Mitch McConnell is bluffing again

| 11:46 pm EDT October 1, 2018
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Late last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confidently announced that, even amid worsening sexual assault allegations, he had the votes to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. He was obviously bluffing, because that’s what he does. Nonetheless, numerous major media pundits inexplicably insisted that McConnell was telling the truth. Then push came to shove, and we learned that McConnell didn’t have the votes. Now he’s trying a different kind of bluff.

With an FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh now underway, and his confirmation prospects looking worse than ever, Mitch McConnell has confidently announced that the full Senate vote will take place this week. Once again, numerous major media outlets are printing this as if it were fact. Once again, McConnell is bluffing, because he couldn’t possibly know right now whether he’s going to have the votes while this expanding FBI probe is still playing out. So let’s talk about what might really happen.

McConnell is, rather obviously, trying to project confidence in the face of an increasingly tenuous situation. He’s also trying to rein in the swing voters within his own party who are increasingly trying to take control of the process. Earlier today Jeff Flake called for an expanded FBI probe without the limitations that Trump had tried to secretly place on it. Susan Collins and Murkowski backed Flake on this, just as they did when he first called for a probe. Sure enough, Trump had to cave. After Trump caved, Flake began hinting that he might ask for the FBI probe to last longer than a week.

The swing votes are now running the show, and Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell both know it. Trump is caving, because that’s what Trump does. McConnell can see that Flake and the others aren’t looking for an excuse to vote “yes,” and are instead hoping the nomination will fall apart, so they don’t have to vote at all. By insisting that he’s going to hold a vote this week, at a time when the votes he needs are clearly uninterested in such a prospect, McConnell is bluffing. We don’t know for sure what will happen next, but at the least, no one should be taking McConnell at his word.