[Miguel Marquez, Cnn Correspondent:] Hear more from officials here shortly.
[Kate Bolduan, Cnn Anchor:] OK, we'll look for an update then, Miguel. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. We'll update you when we have that. Thank you so much for joining me though. "INSIDE POLITICS" with Dana Bash starts right now.
[Dana Bash, Cnn Anchor:] Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Dana Bash. John King is off. The president said, take the vote. Now he's looking past ongoing negotiations to settle these questions, if, when, and how Brett Kavanaugh, and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, will testify. Ford's attorneys say the only deal breaker now would be requiring their client to tell her story on Monday. And the president, who artfully waded through this controversy surrounding the Supreme Court nominee, is pressing control, alt and delete on caution, hitting send on a new Twitter grenade. One that alleged attack couldn't have been as bad as she says if Ford didn't tell anyone. Now, he may have missed this minutes before on the White House lawn.
[Kellyanne Conway, Counselor To The President:] There's no reason to attack her, is the reason, there's no reason. Let her tell her story under oath here in Washington. The Senate Judiciary Committee has offered for her to do it privately, for her to do it publicly, for her to do it in Washington, for her to do it somewhere else, I guess in her home state of California. They've been quite accommodating to her. There's no reason to attack her.
[Bash:] And we begin there with the president, no longer restrained, no longer on message, and now publicly doubting Christine Blasey Ford's account of what she says happened 36 years ago. From the president's Twitter account this morning, quote, I have no doubt that if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, changes would have been immediately filed with local law enforcement authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place. It couldn't have been that bad, the president says, otherwise Ford, then 15 years old, would have told her parents, who would have told the police. Now that's something, of course, anyone who knows anything about victims of abuse, especially young women, know often does not happen for a myriad of reasons. Now, the alleged incident, now familiar to most of us, which the president says couldn't have been as bad as Ford describes, a party in 1982, Ford's lawyer says Brett Kavanaugh would have raped her if he weren't so drunk. Now, we should also note that, once again, that Brett Kavanaugh denies any of this happening adamantly. Minutes ago, the president, on Twitter, added this, let her testify or not and take the vote. Let's get straight to CNN's Abby Phillip, live at the White House. Abby, what are you hearing from your sources about why the president has done an about-face on his tone here?
[Abby Phillip, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Well, hi, Dana. All week the White House has been wondering and perhaps holding their breath, waiting to see how long President Trump would remain restrained on this issue. He has been very careful to praise Kavanaugh, to worry about the damages that this has done to him and his family, but not necessarily to attack his accuser. And now that has all shifted. And it's very likely that the White House is going to have to go along with the tone that President Trump is setting here. Just minutes before, the president sent those tweets, as you just played. His counsellor to the president, Kellyanne Conway, was just saying, let's not attack her. Now that has all changed. Now, what is different about today compared to where we were say 48 hours ago is that now the talks are very real and it seems more likely than not that in some capacity Dr. Ford is going to testify. She's going to be out there giving her side of the story. President Trump is now on the offensive. Just a few days ago he was saying, we have to hear what she has to say and then make a decision. Now he's saying, she can either testify or not. But, either way, he wants his nominee confirmed. Going forward, it's going to be interesting to see how the White House deals with this new tone, whether or not they are going to try to continue to strike a more measured tone. But, clearly, President Trump is going on the attack, as he has many times in the past when it comes to accusations of sexual misconduct involving people close to him and his administration. Dana.
[Bash:] It's just so interesting because I know you were hearing, I was hearing, that he was boasting privately about the fact that he was being so presidential and so restrain and then that changed. He was with Sean Hannity last night. Maybe they got a poll. We're going to continue to dig on that and I know you are too. Abby, thank you so much. And here at the table to share their reporting and their insights, Catherine Lucey with "The Associated Press," CNN's Phil Mattingly, Sahil Kapur with "Bloomberg" and Lisa Lerer with "The New York Times." Welcome to all of you. Let's start with something else that has happened this morning on this fight, and that is the man in charge, who you know quite well, Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, was speaking at the Values Voters Summit early this morning and was very clear on how he saw the situation ending.
[Sen. Mitch Mcconnell , Majority Leader:] You've watched the fight. You've watched the tactics. But here's what I want to tell you. In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court. So, my friends, keep the faith. Don't get rattled by all of this. We're going to plow right through it and do our jobs.
[Bash:] That really struck me, Phil Mattingly. Don't get rattled by this, speaking to a group of ardent supporters of the conservative base. What do you make of it?
[Phil Mattingly, Cnn Congressional Correspondent:] And it's the it's the latter part there that was probably most important
[Bash:] Yes.
[Mattingly:] Where he was and who he was speaking to. Those are going to be the individuals that they will need, particularly if there is a public hearing, which is, as you know better than anybody, the majority leader likes to control every aspect of what's about to happen, particularly if it's a high stakes nominee on the highest court in the land. He can't control what would happen in a public hearing should they get to that point, which means that outside groups, the base, outside supporters are going to play a big role. A big role in supporting the nominee, which it's very clear McConnell still supports the nominee, but also helping to pressure from the right the senators that are going to have to vote yes. So a lot of people have
[Bash:] Rally and reassure
[Mattingly:] Exactly.
