Hey, everyone listening to our podcast. This is Ari, and we have a podcast extra this week

digging in to the fight and the facts over the Trump Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

We're going to play a special discussion we had that widened out to the cultural parts of this

and even the future of the Republican Party with the New York Times, Mara Gay, the novelist Gary

Steingard, and an actor and journalist Margaret Judson.

After that, we turned to a panel that we held with Caddy Kaye, Alicia Menendez, and Erin Carmon,

discussing the controversial decision by all the men on the Republican Judiciary Committee to

do something unusual and have a woman handle the prosecutorial cross-examination of Dr. Ford.

And then later, we're going to play something that I hope you'll take a listen to.

Often when I cover these stories, we talk a lot about the facts, what we're learning as we go.

But at the end of this week, I want to tell you a little bit more about what I think we've learned about Brett Kavanaugh, the man,

and whether his very controversial

testimony on Thursday, apart from the facts that the FBI is still investigating, taught us more

about his fitness for office.

That is the final part of our podcast, Extra.

After quite a week, thank you, as always, for listening to The Beat with Ari Melbert.

Brett Kavanaugh, facing an FBI probe, one that Donald Trump had been fighting.

And I want to bring in a special range of guests for a very special Friday night panel.

Mara Gaye from the New York Times, who I mentioned becomes an MSNBC contributor day.

Gary Steingard, a Russian-American novelist who's critical of Donald Trump, and I should mention

his new book is Lake Success.

And Margaret Judson, a journalist and actor who blended those experiences in the HBO series newsroom.

...