Senator Lindsey Graham’s Message To Republicans: If You Take Kavanaugh Down This Sets Standard Making It Difficult For Our Future Nominees…This Never Happens To Democrats

Senator Lindsey Graham joined Brian Kilmeade to discuss the latest on Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony tomorrow. Senator Graham is very angry and can’t imagine he would have ever done to Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan what the democrats are doing to Brett Kavanaugh. When asked about President Trump commenting on Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers, Graham believes the President should be upset about how Judge Kavanaugh is being treated but advised President Trump to “let us deal with it”. On Senator Murkowski’s call for an FBI investigation into the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, Graham responded, “With all due respect, you will not know anything more than we know now.” Graham’s message to Republicans thinking of not voting for Judge Kavanaugh, “Here’s what I would tell all Republicans, if you take him down over this then you have set a standard for our nominees that it’s going to be really difficult to get people to come forward because this never happens to Democrats.” Graham said there will be a vote Friday and warned democrats that I f they play games on Thursday, they will regret it.

Listen here:

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it’s horrible what the Democrats have done. It’s a con game they’re playing. They’re con — they’re really con artists. They’re — they’re trying to convince — you know, they don’t — they don’t believe it themselves, OK?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BRIAN KILMEADE, HOST, THE BRIAN KILMEADE SHOW: President of the United States has had it with keeping — keeping his guns in his holster. He let them have it — the Democrats have it. He’s got to walk a tight line. You do not want to dismiss people that have been sexually assaulted or claim to be, but you got to find out more. But the second accuser, that New Yorker story, that woman is not going to come forward. The third one doesn’t exist. It looks like Michael Avenatti is full of it.

Either he was duped, but the woman he says does not going to come forward, so it’s down to Thursday, which brings me to Senator Lindsey Graham, on the Judiciary Committee, might be chairing that committee shortly. Senator, first off, how are you?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well I’m doing good. And I bet you you don’t look any worse than you did this morning when you were on Stuart Varney’s.

KILMEADE: That’s an (inaudible) — any worse. Any worse. That kind of hurts my feelings. You were so fired up last night on Martha’s show. That — you were pretty angry.

GRAHAM: Yes. Yes, I’m very — I’m very angry because I can’t imagine that I would have done this to Sotomayor or Kagan. If somebody had given me information questioning the character of either one of those nominees, who I voted for, I don’t believe I’m the type of person that would sit on it six weeks then expose it, I don’t think I’m the type of person that would, you know, out somebody who said they did not want to — to come forward.

So I’m pretty disappointed in my Democratic colleagues. Clearly Diane Feinstein did not believe this allegation was credible enough to confront Kavanaugh with it when she was meeting with him privately or publically and this was dropped at the 11th hour plus. And it is a con game in that regard.

KILMEADE: So are you against the president making his remarks yesterday? Do you think that that was something you wish he didn’t do? I actually have no problem with it, because he — his heart goes out to the Kavanaugh family because he’s been dealing with them pretty constantly for the last three months at least.

GRAHAM: No, I don’t think it’s wrong for the president to call out the Democrats. Can you imagine what the media would be doing today if the shoe were on the other foot, if this were a Democratic nominee and a Republican had an — an anonymous accusation that they sat on for weeks, never confronted the nominee, never gave them a chance to respond, dropped it the day — you know, two days before the markup and wants to slow down the hearing, have an FBI investigation over something 35 years old?

They would be tearing us limb from limb. And I’m going to say this. Again, I voted for Sotomayor and Kagan because I thought they were qualified. I would never have done to them what they’ve doing to Kavanaugh. The allegation is falling apart. How are you supposed to defend yourself? Here’s what Chris Coons and Blumenthal said. The burden’s on Judge Kavanaugh. Well here’s what his burden is. He has to prove that he was not at a party, and they won’t tell him when it was and where it was 35 years ago.

The people in the room, according to Dr. Ford, have no recollection, say it didn’t happen, and I’m supposed to use that fact pattern to destroy Judge Kavanaugh’s life and wipe out everything he’s done as a individual? I’m not going to do that. There better be something new and never be — it better be credible.

