Good Thursday morning, I'm Jake Sherman, and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

Stay tuned after the show for a message from Google.

And I'm Anna Palmer. We're kicking off the morning with a classic playbook spotted.

Robert Mueller was seen Wednesday afternoon at the Apple Store in Georgetown.

He was in the back of the store and almost no one picked up that he was in there, according to our tipster.

Now, let's get back to the news.

We need to say this first.

Based on our reporting, it seems slightly more likely than not that Brett Kavanaugh will be a Supreme Court justice.

Not by that much, but by a smidge.

Senior Republicans told us that a lot of attention is being paid to Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa

Murkowski of Alaska.

But there are some other serious wild cards like Jeff Flake of Arizona and others depending on how

today's hearing goes.

GOP leadership has good situational awareness on Collins and Murkowski, less so on flake, and no ability to predict how this hearing will go and how viscerally people will react.

Today we find ourselves at a moment where culture is a much more powerful force than conventional politics.

The vote counting in partisan messaging that is the normal stuff of Washington and Capitol Hill is almost irrelevant

compared to the way this episode is exposing sharp differences among Americans based on their

own life experiences, the prevalence of sexual assault, and notions of fairness in society.

Of course, it's important that we know what happened with Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey

Ford in Bethesda and allegedly with others in New Haven and D.C.

But we have to be cognizant that we might never know with 100% certainty,

and that Senate Republicans propel by inertia, driven to win, and very much in doubt of the allegations,

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