I pushed his hand away, and I kept saying, no, please don't do that. And then he took my arms and put them behind my back and pressed his upper body against my upper body so I couldn't move. And then he started undoing my pants and pulling at him and pulling his own pants off.

And I said, I don't want to do this. And he said, yes, you do, because you were letting me take you home. And I started to cry. And he said, if I cried out or yelled, he was going to hit me. And I was a virgin. I was afraid or yelled, he was going to hit me. And I was a virgin. I was afraid. I thought I was going to get raped. And I couldn't believe it because when we were in high school, he was a really popular guy, and all the girls that liked him, I thought, how can this be?

And he was trying to do it, but he couldn't get erect. And he got mad. And so he shoved me really hard and my head hit the back of the brick building so hard that like my teeth clicked hard and my head hit and he fell backward because he shoved me so hard. He lost his balance and fell. And I grabbed my pants and pulled him up really fast. And as I held him up and I just ran back to my dorm and I ran up the stairs to my room and I locked the door. I was so scared. And I just sat there in bed. And then I just felt the word was like ugly and dirty and scared. I never told anybody because I was sure this was my fault and that I must have done something. There's something wrong with me. And so I spent

that whole rest of that spring semester avoiding him because I didn't want him to see me. I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted nothing to do with him. I bet you he doesn't remember it. And he would just say that never happened because I really believe that the young men who have done this thing, if they did not have sex with you, and that's what he would have thought, not rape, that nothing happened. What are you talking about? That's their coming of age. It's a sick thing that they have to have that as a coming of age

instead of going maybe into the military or performing some kind of service in the Peace Corps, that instead they get to go around abusing women and then they get to come out the other side and, you know, marry a quote unquote nice girl and then go on with their lives. But they look at that really as their own rite of passage that they're allowed and entitled to. And then we're not supposed to question it. We're supposed to say, boys will be boys. I'm a high school teacher. I've had young girls come to me at the high school and told me their stories. And this is not isolated. This happens so much. What struck me about yesterday was how many women saw themselves in Dr. Ford. And also how clear it was how many of those men on that panel saw themselves in Judge Kavanaugh.

And as angry as I feel, I also feel really cynical because those men are going to make sure that he doesn't have to be accountable for the things that they know they wouldn't want to have to be accountable for either. I couldn't even listen. I couldn't even watch. It is incredibly overwhelming to try and take a very smart woman, expose her to the world, expose her to the derision of others, to have her say that she's credible, and then to go ahead and ignore what she said. I don't know what the point of yesterday was, except to expose a lot of wounds to a lot of people. And I'm not entirely convinced that it was worth it. I was sick to my stomach, infuriated, choking back tears. And I just, I just, I'm a little bit in

disbelief that this is happening, that this level of gross neglect by a ruling patriarchal class is still happening. I mean, I want to burn everything to the ground. That's how frustrated I am right now. I, along with many other females in America, have been sort of putting on something of a brave face and trying not to let this story completely destroy my emotions. I don't know. I'd been kind of holding it together, honestly, until this morning when I heard the voices of the women who, you know, kind of sprung up on Jeff Flake in the elevator and to hear them really put voice to what

I think millions of American women have been thinking and feeling for the past couple of days and weeks and months and years and eternity. That was the moment that really broke me. And I started crying in my car on my way to work today. Thank you.