Klobuchar says if she acted like Kavanaugh in his courtroom, "he would have thrown me out"
Minnesota's Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Friday that if she was in Brett Kavanaugh's courtroom and acted like he did towards her in Thursday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, "he would have thrown me out." Klobuchar made the comment on "CBS This Morning," after Kavanaugh in his emotional testimony the day before turned the tables on Klobuchar in an exchange focused on his past drinking habits.
In the exchange, Klobuchar asked the Supreme Court nominee if he ever had so much to drink he blacked out. Kavanaugh fired back, "Have you?" Kavanaugh later apologized for his question, but the exchange stood out Thursday in testimony from Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
"Well, I was thinking that if I was in his courtroom and acted like that, he would have thrown me out," Klobuchar said. "And I appreciated that he apologized, but at the same time, he didn't really answer the question. And what I was trying to get at was that you have this incredibly convincing testimony in the morning from Dr. Ford."
Klobuchar added that Kavanaugh "didn't really answer the question" of whether he ever blacked out. Klobuchar noted that Kavanaugh's college roommate James Roche claimed Kavanaugh became "belligerent" when he drank, but the Republicans who control the Senate Judiciary Committee haven't called on such witnesses to testify.
That Republicans are moving Kavanaugh's confirmation process along without hearing from other witnesses, Klobuchar said, makes her think "that they are hiding something." Klobuchar added later that she doesn't like "living in an evidence-free zone," without testimony from contemporaries of Kavanaugh and Ford.
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The Minnesota Democrat added that her experience comes from having an alcoholic father who, at 90, is in Alcoholics Anonymous. People have drinking problems in lots of families, Klobuchar said.
"For me, it is not that people don't drink in high school, it's, is he telling the truth?" she said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to vote on Kavanaugh at 9:30 a.m. Friday. After that, Kavanaugh's nomination would head to the Senate floor for a series of votes.
Klobuchar, asked about the possibility of impeaching Kavanaugh if he's confirmed, said she's not even thinking about that yet, because some Republicans are still undecided on how they'll vote.
"First of all, I'm not even thinking of that because I still believe that they haven't decided," she said. "And in my conversations with them, I believe them when they say they haven't decided. just because we're having a committee vote today, committees have advanced nominees to the floors who later get pulled back or investigations occur. That doesn't mean that it's done."