Fox News admits Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t have the votes for confirmation
After a series of additional women came forward to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took the Senate floor and began frantically attacking the Democrats. Palmer Report’s assessment at the time: “Mitch McConnell clearly doesn’t think he has the votes.” Now someone else has come to the same conclusion, and – startlingly – it’s Fox News. No, really.
Chad Pergram covers Congress for Fox News. Whatever you think of his network, and we think very little of it in general, he’s in position to have his finger on the pulse of what’s going on behind closed doors in the Senate. Here’s what Pergram posted to Twitter this evening: “Kavanaugh nomination is in trouble. That’s why McConnell made blistering speech today. Baseball teams mail it in once they are out of pennant race. McConnell trying to get GOPers to run out every ground ball in effort to salvage nomination. Kavanaugh lacks the votes right now.”
Pergram goes on to suggest in subsequent tweets that McConnell could try to force a full Senate vote on Brett Kavanaugh even if he knows the vote is going to fail, because when the red state Democrats in the Senate vote against him, the GOP can use it against them in the November elections. But we’re not sure we buy into that. With Kavanaugh becoming more radioactive by the hour, a full Senate vote could actually hurt a handful of Republican Senators who are up for reelection.
In any case, we’ve reached the point where even Fox News is now acknowledging that as of now, Mitch McConnell and the GOP don’t have the votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. This serves to further underline that McConnell was bluffing a few days ago when he made a point of announcing that he did have the votes. It’s a reminder not to believe people who are always lying.
