>> good afternoon, everyone, it's thursday, october the 4th. let's get smarter. >> a source briefed on the findings this morning tells me the fbi contacted a total of ten people and interviewed nine of them. >> there's one copy of this report. it's going to be held in a safe, in a secure location. and only senators and a handful of committee staff are going to be allowed to access it. >> it will not be made public, even though many senators say it probably should be. >> dr. ford's team says those directing the fbi investigation were not interested in seeking the truth. was the white house interested in seeking the truth? >> of course we were, of course we had been. >> we are fully confident after reviewing this information senators are going to be comfortable voting yes. >> anybody who pushes back on the fact that dr. ford wasn't given the opportunity to state her case has been living in a cave. >> it looks to be a product of

an incomplete investigation that was limited, perhaps by the white house. >> we had many fears that this was a very limited process that would constrain the fbi from getting all the facts. having received a thorough briefing on documents, those fears have been realized. >> the public can't see it. it's a complete sham. the investigation was a sham. they're not talking to witnesses they should have talked to and they're trying to block the senate access to the report and public access to the report. >> there's 46 pages of testimony or interviews. no corroboration whatsoever. >> i'm more confident than ever that what the committee found is held up and then some. >> it's time for women to woman up and men to man up and senators and let's start voting. >> this is the united states of

america. nobody is supposed to be guilty until proven innocent. >> i'll be proud to vote to advance this nomination tomorrow. >> emotions are running high on capitol hill right now as members of the united states senate review the fbi report on its investigation of allegations against supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. these protests live, marching to the supreme court. republicans claim the report finds no evidence of misconduct. democrats are claiming the report is incomplete and demanding it be made public. but perhaps what's most important here is will it change any votes? joining me now is msnbc's garrett haake live on capitol hill where reaction is coming in fast and furious. garrett, one week ago, we had our eye mainly on three senators, three republican senators, flake, collins and murkowski. i guess to some degree we're still concentrated on those

three senators. we've heard from two of them. >> yes, that's right, ali. we've heard from susan collins and jeff flake, both of whom attended a briefing this morning at 10:00 for all republican senators who are interested in being there, to go over what the fbi found, and both collins and flake came out saying that they thought this was a good process. they wouldn't talk about what they had seen specifically. both of them said they wanted to take a little bit more time with these documents. before they made any kind of final decision. but both indicated early that they were satisfied at least with the process so far. i can tell you that collins and also lisa murkowski, who's that third key republican senator, have now been back in the secure room where these documents are being kept to review them. murkowski told one of our producers she wanted to go through this line by line with her own eyes. she didn't even want to go to this briefing because she kididt want her view to be colored by other opinions. those senators and the democrats we're watching all taking their

time with this report here but the clock is ticking to the next vote which could happen as early as tomorrow morning. >> this has been such a frantic two weeks that maybe people don't understand why we're paying attention to these two democrat, joe manchin and heidi heitkamp. >> they were two of three democrats who voted for gorsuch, the first nominee for the supreme court, and they're the only two who have not come out and said definitively they will not vote no on judge kavanaugh. both have difficult re-elections coming up. the theory here is that a vote for kavanaugh could potentially help them in their re-election races. so they're being watched very closely. but neither one of them is likely, i don't think, ali, to be the 50th vote here. neither wants to be the vote that puts kavanaugh over the top. if kavanaugh does get the support of those three outstanding republican, you can see a world in which manchin or hide camp or both might say this

is already a foregone conclusion, perhaps a vote here might help me politically. >> what's going to happen over the next 48 hours? >> we're going to see senators continue to review this fbi report and add that knowledge to what they already thought on this nominee. jeff flake, for example, remember, was a yes on kavanaugh. he had announced it last friday morning, before asking for this additional fbi investigation. he's probably once again the person who we're most likely to hear from first. given that we already knew he was inclined to support judge kavanaugh. now we're looking at this clock on when technically, it has to be at least an hour whenever the senate starts working tomorrow so that could be as early as 1:00 in the morning friday if they kept the senate in overnight or it could be first things first on friday. that's the procedural vote. it's a test vote essentially. but it's really one to watch. it's hard to imagine senators would say yes, we're comfortable with this but we're going to change our minds again in 24 hours. you're looking at some

