Publicly, Republicans and the White House are increasingly confident they can win confirmation for President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, despite the allegations from Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh tried to rape her in high school. "But privately, discussions about the political fallout gripped the party, with Republican lawmakers and strategists unnerved by the charged, gender-infused debates that have upended this campaign season," Robert Costa reports at The Washington Post.

At the same time, The Wall Street Journal reports, "it wasn't clear how committed Mr. Trump is to the nomination. A person close to Mr. Trump said the president views Judge Kavanaugh as the pick of outgoing White House Counsel Don McGahn and 'won't lose any sleep if he has to choose someone else.'" One reason "Trump hasn't gone to the mat for Kavanaugh is that he's said to be suspicious of Kavanaugh's establishment pedigree," and "one source says Ivanka Trump has told her father to 'cut bait' and drop Kavanaugh," Gabriel Sherman reports at Vanity Fair, adding:

"'He's a Bush guy, why would I put myself out there defending him?'" Trump told people. ... "Trump wants this guy on the court, but Trump knows there are five other people he could put on the court if this falls apart," a former official said. [Vanity Fair]

Senate Republicans want to seat Kavanaugh by Oct. 1 for the beginning of the Supreme Court's term, and also to hedge against losing the Senate. But "the real Brett Kavanaugh question facing Senate Republicans is this: Do they really need this nominee, given that he hasn't fired up their base for the midterms?" asks David Weigel at The Washington Post. "Social conservatives wanted an antiabortion female nominee," Amy Coney Barrett, not Kavanaugh, and "the most realistic way to turn this into a motivating Republican issue, ironically, would come if Kavanaugh dropped out and yet another court seat hung on the results of an election." Peter Weber

President Trump is closing out his workweek with — you guessed it — another attack on late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Trump in an interview with Fox Business that aired Friday was asked by host Maria Bartiromo about his recent attacks on the Arizona senator, who died of brain cancer last year. "John McCain is dead," Bartiromo said. "Why are you doing this?" Trump used this as an opportunity to tear into McCain once again, saying he gave Christopher Steele's Russia dossier to the FBI for "very evil purposes" and that he "was horrible" for his vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act.

"I'm not a fan," Trump said of McCain.

Trump also insisted, though, that he's not the one bringing up the subject of McCain, saying, "I don't talk about it. People ask me the question. ... You people bring it up. I don't bring it up."

This is despite the fact that Trump originally began attacking McCain on Twitter, going after him in a tweet on Saturday and then again on Sunday, also retweeting a follower who said, "We hated McCain." This is what prompted questions from reporters. Trump also brought up McCain on his own during a speech on Wednesday, during which he went on an anti-McCain rant for several minutes.

Even if Trump were only talking about McCain when asked, though, he could always simply decline to answer these questions, a fact Trump acknowledged during this Friday interview. "I could say 'no comment,'" he said, "but that's not me." Watch Trump's latest exchange about McCain below. Brendan Morrow

Maverick is more than just Charlie's best friend — he's also his "seeing-eye" puppy.

Charlie and Maverick are golden retrievers, both owned by Adam and Chelsea Stipe of Mooresville, North Carolina. Charlie is almost 11 years old, and due to glaucoma, had his left eye removed in 2016 and his right in 2017. He still loves to play and go on walks but sometimes needs a little bit of help getting around. That's where Maverick comes in.

Maverick joined the Stipe family in January. Now four months old, Maverick walks next to Charlie, guiding him where he needs to go. Chelsea Stipe told NBC Philadelphia Maverick also noticed when Charlie would lose track of a toy, and would "pick it up and put it back in front of him to re-engage playtime." It took Charlie a bit of time to get used to Maverick, but now, they're inseparable. "They're both pretty crazy and special," Chelsea Stipe said. "They're definitely our entertainment." Catherine Garcia

At 94 years and 172 days old, Jimmy Carter is now the longest-living U.S. president.

Carter, the 39th president, was born on Oct. 1, 1924. When George H.W. Bush died in November, he was 94 years and 171 days old. Carter was also the first American president born in a hospital.

In office for one term, he has spent the last several decades dedicated to service, building houses with Habitat for Humanity and launching the nonpartisan and nonprofit Carter Center, which focuses on public policy. In 2002, he received the Nobel Prize. Carter announced in 2015 that he had cancer, which started in his liver and spread; he underwent surgery, and is now cancer-free.

Deanna Congileo, a representative of the Carter Center, told NBC News the organization is "grateful" for Carter's "long life of service that has benefited millions of the world's poorest people." Catherine Garcia

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists on Thursday said "conditions are primed" for flooding in the Plains and Midwest that "could be worse than anything we have seen in recent years."

Mary Erikson, deputy director of NOAA's National Weather Service, said the "stage is set for record flooding now through May," because river levels are already high, soil moisture is above-normal, and there is substantial snowpack in the northern Plains, The Washington Post reports.

This week, there was deadly flooding in Nebraska and Missouri, and that could be just "a preview" of what might happen this spring. "This is potentially an unprecedented flood season," said Edward Clark, director of NOAA's National Weather Center. "It may become more dire in the coming weeks." The NOAA's spring flood outlook has 200 million Americans at risk, primarily those living near the upper, middle, and lower Mississippi River basins; the Great Lakes; as well as the eastern Missouri, lower Ohio, lower Cumberland, and Tennessee River basins. Catherine Garcia

In one year, Tanitoluwa Adewumi went from not knowing anything about chess to becoming New York's newest champion.

Adewumi, 8, started learning the game last year at his school, P.S. 116 in New York City. Adewumi and his family came to the U.S. from Nigeria two years ago, seeking religious asylum; they are Christians who fled to escape the terror group Boko Haram. Adewumi's coach, Shawn Martinez, said the third-grader loves to play and is always practicing. "He smiled every time he did anything on the board or learned something new," he told NBC New York. "I could just tell this game was for him."

Over the weekend, Adewumi kept his undefeated streak alive, winning his age group in the New York State Primary Chess Tournament. Adewumi will soon have a place to display his huge trophy: The family has been living in a homeless shelter, but a GoFundMe started for them this week has raised more than $160,000, and they will soon move into their own home.

Adewumi is gearing up for the national championship in May, and is inching closer to his goal. "I want to be the youngest grandmaster in the world," he said. Catherine Garcia

While he believes President Trump is "morally unfit" to be the country's leader, former FBI Director James Comey isn't hoping Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report will reveal Trump is "a criminal."

In an op-ed published Thursday night in The New York Times, Comey declares he's just happy Trump hasn't shut down Mueller's investigation, arguing that if it the probe continues unimpeded, "justice will have prevailed and core American values will have been protected at a time when so much of our national leadership has abandoned its commitment to truth and the rule of law."

Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017, said he doesn't care at all whether Mueller concludes Trump "knowingly conspired with the Russians in connection with the 2016 election or that he obstructed justice with the required corrupt intent." He does have one hope, though: that Trump is not impeached and removed from office before his term is over.

"I don't mean that Congress shouldn't move ahead with the process of impeachment governed by our Constitution, if Congress thinks the provable facts are there," Comey wrote. Rather, his concern is that if Trump is removed from office, "a significant portion of this country would see this as a coup, and it would drive those people farther from the common center of American life, more deeply fracturing our country." Read the entire op-ed at The New York Times. Catherine Garcia