KILMEADE: Well, we did get some new information, but I want you to hear what the president said yesterday. This is what his critics have problems with. I — and you know, I will criticize him if I think he’s wrong and whatever that means, but here — this is not where I criticize. Cut three.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP: I look at the second accuser, the second accuser has nothing. The second accuser doesn’t even know — she thinks maybe it could’ve been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk, she admits time lapses, there are time lapses.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KILMEADE: I mean, you’re going to tell me we’re not having that conversation in bars, in kitchen tables around the country?

GRAHAM: Well, the second accusation could not be printed by the New York Times. It wasn’t worth printing in the New York Times. The bottom line with the second allegation is that the person, when originally approached, says I don’t know if it was Kavanaugh, my memory’s fuzzy, as the president described. And she only became more certain after six days with a lawyer who was referred to her by a Democratic senator.

She said publically the main reason she came forward with this allegation, she was urged to do so by six Democratic senators. Here’s my advice to the president. We can figure this out. You should be upset with the way the nominee’s been treated, you should be upset with these blindside attacks at the 11th hour, but let us deal with this. Give Ms. Ford — Dr. Ford her chance to speak tomorrow. What will I be looking for? I’ll be looking for context.

I’ll be looking to see if she can be more specific about when this supposedly happened and where it happened and get her reaction as to why nobody else remembers it the way she does. This is not complicated. She’ll be respectfully treated. But what is the standard here? Joe Biden said there was a presumption in favor of Clarence Thomas.

KILMEADE: In fact, we have that sound byte. The year is 1991. Let’s hear it.

GRAHAM: Let’s hear it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Next person that refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesn’t understand anything. FBI explicitly does not, in this or any other case, reach a conclusion. Period. Period.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KILMEADE: I pretty much got his point. Did he change his mind? Did Democrats not get that period?

GRAHAM: Well, the concept of the FBI investigation has been consistent over time. What he’s telling the public is that the FBI does a background check. They will receive favorable information, unfavorable information, they will give it to the committee for us to evaluate. They don’t tell us who to believe or what to believe. If they really wanted an FBI investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegations, why didn’t they come forward in July when they first received it?

That tells me everything I need to know about Democrats and this allegation. If they really believed this was a game changer, they would have turned it over to the committee, they would have asked for an FBI investigation and we’d had all of August to look at it. And here’s what I would tell your audience. What is the FBI supposed to do? Do they go to Maryland and ask everybody alive in 1982 do you know anything about this.

There’s no town to go to, there’s no house to go to and there’s no time period to investigate. It’s impossible for the FBI to provide us more information than we already know. This is a delay tactic.

KILMEADE: All right. I want you to hear what Senator Lisa Murkowski said, though, yesterday. Republican. Cut five.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

LISA MURKOWSKI (R), ALASKA: An investigation would certainly — certainly clear up some of the questions.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KILMEADE: And she earlier said an FBI investigation. So some — have you talked to her?

GRAHAM: No, I haven’t. I respect Lisa a lot but with all due respect, they’re (ph) — you’re not going to know any more than you know now. Here’s what we’re going to have to do as Republicans. We’re going to have to stand up for our nominee or throw him over. And let me tell you what. If we take this good man and let these allegations 35 years ago, unverified, ruin his life and deny him a seat on the court, we deserve everything we get.

I have called — the moment I heard about this, well let’s hear this out and what do I know now? I know that after the last week, everybody named, having been to this party somewhere in Maryland, sometime in 1982, allegedly cannot verify a word against Judge Kavanaugh. That his entire life has been lived a way inconsistent with these allegations.

That if you really are a serial rapist or abuser of woman, if you have the character flaw being attributed to Judge Kavanaugh, it continues throughout your life and we don’t have one shred of evidence that he has done anything toward a women, when he’s been in a supervisory role over women for the last 20 or 30 years.

So, you’ve got a single allegation 35 years ago that’s got no cooperation and you’ve got a well lived life. And here’s what I would tell all Republicans, if you take him down over this, then you have set a standard for our nominees that it’s going to be really difficult for to get people to come forward, because this never happens to Democrats.

KILMEADE: Rachel Mitchell is going to be asking the questions. We know that she is an Arizona prosecutor and there’s a lot of praise for her. I have never seen anything like this and maybe you have. You guys — is it true, you’re going to sit back, give her the microphone and let her ask the questions?