combination of vote on friday and then a final vote on saturday. >> we'll be in touch over the next 24 to 48 hours. i want to dig deeper into this investigation the fbi conducted. it's a 46-page fbi report. it landed at the white house. under the cover of darkness early this morning. it was then passed to the senate and then off to a skip, a secure room, where the senators can review document. now, the report is the result of the fbi supplemental background investigation. it only lasted five days. now, sources tell nbc news that agents interviewed nine people in total, including mark judge, you see here, leyland keyser, p.j. smyth, deborah ramirez, tatim gaudette and garrett. according to reports, it also does not include the accuser or a number of others who suggested personally or who have suggested

they could have been valuable character witnesses such as james roche. he was kavanaugh's roommate during his freshman year at yale. he revealed some of his memories about kavanaugh's behavior and his drinking habits, listen. >> my recollection of my experience with him was that he was drunk frequently. i would say with some confident it was at least once, maybe twice on the weekends. it may have even been during the week. >> you say also that he, i'm quoting you, became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk. >> when i say belligerent, i mean belligerent in demeanor. i'm speaking more in carriage than an expression. i did call friends i knew who knew both of us and spent time with brett both freshman year and then after and i did hear stories about times when he was physically violent. destructive.

those are not on the record, not my stories to tell, but they made me feel like my memories were accurate. >> did you ever see him black out? >> you know, i didn't socialize with brett. but being in the same room where he slept, i saw him when he arrived at home regularly. and i saw him in the morning. and i can tell you that he would come home and he was incoherent, stumbling. he would sometimes be singing. he occasionally would wear this -- i think it was an old leather football helmet. and he would throw up. and then in the morning, would have a lot of trouble getting out of bed. so yes, i saw him both, what i would consider blackout drunk and also dealing with the repercussions of that in the morning. >> reports are saying the fbi did not interview anyone who lived in yale's lawrence hall and did not interview two of kavanaugh's high school acquaintances who submitted sworn declarations to senators

and the fbi. nor does it appear they interviewed more than 20 sources provided by dr. ford's legal team or ramirez's legal team. overall, that's 40-plus potential corroborators or character witnesses who were not interviewed by the fbi. joining me now is chris swecker, a former assistant director of the fbi. chris, look, i think everybody knows this news now, that there were a lot of people who were not interviewed. i think not everybody understands that there had to be some restriction on the fib because the fbi could have easily interviewed 40 more people, i'm told by former fbi special agents, they could have interviewed 400 people in a week. >> absolutely. in this background check follow-up -- they're called special inquiries. presidential nominees are subjected to a special inquiry, not an investigation. there's a very big difference there. and there's a -- there's a scope that includes interviews and record checks. now, when there's derogatory information developed during the course -- some time during the course of the nomination or the

course of the nomination process, they'll follow up on that on the request of the originator which is the white house. they did that here. looks to me like they focused strictly on the sexual assault allegations primarily on the part of dr. ford. and the second complaint that came in or allegation that came in, not the third. so they stuck to those two allegations. they didn't go far afield on how much he drank, you know, whether he stumbleld when he drank or whether he threw some ice. they just didn't go in that direction. they lasered directly in on the sexual -- the allegations of sexual assault. >> you know, we won't -- we may not see this investigation at any point but republicans who have seen it have said -- they've said it shows no new evidence, no corroborating efei evidence for christine blasey

ford's allegations. from what you know, which i suppose is similar to what i know, what do you think about this investigation or this background check? >> i think it was where it needed to be in terms of the derogatory information that came up needed to be looked at. there needed to be follow-up interviews. that information needed to be provided to the president and senate. i can understand completely why they didn't go off another direction about drinking alcohol and parties and that sort of thing, unless it directly related to sexual assault allegations. that's very normal. the fbi's conducted thousands of these spins. and that's the way they're conducted. this is an unusual one, granted. but they're focusing in on a specific derogatory information involving sexual assault allegations. >> chris, good to see you, chris sw swicker, former assistant director of the fbi. next, a new report from bloomberg on how chinese spie s

used a tiny chip to steal information from dozens of u.s. companies. plus, we're watching the markets. the markets are up by more than a percent today. i'll tell you why when we come back. e come back what do you have there?

