Members of the White House team working on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court worried CBS editors would selectively edit an interview conducted with Kavanaugh during his confirmation process to make him look bad, according to a new book out Tuesday.
Authors Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino write in their book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court that the leading candidates to interview Kavanaugh after he faced allegations of sexual assault were Jan Crawford of CBS and Martha MacCallum of Fox News. The White House, they said, “wanted someone who could conduct a serious interview but who would be fair and let Kavanaugh speak—neither a series of softball questions nor a game of ‘gotcha.’”
The interview ended up going to MacCallum, in part because while Kavanaugh’s team respected Crawford’s integrity, there were concerns the editors at CBS would “slice and dice” the interview to cast Kavanaugh in a bad light, Hemingway, a senior editor at The Federalist, and Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, wrote.
Additionally, Fox News’ audience “included conservatives whose support needed to be shored up.”
Kavanaugh’s interview with Fox marked the first time a Supreme Court nominee has sat for a television interview and broke from a long tradition of nominees remaining silent during the confirmation process. The move was so unusual the White House sought approval from the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, gave the go-ahead, according to the book.
But Kavanaugh’s performance in the interview was “hotly debated,” Severino and Hemingway wrote, as his answers appeared “over-rehearsed,” and he seemed uncomfortable. His interview with Fox News was a departure from how he appeared during a mock hearing a week earlier.
“The Bushies had gotten to him,” a White House adviser said, according to the book, a reference to former officials in President George W. Bush’s White House who provided guidance to Kavanaugh.
Justice on Trial provides a behind-the-scenes look at Kavanaugh’s confirmation, including the allegations of sexual assault that roiled the nomination process.