GRAHAM: Yes. I think the point is, is that we’re 11 politicians, we don’t do trials, we’re political people and we want a hearing that is meaningful and a good idea to me is pick somebody who’s actually professional at what they do, do this for a living and see what comes out of the hearing.

If I have a question, I will ask it. I’ve been a judge, I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve been a defense attorney, I’m pretty familiar with the legal system. Nobody accused me of being — because I was a white Republican, of being unfair when I voted for (inaudible).

As a matter of fact, here’s the way it goes, if you’re a white male Republican and you do the bidding of the Democrats, you’re a hero. You’re a wonderful person. You’re the standard everybody else should be judged by, but if you defend a Republican nominee from unverified attacks 35 years old, all of a sudden you’re a bad guy.

I know the way the game’s being played here and I would tell every Republican that Judge Kavanaugh has lived an exemplarity life, that you couldn’t get a warrant, you couldn’t give somebody a traffic ticket based on these allegations. This is a rule of law endeavor. You’re talking about putting Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court.

The rule of law, if it means anything, you’ve got to have certain standards. You could not get a warrant, which is the lowest standard in the law, because you can’t identify the time, the place and there is no corroborating evidence.

If that’s enough to destroy this nominee and to take him out of the mix for being on the Supreme Court, we’ve given in to, I think, a horrible standard.

KILMEADE: So, Senator, I’m going to give you a couple scenarios. So, I know it’s going to be hard to really predict what’s going to happen with the accuser. We’ve never met her, we don’t know her.

GRAHAM: Right.

KILMEADE: But we saw Brett Kavanaugh talk to Martha MacCallum, we also understand that he was on a conference call yesterday, where the Democrats listened, they didn’t talk, but I guess you guys listened to his side of the story.

So, where is Kavanaugh, I wouldn’t say vulnerable, because you’re not going to play your hand, because I know you’re pulling for him, but how do you answer questions where as, did you ever get drunk when you were in high school and legal? Did you ever get drunk when you were in college? Did you ever do anything you regret?

So, how are you going to, if you’re Brett Kavanaugh, he had, when I read, a college experience much like I had, except for the cape in front of the library, according to “The Washington Post,” I didn’t do that. But, how do you answer some of these questions?

GRAHAM: You just be as honest as you can. And what you need to remember is that we’re not going to take this man’s lie down to a party in high school that we don’t know when it happened and where it happened, and nobody can even verify it even happened. We’re not going to take his life and — and — and talk about a dorm room instant that has zero credibility. We’re not going to let that happen to him. He should talk about the accusations; deny them firmly and emphatically and emotionally. But I think he should also talk about the man, the wife that he married, the family he’s created. The — the — the career he’s established for himself.

To me, if you were the kind of person they’re portraying him as being, he would not have lived the life he’s lived. Bottom line here is just be yourself, Brett. You don’t need to perform; all you need to do is answer the questions as honestly as you can. And to every member sitting in the Senate, how would you like this to be your son, accused of something this — this old and this uncertain. What — what standard are you going to use here? What kind of life have you lived? What’s the bottom, is there a bottom to this process?

So I am really ticked, as you can tell, because I have never done this to their nominees, I voted for all of the virtually because elections do matter. But I can tell you when it comes to Trump, they don’t care about the election, they’re trying to undermine it, they’re trying to set it aside, they’re trying to deny Cavanaugh a seat and hold it open for two years. If you don’t believe me listen to them. I hope republicans will not give into this.

KILMEADE: Senator Lindsay Graham, if he passes, it has a lot to do with you leading the charge and making — and making the case. Senator Graham…

GRAHAM: If I have anything to do with this, it will be one of the most proud moments in my Senate career because I think he’s highly qualified, lived an incredibly good life. And these allegations to me are not sufficient to this story.

KILMEADE: I’m getting yelled at because I’m two minutes over, but last question. Do you think Friday is going to be a vote?

GRAHAM: Absolutely. I know Friday’s going to be a vote. If they play games Thursday, they will regret it.

KILMEADE: Go get them. Senator Lindsay Graham thanks.