p3 it's meat, cheese and nuts. i keep my protein interesting. oh yea, me too. i have cheese and uh these herbs. p3 snacks. the more interesting way to get your protein.

welcome back to

velshi/ruehl. washington, d.c., a very large protest under way, people marching towards the supreme court, protesting what may be the nomination of brett kavanaugh as an association justice of the supreme court. the first vote is scheduled for some time on friday. with a second vote scheduled for possibly as early as sunday. we're going to stay on that story and we'll bring you updates as they occur. a shocking new report reveals how china used a tiny chip about the size of a grain of rice to infill trait u.s. tech giants. and threatening national security on several fronts. acording to bloomberg business week, chinese spies attacked almost 30 u.s. companies, including amazon and apple, by planting the chip in hardware that is made in china and bound for the united states. this is a complicated and frightening story. joining me is one of the reporters who broke the story, michael riley of bloomberg news. michael, good to talk to you. tell me about how -- on the one

hand, i don't know how they wouldn't have been able to do this, because we send -- we make a whole lot of stuff that goes into our electronics in china. but tell me how this succeeded. >> that's right, i mean, so the u.s. government and other people have been warning about supply chain attacks like this for years but there are very few real-life examples of this. effectively one of the concerns is that because of offshoring, most of the guts of our technology is now made in china and that if china ever let its spies interfere with that manufacturing process, the world would be face ago big threat. well, this is an example of the fact that shows that they, in fact, are letting that happen. effectively what they did is -- it was a brilliant a tacttack. they took an american company, which although many people haven't heard of, makes server motherboards for 900 different companies. it's such an important player in this market that it's the u.s. military, it's the cia's drone

program, it's the missile, army missile facility, it's apple, it's amazon, it's major banks. and by sort of basically manipulating the manufacturing they can effectively use just one venue. >> saying china's goal was long-term access to high-value corporate secrets. no consumer data is known to have been stolen. what do we know about whether or not this was successful? so they've discovered there's this chip on a whole bunch of things that wasn't supposed to have it but do we know if information was actually stolen? >> we tonight know a lot about what was taken. the goal of the attack -- it's worth saying that the u.s. government does these types of attacks in a slightly different way. the goal is to actually get a long-term presence in a network. a server like this can sit in a network from three to five

years. you can sit there and watch and wait. but it's also -- it's really easy if they land in a place where they want to get data to grab it and leave without anybody noticing. because these attacks were so hard to get. so effectively what we wanted to do was portray how this attack works and the pla basically had invisible doors into these networks. but the companies themselves may not know if anything was taken. >> one of the things also talked about in the report, this may be more important for future things, the ramifications of the attack continue to play out. the trump administration has made computer and networking hardware, including mother boards, a focus of its latest round of trade sanctions against china. white house officials have made it clear they think companies will begin shifting their supply chains to other countries as a result. is that true? by the way, how do we make sure this doesn't happen anywhere you ship your supply chain to? >> that's right, it can happen in other place, but the idea of china and its sort of grip on technology manufacturing in the

world is kind of bubbling beneath the surface of trump's trade war. you can see that in the latest rounds of $200 billion worth of tariffs. there was a really large focus on routers, mother boards, networking equipment, these kinds of things that can be easily manipulated as they move into the rest of the world. i don't know if was a coincidence but i very much doubt it. as a result, think what the trump administration may be trying to do or at least one of the things that may happen afterwards is you'll get some of these supply chains moved out of china. china's not going to be very happy about that, but that seems to be one of the focus of the tariffs. >> what a remarkably interesting and frightening story. michael, thank you very much. michael riley with bloomberg. let's take a look at those pictures again. this is the protest that's under way in washington. protesters, you can see some being arrested right there. these are protesters on their way to the supreme court. opposed to the nomination of brett kavanaugh. we're going to look at what this means for the integrity of the process and the supreme court and future cases that are going

to go before the panel of judges. but first, the new cover of "time" magazine shows christine ford. shown at the moment she swore an oath and is drawn in words from her haunting testimony. the story is called "her lasting impact." you're watching velshi and ruehl on msnbc. on msnbc

one-millionth order. on msnbc millionth order. ♪ there goes our first big order. ♪ 44, 45, 46... how many of these did they order? ooh, that's hot. ♪ you know, we could sell these. nah. ♪ we don't bake. ♪ opportunity. what we deliver by delivering.

