He told them to prepare as if he would get the nomination, and if he didn’t, they’d all go out to dinner anyway.
The White House had prepared rollouts for each of the finalists, and even people at the highest levels didn’t know that Kavanaugh was the choice until the last moment. Claire Murray of the White House counsel’s office had to cut her family vacation short to work on the Hardiman rollout, even though Kavanaugh, unbeknownst to her, had already been chosen. McGahn’s deputy, Annie Donaldson, knew Kavanaugh had been chosen, but her husband, Brett Talley, who was also working on judicial selections for the White House counsel, was kept in the dark—something he would tease her about, particularly since she’d also been discreet about Kennedy’s retirement.
The press was consumed with speculation throughout the day. Kavanaugh arrived at the White House at midday and continued revising his speech from the Lincoln Bedroom, asking assistants to print updated versions. Ashley understood the need for discretion but also worried about making plans. It would take time to get the judge’s parents down to D.C., and she and the girls would need to be dressed and ready to go. He agreed to call his parents, confirming that the nomination was on.
Meanwhile his clerks felt optimistic but unsure, particularly given President Trump’s flair for drama. While emails went out earlier in the day to people who would be invited to an announcement regardless of the nominee, it wasn’t until the five o’clock hour that Kavanaugh-specific guests received their invitations. Even then nobody felt fully confident. As the clerks waited in the East Room, they noticed a large group of empty chairs, set aside for senators who were due to arrive at the last minute. “We think it’s us, but that’s where all the Kethledge people sit,” someone joked. It wasn’t until Kavanaugh walked on stage that everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
The standard critique of every male Republican nominated to the Supreme Court is that he is hostile to “women’s rights,” a euphemism for unregulated abortion. It was the main attack on John Roberts, but it was also levied against those who would turn out to be defenders of abortion, such as David Souter.4 Everyone knew that Kavanaugh would face the same attack, but he would meet it with a lifelong record of being shaped by and working alongside strong women. He was determined to showcase them in the key first forty-eight hours.
In his speech that evening, Kavanaugh’s love for his mother shone through. He praised her work as a teacher at two largely African American public high schools in Washington, D.C. He expressed his pride in her for going to law school when he was ten—an unusual career path for a woman at that time—and becoming a prosecutor and eventually a judge. He recalled his mother’s customary advice to a jury: “Use your common sense. What rings true? What rings false?” And he said, “The president introduced me tonight as Judge Kavanaugh. But to me that title will always belong to my mom.”5
An only child, Kavanaugh was extremely close to his parents. They had both attended law school at American University when he was a boy and used to tease each other about who got better grades. With two parents who were lawyers, he got to see the creative ways working mothers balance all their responsibilities. In eighth grade, Kavanaugh was in a five-person carpool at his Catholic school. On her day to drive, Mrs. Kavanaugh would send a taxi to pick up her son and the other kids, one of whom was a third-grader.
He expressed gratitude to Justice Elena Kagan, who had hired him as an adjunct professor at Harvard Law School when she was its dean. Kagan was known for her efforts to hire conservatives, having included three among her forty-three full-time faculty hires, more than doubling (to 2 percent) the conservative share of the overwhelmingly progressive law faculty. She realized that her students would be disadvantaged as lawyers if they were taught only by liberals, because they would never be forced to defend their views vigorously and because many judges are themselves conservative.
A majority of Kavanaugh’s clerks had been women. He talked about his “spirited daughters,” Margaret and Liza, whose basketball teams he coached. And he expressed love and respect for his wife.
Kavanaugh was already well known in the legal community as a powerful judge on one of the most important federal courts. But in his speech, he tried to