>> all right, everyone. , --r. president >> thank you, we are done. >> and the summits, blumenthal was critical of the u.s. supreme court nominee. he serves on the judiciary committee and spoke about efforts to obtain documents related to his time as a staff secretary in the george w. bush administration. president, i asked that the mandatory quorum call be lifted. there are few responsibilities, i would say none, more important , then our duties in connection

with the appointment of a united states supreme court justice. much is at stake in the nomination before the senate now to appoint judge brett kavanaugh as the justice who will replace justice kennedy. so much is at stake. ,he future of roe v. wade affordable health care, particularly pre-existing conditions and the protection from them for millions of americans. here to talk about judge kavanagh as a nominee, i am here to talk about how we reach a conclusion. as to how we vote. my colleagues and i. how we think and pursue the

truth about judge kavanagh, his qualifications, his temperament, his integrity and intellect, who he is, and what kind of justice he will be. knowest way to do it is to what he has written and said. all of his writing and opinions, articles he has written -- these points are basic. by our colleagues objection to our seeking that they have sought in connection with past nominee is when they were made by presidents of our party. president obama nominated justice kagan. republicans asked for documents. even her clerkship for justice

thurgood marshall. senator grassley, the chairman of the judiciary committee, said at the time -- for the senate to fulfill its constitutional responsibility, we must get all documents and have enough time to analyze them so we can determine whether she should be a justice. i agree. , unfortunately, republicans want to reply a completely different standard to judge kavanagh. they want his documents kept that he cantored so onto the court without having to answer tough questions about what he has written, said, and done. they maintain there is nothing in the documents that would be

relevant. well, we cannot know this supposed relevance -- irrelevance, and neither can they, until we all see the documents. for some reason, the republicans seem worried. they seem concerned. they seem apprehensive. we haveican people and what are they, concealing? and why are they scared of it? what is judge kavanagh hiding? why is he afraid of it? that is the question he should answer. they have a responsibility to address. before you begin the hearing.

our questions require those documents. fact, a lots of good reason to think the documents will be relevant and revelatory. particularly documents from his time in the white house. smarter public and colleagues are downplaying the role judge kavanagh had will working for and judge -- john cornyn said that judge kavanagh was " more or less a traffic cop." contradicts what our colleagues said at the time when he was a nominee to the d.c. circuit court of appeals. senator cornyn said ben about currentlynagh " he is

staff secretary to president bush, and job whose title belies the serious and important responsibility that the individual performed." another colleague and a very distinguished member of the judiciary committee said of judge kavanagh, " his background as staff secretary may prove to be particularly good judicial training." for me, the best indication of how important his role as staff secretary to president bush, not just as counsel, but staff secretary, comes from judge kavanagh himself. me which of mysk prior experiences have been most useful to mean as a judge, i tell them all of them have been

useful and i draw on all of but i also do not hesitate to say that my five and a half years in the white house, my three years as staff secretary for president bush, where the most interesting and in many ways, the most instructive." i would read that sentence again. it will be in the record. it is well known to many of my colleagues. " as kavanagh went on staff secretary, i set in meetings where he talked with and prime ministers and the pope john paul. i was at the ga in scotland when the london bombing occurred.

i participated in the process of putting legislation together, whether it was terrorism insurance, or medicare prescription jet coverage, or attempts at immigration reform. i worked on drafting and revising orders. i remember negotiating last-minute changes. i saw a regulatory -- i saw the relationship between independent agencies and executive agencies and the president and white house and omb. i saw a requests. " that is from judge kavanagh. indication as to why we need the documents from the time when he was staff secretary to president bush, it is the words of judge kavanagh himself.

know what kind of justice he will be, we need to understand the decisions he has made and the lessons he learned in that most formative job. , wee refuse to try have abdicated our constitutional responsibility. we have a duty. i submit with great respect the request made by the chairman of the judiciary committee involves all of us abdicating that responsibility unless we protest and raise a huon cry and force production of additional documents. this goes beyond any sort of partisan divide. it goes beyond the question of whether any of my colleagues are against judge

kavanagh. it is about our constitutional responsibility. judge avenalts as himself has said, in effect, much about judge kavanaugh as he worked in every major issue as counselor to president bush, staff secretary to him, karl rove noted in a ,ecent interview, he said "literally any document that goes to the president on a policy issue has to pass through the hands of the staff secretary . judge kavanaugh as he himself has said was at the president's side at many pivotal moments of the bush presidency from the passage of partial birth abortion to the ban on partial-birth abortion to debates over same-sex marriage and well beyond. we should know just what judge

-- as staffs secretary said to president bush during those and other critical moments of the bush presidency. his advice to president bush and his role in those decisions is relevant. understates word its importance. it is critical to our judgments about his qualifications. perhaps maybe just by chance there is nothing in those documents. when judge kavanaugh was in the white house, maybe he was just a traffic cop as senator cornyn has claimed or an honest rocher, as the judge described himself at his confirmation hearing. true, whatthat is are they hiding?

why do they need to conceal them? we should have the opportunity to determine whether judge kavanaugh truly was an honest rocher, just a traffic cop, just passing documents through his hands without any input, the best way to do it is by reviewing those documents. mr. president, judge kavanaugh made this point when he was an appellate court nominee at his confirmation hearing. he answered "that is done through an assessment of going back, in my case, 16 years of my career and looking at the kinds of things i have done in the staff secretary's office, we should heed those words, they are the words of judge kavanaugh. we should examine all the documents. it may take some additional time

to review all those documents, .ut maybe not if there is nothing in there that relates to his view and his opinion and his role, if he was just a traffic cop or an honest rocher, we can get through them quickly. that regardless of the time involved, there is no more important task that we will undertake as united states senators then deciding his qualifications to be a justice on the u.s. supreme court. anything less would be a dereliction of our duty. thank you, mr. president and i yield the floor. >> supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh akin to news to meet with senators on capitol hill. follow the cap -- process leading up to the senate confirmation hearings and the vote. watch live on c-span, watch

anytime on c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. president bill clinton and george w. bush sat down for an interview earlier this month and little rock, that is next on c-span. we look at the relationship between the arts and the states economies. pompeo talkd mike about u.s. investment in asia. >> former president bill clinton and george w. bush is set down for an interview at the clinton presidential center to talk about a range of topics am a including immigration and u.s. foreign aid. they look at get their careers and talked about lessons they have learned from their political defeats. this event was organized by the clinton foundation and was part of a ceremony recognizing members of the presidential leadership scholars program area and