here are our live pictures from washington, d.c. protesters are continuing against the nomination of judge kavanaugh to the supreme court. just listen in for a second. trying to get a sense of where the pictures are. we'll keep an eye on how that protest goes. republican leaders are pressing for that confirmation voets to happen this weekend. kavanaugh's testimony is raising new questions about how he would

be able to serve effectively on the supreme court. >> this whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fuelled with apparent pent-up anger about president trump and the 2016 election. fear that has been unnearly stoked about my judicial record. revenge on behalf of the clintons. and millions of dollars in money from outside left wing opposition groups. this is a circus. the consequences will extend long past my nomination. the consequences will be with us for decades. this grotesque and coordinated character assassination will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country. and as we all know, in the

united states political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around. >> all right, joining me now from outside the department of justice is pete williams. here in studio with me, nico lus christoph, column nus for "the new york times." pete, in a speech we've heard parts of from brett kavanaugh, he talked about, you know, what happens at georgetown prep stays at georgetown prep, and that's the part that most people heard. he talks about being a supreme court justice or being a judge as an umpire, leaving your politicians at the door so you're able to be a fair arbiter of all things that come before you. in those comments that we just played there are many people who say brett kavanaugh wasn't behaving like somebody who would be that umpire. >> that's the question here. the rules for recusal of supreme court justices are different than they are for the lower court judges for the simple reason if you're a trial judge

somewhere in america and you have a conflict, they can find another trial judge to take your place. same with the courts of appeal. there are no spare supreme court justices. so any time a justice recuses that leaves the court at a dean minutishes capacity. it's usually up to the justices themselves to decide whether to recuse. and they usually recuse for direct conflicts of interest. they have a family member. they were a judge that -- on the lower court when a case was decided. they worked on the issue when they were at the justice department. or they have some personal financial stake. they own stock in the company, that kind of thing. those are the usual reasons for recusal. recusals on political grounds are really exceptional. remember, ruth bader ginsburg made some very harsh comments about president trump, saying she might move out of the country if he got elected that kind of thing. she later apologized. there were some suggestions that maybe she'd have to recuse from

cases about the trump administration. so i think those questions would hang over judge kavanaugh. but whether he would actually recuse on political grounds if he's confirmed, i doubt it. >> that would be up to him, it's not up to somebody else in. >> correct. >> all right. nicholas there are several issues. about a week ago there were people concerned about the abruptness of judge kavanaugh. but now there are lots of people who don't think it has solved anything. a week ago, or last friday, we were talking about how jeff flake may have paused the fact that there was going to be a cloud over the senate judiciary committee and ultimately over the supreme court. an institution that so many americans are hoping to rely on in politically turbulent times. now we go forward with this nomination. does this have a -- does this put a cloud over the supreme court? >> i think it does. i mean, the hope of the fbi investigation was we might dispel the cloud one way or the other. i think this is going to impair

him. i think it's going to impair the legitimacy of the court. at this point, it looks as if a third of the men on the supreme court will have had credible allegations of sexual harassment or assault against them. that undermines the aura we have about the court. and so does his anger. i mean, the stage craft of our judiciary, the methodology we have, is it's supposed to be above the fray. we have had politicians obviously. earl warren, former california governor, was a great supreme court chief justice. but he wasn't angry like this. while clarence thomas was angry, but he wasn't partisan in the same way. so now we have a judge who looks as if he may well be headed to the supreme court who brings a degree of anger, he's essentially a politico for much of his career, and of partisanship. i think that is unfortunate for

the judiciary in the u.s. >> pete, let's just address that for a second. as you have mentioned, clarence thomas's politics are very, very conservative by comparison to others on the supreme court. but for some reason, despite the allegations against him, which were investigated before he was confirmed to the supreme court, against the better judgment of many people, it is not felt politicized since then. how is this different? >> well, i think it's different for a couple of reasons simply because we're in the year 2018. it's very different now than it was then in terms of taking these accusations seriously. and it's the -- it's i guess the fact that in thomas' case, they basically came from one person, from anita hill. and in brett kavanaugh's case, you have a number of people raising questions. just a lot more willingness to engage on these issues. i think those are the -- those are the things that make it so different. >> nicholas, what can the

