Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says his party is “definitely animated” heading into the midterms after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed Saturday, despite a tumultuous few weeks of sexual harassment allegations and an FBI investigation.
“The Republican base is very much activated as a result of this. I think the Democrat base was already there,” Ryan said at the National Press Club on Monday.
Although Ryan said he was not involved in the confirmation process because judicial appointments are handled by the Senate, he praised his Republican colleague from Maine, Sen. Susan Collins, for her remarks in support of Kavanaugh a day before the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to officially confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee.
“I thought her speech was tremendous,” Ryan said. “I thought Susan, really, with her analysis, I think she showed the right analysis, right tone.”
In her speech to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday, Collins said that although she believed something did happen to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her at a high school party nearly 35 years ago, and found her testimony “sincere, painful, and compelling,” she believed that there was not enough evidence to disqualify him from the Supreme Court. (RELATED: Sen. Susan Collins Says Kavanaugh’s ‘Anguish’ And ‘Forceful Denial’ Sealed The Deal)
“It’s still 29 days away, which in this day and age is a long time,” he said.
Donald Trump Jr. tweeted on Friday urging voters to beware of Democrats attempting to impeach Kavanaugh if they win control of Congress after the midterms.
Trump supporters – The fight isn’t over. You better believe that Democrats are going to do everything in their power to impeach Kavanuagh from the Supreme Court if they take control of Congress in November.
This is war. Time to fight. Vote on Nov 6 to protect the Supreme Court!
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 5, 2018
On the other side of the aisle, vulnerable Democrats, such as Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota are hoping she can still win enough votes to save her seat, despite voting against Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Fifty-six percent of voters overall, including 50 percent of women in North Dakota, wanted Kavanaugh confirmed, according to a Public Opinion Strategies poll released by Judicial Crisis Network on Oct. 2.
After the official vote on Saturday, Heitkamp released an ad proclaiming that she did not believe Kavanaugh had been honest in his testimony and did not approve of his temperament in front of the Committee.
“Honestly, I don’t think he told the truth. And even if he did, he showed himself to be too biased to be impartial,” Heitkamp said. She said she chose to “put politics aside and do what’s right for our country.”
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