[Bash:] Which we'll talk about later in the program. What do you make from your perch covering the White House of what the president has done today?
[Catherine Lucey, White House Reporter, "associated Press":] Well, it's interesting. I think the thing that we heard from advisers all week is that they wanted him to keep this under control. They liked the measured tone. They didn't want to rock the boat. But it's hard to keep this president on message for this many days. Once the deadline, if you will, got moved to Monday, people were saying, it's just that much more time. Can he keep it together? And we saw last night we all saw he was he's out of the White House. He had a rally last night. He was in front of supporters. He did a Fox interview. Maybe that. And he sort of he edged a little closer to
[Bash:] Woke up in his hotel room, was watching cable news.
[Lucey:] Yes. So, I mean, all of those things could be factoring into it. The question now is, does he continue to escalate these attacks, I mean, which are potentially damaging with women voters, you know, with some key votes, you know, going into next week. He has another rally tonight that I think will be key in Missouri. McCaskill has said she will not support Kavanaugh. So I think that's another moment when we could really see him come out with more of this.
[Bash:] Definitely a shift in tone and you said off message. But is it off message or is it a new message that they think might be more necessary right now politically.
[Lisa Lerer, National Political Reporter, "the New York Times":] It may be a new messages, but I think Republicans are really walking a very, very delicate line. And I think it's important to point to the second half of what McConnell said, which was, we're going to plow right through this. Plow right through this, meaning, we're going to plow right through this woman's, you know, accusations and she's, you know, presumably, if she does testify, it's going to be her trauma and her it's going to be a very emotional kind of presentation. I'm not sure you want to say that you want to plow right through something like that. And it's really important, you know, they could there definitely could be a scenario where Republicans get Kavanaugh confirmed, but they pay a price and they pay a big price in November. So balancing the confirmation politics and the politics politics, I think, is a difficult sort of very they have to walk a very careful line. And I think having the president kind of balancing the back and forth are switching messages in the middle of that doesn't make it easier for any of these Republicans as they try to walk this fine line.
[Sahil Kapur, National Political Reporter, "bloomberg":] Yes, it's very bold and it's pretty daring on McConnell to be so categorical. And I agree with Phil, I read this less of a as less of a prediction because he cannot guarantee 51 votes. He doesn't hold all their cards. And more of it a pressure and attempt to keep the pressure on to rally the conservatives who are working hard to confirm this nomination and to keep the heat on senators like Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, who, at least the former two of them, they do respond to pressure on this. They consistently vote with the very conservative judges, many of whom they probably agree disagree with on some ideological issues. And this is the dilemma for Senator McConnell. He does need suburban women in places like Missouri and Tennessee to hold on to his majority, you know, but he also needs Republican voters to turn out. And one major Republican donor messaged me early this morning saying, all hell will break loose if they cave on this nomination. There is pressure they're facing from their own base as well.
[Bash:] OK. And so let's talk about the potential for this hearing, what's at stake here and the negotiations going on. We know from an e- mail that the that Professor Ford's attorney sent to the Judiciary Committee last night that they want to talk about how many rounds of questioning, the scope of examination, whether the committee will subpoena Mark Judge, the other individual who she says was there in the room, talking about the day, providing for her safety and saying that she that they want the senators, not outside counsel, to question. Phil, you were reporting earlier that there was a conference call. I think it I believe it maybe just wrapped up.
[Mattingly:] Yes.
[Bash:] Got a call you. We're both looking at our phones trying to maybe see if we can report and talk on the air at the same time among Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which might be an indication of where they are in these negotiations. It's really important.
[Mattingly:] Yes, it's a really important call because it will dictate what Chairman Chuck Grassley, and with McConnell beside him, respond to what Debra Katz, the lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford, laid out in terms of the conditions that they wanted. And, look, let's set something straight, when people are going into hearings, they want conditions that are favorable to them. What's happening right now, the negotiation process, is not rare for a congressional hearing, particularly one where the stakes are positively enormous. I think the interesting element of the call that happened between Judiciary Committee members today is, roll back to Monday. That was when they had a meeting with the Judiciary Committee and the plan going into that meeting was not to schedule a public hearing.
[Bash:] Right.
[Mattingly:] Inside that meeting, Senator Jeff Flake, and I'm told one or two other members of the committee said, there has to be a hearing, it has to be public. McConnell and Grassley were forced to shift and schedule a hearing. That's why this call is so important. While Republicans say we're not going to add witnesses, we don't think that some of the conditions can possibly be met. If one senator in that group on that conference call says this has to happen or I'm going to oppose the nomination, they can help set the terms. Will it happen? I don't know. I think people just kind of want to move this process forward at this point. But it's an important call and it will go a long way to deciding what happens next in this process.
[Bash:] All right, I'm go to take an audible. I'm going to go to break because we all have a little reporting to do and maybe we'll have some new information for you on the other side of the break. But up next, we're going to keep talking about this. And Republicans hunting for the perfect mid-term message to prevent a blue wave from hitting Congress. Stay with us.