supreme court -- i mean, obviously the others on the supreme court and people who believe in this institution are worried about reputational damage. what do americans need to see to feel either secure or, frankly what other options do they have in this guy is quite possibly going to be on the supreme court by the end of the weekend. >> that's right. john reports s roberts is cons. i think he would welcome kavanaugh's conservative ideology. the chief justice also cares deeply about the image of the court and i think he will be troubled. one other thing we have to wonder about is there is some real possibility -- look, after the clarence thomas allegations, i'd say the subsequent reporting has largely sustained those allegations. it makes it seem quite likely indeed those allegations by anita hill were correct. if in a similar way more people

come forward against kavanaugh and tend to confirm those allegations, that will further undermine not just him but the entire court. i think that's a real possibility. >> hay, pete. i know you made the point that judges don't tend to recuse themselves on the supreme court for lots of reasons, particularly when it comes to political ideology. does the fact in his testimony brent kavanaugh spoke of democrats, spoke of the clintons, spoke of left wing groups? they're going to be left wing groups that bring cases to the supreme court. do they have any standing to say i don't think this guy can listen to my case? >> well, if they can bring their case successfully before the standing is a question about whether they're allowed through the courthouse door to bring their case. then they have to make a tactical decision about whether they want to seek recusal. they can. it sometimes does happen. you can say, you know, you're just too biased to hear this case. i guess the contrary argument would be was that he was attacking the process of his

confirmation. not, to use your term, left wing. not a left-wing policy argument or the kind of administrative question that might come before the supreme court. now, that may be too much of a legal nicety and the claims here -- you know, the cannons of judicial say that judges should have no conflict and no appearance of a conflict and that's where the difficult question comes in. >> he's the one who said that himself, and he's the one in the speech who said a judge has to have an appearance db tosh an umpire, has to have the appearance of leaving his politicians at the door. >> he both raised the expectation and then shattered it. i think there's also other larger questions. we obviously expect court to have integrity. and at least i'm deeply troubled by what you might call these small lies that i think it's

almost inarguable that kavanaugh told about renauti alumni. obviously, that wasn't just a matter of affection and everybody knows that. so i think that undermines the integrity of the court. i guess i'd also say at some level if you look at the historic mistakes, the supreme court has made over the last century, they haven't been because of lack of brilliance or a lack of judicial reasoning. they've been because of a lack of empathy. it's been dred scott. it's in pleasy versus ferguson. it's been some of the cases about women's rights, about gays. and watching judge kavanaugh there, i think one had to question whether in this kind of case coming forward whether he would be able to have that kind of empathy that would contribute to a forward-looking ruling organize one that is ultimately an embarrassment for this country. >> nicholas kristof, pete

williams, thank you. up next, our guest talks about his new book "accessory to war." >> let's take another look at the dow. it is deteriorating. now off more than 1.25%. this is because of rising interest rates. it's in part because of a strengthening economy. but with interest rates rising, it means the stock market's not the only game in town.

hey, welcome back to "velshi and ruehl." we have been focused on the kavanaugh process but a lot has been happening in the trump administration. a child migrant camp that was supposed to shut down weeks ago is expanding to house more unaccompanied children. the guardian has reported the camp is located in the border town of torneo, texas and originally had a capacity of 400 but now grown to 2,400 beds and set to remain open until the end of the year. a federal judge has temporarily stopped the trump administration's move to end protections for immigrants from four countries to live and work legally in the united states. about 300,000 people from sudan, nicaragua, haiti and el salvador received those protections. the judge cites the president's alleged descriptions of african and caribbean nations as, quote,

s-hole countries, in the lawsuit. investigating whether a school's transgender bathroom policy led to the alleged sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl. the investigation opened last month as politico reported that the secretary of education had halted at least five cases involving transgender students who were denied bathroom access. and the violence against women act temporarily extended but is still at risk of expiring. the law funds social service agencies that help victims of domestic assault. a number of changes have been under way at the epa. the agency is planning to eliminate the science advisers office under its office of research and development. a role meant to advise the administrator and to ensure that the best science is used to inform environmental policies. you'd think that was important, right? that's not all. the trump administration is also moving to weaken u.s. standards for radiation exposure.

