There seems to be a high degree of confidence among liberals that if Brett Kavanaugh goes down, President Trump will simply appoint another conservative, who Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would simply push through before the new Congress is sworn in — even if Republicans end up losing control of the Senate.

This assumption has always, to me, been highly overstated, so it didn’t surprise me to see this report from Jonathan Swan of Axios saying that Trump has no plan B to swap in another nominee if Kavanaugh goes down. “There’s no time before the [midterm] election to put up a new person,” a White House official told Swan.