I don’t buy the Trump influence here. It was Kavanaugh himself that turned this around if anyone did. And maybe even he didn’t. This was a straight political battle with 96 party loyalists and 4 renegades.
That was set in stone when he was nominated.
Did the Trump speech change the vote of:
Manchin - Absolutely not.
Flake - No, not for this jerk. He voted yes but certainly not on principle.
Collins - Possibly but I doubt it seriously.
Murkowski - It was a no vote from the get-go.
Of course the talking point now is that he cannot be a good and impartial justice because he hates the dems too much.
Do ya think??????
What this Trump statement did was change the tone of the debate over Ford, from “credible” (repeated ad nauseam for two weeks as I’m sure you’ve red), to comical.
It sapped all the power out of her innocent victim ploy, speaking directly to the truth - that this was a hoax engineered by the Democrats, and this was the proper level of contempt with which to regard it.
Basically, he changed attitudes. Once it was easy to agree that her story was so full of holes no one should take it seriously, the bottom fell out and the votes fell into line.
How does Collins make that vote without Trump preparing the ground? She might not, in that scenario.