the epa's proposal would increase exposure to medical, oil and gas workers. joining me now is the astrophysicist and author of "accessory to war." neil degrass tyson. lots happening at the epa. >> by the way, the universe is fine. >> it's earth that's the problem. >> just make that clear. >> i just want to sort of get your impression of the relationship between government and good science and good policy. >> well, so i, as a scientist, and my colleagues, we conduct science. generally unmonitored by a government agency. with just the effects of our creativity and where we want to take our curiosity. it tends to be that the biggest funded science is what comes out of a government. and this can move the center of mass of a field in ways that individual workers -- >> because governments can sometimes do things that aren't

profitable or make better -- >> correct, they have deeper pockets so they have geopolitical reasons. we went to the moon not for science but we got some science done on the way, piggy backed it. so it becomes an issue for the future of the nation if a government doesn't understand what science is or how and why it works. it means that nation will not participate on the leading frontier of how science and technology will transform civilization. other countries will. by the way, we were at that frontier for most of the second half of the 20th century. it's the era that i grew up in. you would have had some years in there noticing it. so that's the america that i knew and loved. no one was debating the objective truths of science. people said put more science in, more engineering. that's going to shape our future. you see this now, so let it slide. >> it's interesting, because your book does talk about how scientists and the military have worked together. >> yes, and that's been well known for the traditional

science fields like physics and chemistry. in my field, you wouldn't think we had anything to do with it. except we did. you go far enough back, navigation was a fundamental activity of empire building. but how do you know where you are on earth? you get that from the sky. because we knew what stars you would see and planets at different parts of the earth. you would infer where you were on earth from that and that's how you knew where's your enemy, where's the new land you're acquiring. >> right. >> this is how empires were built. and fast forward that to today. coordinates on earth still matter. >> right. >> the air force, the u.s. space command of air force put up gps satellites. in the second gulf war was a precision targeting war. >> right, we saw images where you'd bomb something right down the chimney. >> all of this was enabled, empowered, by space assets that had been put up. so we have common concerns.

the astrophysicists worried about and thinks about the universe. so does the military. as the next regime of high ground. >> you say the universe is okay. earth has some problems. representatives from more than 130 countries are meeting in south korea to discuss climate change. there are many who think that's the most dangerous piece of the u.s. becoming divorced from science. >> it's destabilizing. so a couple things. first, i don't mind people arguing on political lines what you do about climate change. >> right. >> okay. do you put in carbon credits or tariffs on solar panels? do you invest in your economy to transition? those have political solutions. but when i see politicians arguing over the objectively identified truths of science, that -- you are just going to lag behind the rest of the world. you're lagging behind two very important elements of modern life. insurance companies know all

about global warming and what its consequences. so too does the military. if you have rising tide waters that -- rising storm waters that didn't used to get to those levels and you displace whole populations, they become migrants. excuse me, they become -- >> yes, refugees. >> they become refugees, destabilizing the region. the military knows all about this. you can have political posturing where you're ignoring it because you get votes for it. but at the end of the day, you cannot fool mother nature. >> i thought your tweet response to the trump administration, tossing around the idea of a space force, was pretty remarkable. you said that perhaps we should be thinking about -- i'm soak with the space force but what we need is a truth force, one that defends against all enemies of accurate information, both foreign and domestic. >> just trying to put that out there. we have something such as that, the national academy of sciences. they were chartered by abraham lincoln in 1863. clearly he had other things on his place at the time but he said we need science to help us.

the future go vvance gov govern this nation. >> thank you so much. the new book is "accessory to war." in washington, d.c., protesters reached the supreme court. let's take a look at some live pictures as they stand against the potential confirmation of brett kavanaugh. republicans are also getting fired up. gop aides say the battle over the kavanaugh nomination is re-energizing the party just in time for the midterms. but can it last long enough to bring republicans out to the polls? we'll discuss that next. first, we're counting down to the midterm elections now just 33 days away. if these packs have the same number of bladder leak pads, i bet you think bigger is better. actually, it's bulkier. always discreet doesn't need all that bulk to protect. because it's made differently. the super absorbent core quickly turns liquid to gel,

for drier protection that's a lot less bulky. looks like good things really do come in small packages. always discreet. for bladder leaks.

♪ c♪ crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon. ♪ applebee's to go. add a fountain drink to your next order for just 99 cents. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. let's watch these live pictures on the left. these are protesters at the supreme court. we're 33 days from midterm elections and the republican party is getting a last minute surge in voter enthusiasm thanks to the ongoing battle to brett kavanaugh in the supreme court. key leaders are making polarizing comments that are stirring their base at this critical time.

>> i had one beer, right. i had one beer. well, you think -- no it was one beer. how did you get home? i don't remember. how did you get there? i don't remember. where is the place? i don't remember. how many weeyears ago was it? i don't know. i don't know. what neighborhood was it in? i don't know. where's the house? i don't know. upstairs, downstairs, where was it? i don't know, but i had one beer. that's the only thing i remember. >> if you wanted a fbi investigation, you could have come to us. what you want to do is destroy this guy's life. hold this seat open and hope you win in 2020. you've said that, not me. you've got nothing to apologize for. when you see sotomayer and kagen because i voted to them. i would never do to them what you've done to this guy. this is the most unethical sham

since i've been in politics. >> this whole two week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent up anger about president trump and the 2016 election. fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. revenge on behalf of the clintons and millions of dollars and money from outside left wing opposition groups. this is a circus. >> joining me now is washington post reporter amber phillips. thanks for joining us. according to a new marist poll. the democrats had a large advantage in terms of enthusiasm and that's disappeared. it's about a two point spread who said it's very important.

it was a 12-point spread. something is firing the republicans up. is it the midterm election or is is it this? >> democrat enthusiasm factor has basically evaporated from july to october. what caused that? we're not sure. the reason i say this is republicans tend to vote in higher numbers in midterm elections. democrats tend to stay home. is this a natural evolution as we get closer to the election of republicans say this is what i do. i go and vote in midterm elections or did kavanaugh jolt these republicans to pay attention or is it a mix of both? >> polls don't give the answer to that question. a lot of republicans think democrats will come out. that does enthuse people to go out. people get less enthusiastic if they think their side will win.

look at the polling in north dakota in the senate race. hei hei heidi hetkamp is trailing by 12 points. we saw news they raised $4 million many the last quarter which is a north dakota report. what are we looking for? what you talk about enthusiasm, i think everybody looks back in 2016 and says i don't know what polls mean. how do you judge untheenthusias these sorts of things? >> it's tough. is someone going to go out and vote and saying i like this republican challenger. it's tough to judge that. we can set back and look at a trend across the nation which is what i think you're doing right now. not just in north dakota but we're seeing polls in montana, in miley cyrssouri. in a lot of places are republicans are trying to unseat democrats that have sudden like

that npr poll flipped in favor of republicans over the past couple of weeks. in addition to that, for evidence this might be kavanaugh related, republicans shared with me today ads they are pushing in these states tieing the democratic candidate to kavanaugh's potential failure to get to supreme court. >> we'll have to continue to watch where this goes. thank you. i want to take another look another the dow. little lower. this is on interest rates that have spiked a little quickly than expected. we were expecting them to spike any way and this happened quickly. d quickly.

all right. that's it for this hour. i'll see you back here in a colleague. i'm going to hand it over. >> one half of the fantastic durks duo. >> thank you. senate republicans are taking a victory lap. the supplement fbi investigation into brett kavanaugh is done. though the bureau was given a week, the probe only took five days. in a statement judiciary

chairman chuck grassley wrote there's nothing in the report that we didn't already know. his colleagues seem to agree. >> when the noise fades and the uncorroborated mud washes away, what's left is the distinguished nominee who stands before us. >> no cooperation what so ever. even the people that they've alluded to to corroborate their stories deny. >> they corroborated judge kavanaugh's reiteration of the facts. >> no corroboration. nothing new. in there's no corroboration. >> senators who requested the supplement fbi background check got what they requested. i am ready to vote. >> regardless. the only report needs to convince three of the five undecided