Tag: Christine Blasey Ford

Trump on Mocking Christine Ford at Rally: ‘It Doesn’t Matter. We Won’

During an interview on 60 Minutes, CBS’s Lesley Stahl challenged President Donald Trump about his mockery of Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford at a Mississippi rally.

“I watched you mimic her and thousands of people were laughing at her,” Stahl said at Trump claimed he was not making fun of her.

“I– I will tell you this. The way now Justice Kavanaugh was treated has become a big factor in the midterms. Have you seen what’s gone on with the polls?”

Stahl then pressed: “Do you think you treated her with respect?”

Trump said he did.

“But you seem to be saying that she lied,” Stahl pressed further.

Trump then tried to change the subject.

“You know what? I’m not gonna get into it because we won,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. We won.”

[Mediaite]

Trump calls Kavanaugh allegations a ‘hoax set up by the Democrats’

President Trump said Monday that he expects a lot of Democratic voters to support Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms because of how the party’s lawmakers handled sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“The main base of the Democrats have shifted so far left that we’ll end up being Venezuela. This country would end up being Venezuela. I think a lot of Democrats are going to be voting voting Republican on Nov. 6,” Trump told reporters at the White House before departing for a law enforcement event in Florida.

The president seized on the specter raised by some liberals of impeaching Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the Supreme Court on Saturday after being accused by three women of sexual misconduct and facing questions from Democrats about his judicial temperament.

Trump dismissed the allegations against Kavanaugh — including that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when the two were in high school — as “a hoax that was set up by the Democrats.”

He later blasted allegations from Julie Swetnick that Kavanaugh was present at parties where high school boys got girls drunk so they could be “gang raped,” calling them “made up,” “fabricated” and “a disgrace.”

“And now they want to impeach him,” Trump said. “I think it’s an insult to the American public. I think you’re going to see a lot of things happen on Nov. 6 that would not have happened before.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said last week on the eve of Kavanaugh’s confirmation that Democrats would investigate the sexual misconduct allegations against the judge if the party reclaimed the majority in the House.

Nadler did not comment on the possibility of impeaching Kavanaugh, and other Democratic lawmakers have refrained from discussing that prospect, or indicated they have no intention to pursue it in the near future.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Dele.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called impeachment discussions “premature,” while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said it “would not be my plan” to impeach the Justice.

The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh on Saturday afternoon in a 50-48 vote, with one GOP senator absent and another voting “present.” Every Democrat opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination except for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

[The Hill]

Media

Trump on why he mocked Christine Blasey Ford: ‘I had to even the playing field’

President Trump said late Saturday  that he mocked Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, because he needed to “even the playing field.”

Trump discussed Kavanaugh’s confirmation during an on-air call with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro after his rally in Kansas.

Pirro said that Trump was “disciplined” after Ford’s allegations came out and asked him why he decided mock her during a rally last Tuesday.

“You went off script and some people said you were extremely unkind to Christine Ford,” Pirro said.

“But what was it that got you to pivot from your restraint about her and to fight for Kavanaugh at that point?” she asked.

“Well, there were a lot of things happening that weren’t correct, they weren’t true and there were a lot of things that were left unsaid,” Trump responded. “And I thought I had to even the playing field. It was very unfair to the judge, and now I can very nicely say Justice Kavanaugh. It was a very unfair situation.”

[The Hill]

Media

Kellyanne Conway Defends Trump’s Mockery of Dr. Ford: ‘Pointing Out Factual Inconsistencies’

White House special advisor Kellyanne Conway ran defense for President Trump on Wednesday after he seemed to mock Christine Blasey Ford‘s misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Conway spoke to Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith on Fox News, and the discussion started off with the condemnation Trump has received for his rally remarks last night. Conway argued that Trump was merely highlighting the argument that no evidence or new witnesses have turned up in support Ford’s claims ever since they became public.

“We are not managing the scope, the witnesses, anything like that. At the same time, the president is pointing out factual inconsistencies. By Ford’s own testimony there are gaps in her memory, there are facts that she cannot remember. How she got home, how she got there. Where the house was, what the date was. If those pretending they want to find the truth, don’t say we can’t find the truth when she doesn’t know all the facts. That’s part of the testimony she put in under sworn statements”.

Conway went on to argue that the Democrats have weaponized the #MeToo movement against Kavanaugh, somewhat suggesting that they only care as long as they are the victims. She also bragged about how many likes Trump got on a tweet of his shortly after Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“That’s a lot of likes for a presidential tweet,” she touted.

[Mediaite]

Trump Attacks Democrats For Treatment of Brett Kavanaugh: ‘VICIOUS AND DESPICABLE’

Piggybacking off of comments he’s made at rallies over the past two nights, President Donald Trump is attacking Democrats for what he deems to be “VICIOUS AND DESPICABLE” treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

In a Wednesday morning tweet, the president — again liberally using capital letters — shredded Democrats for their handling of the Kavanaugh nomination.

“I see it each time I go out to Rallies in order to help some of our great Republican candidates,” Trump wrote. “VOTERS ARE REALLY ANGRY AT THE VICIOUS AND DESPICABLE WAY DEMOCRATS ARE TREATING BRETT KAVANAUGH! He and his wonderful family deserve much better.”

The new tweet comes after Trump’s widely condemned remarks at a Tuesday night rally in Mississippi in which he mocked Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford.

[Mediaite]

Trump makes fun of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for not remembering the night of her alleged assault: ‘I only had one beer!’

During a Mississippi rally for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), President Donald Trump made fun of Brett Kavanaugh accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for not remembering details about the night of her alleged assault 36 years ago.

“I had one beer!” the president said, mocking Ford’s insistence that she wasn’t as inebriated as Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged sexual assault.

He then proceeded to mock the woman’s back-and-forth questioning with prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, responding “I don’t remember” to questions about the time and location of the incident.

“I had one beer, that’s the only thing I remember,” Trump said, continuing to make fun of Ford. “A man’s life is in tatters. A man’s life is shattered.”

[Raw Story]

Media

‘A very scary time for young men in America’: Trump says boys fear being unfairly accused of sexual assault

President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned that it is a “very scary time for young men in America” after his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, was accused of sexual assault.

The president made the remarks to reporters as he was boarding Marine One.

Trump explained that he was sticking with the nominee because he had not seen enough evidence of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault claims.

“My whole life, I’ve heard you’re innocent until proven guilty,” Trump said. “But now you’re guilty until proven innocent. That is a very, very difficult standard.”

“I say that it’s a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of,” he continued. “This is a very difficult time. What’s happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice. You can be somebody that was perfect your entire life and somebody could accuse you of something.”

[Raw Story]

Reality

Research from the National Sexual Violence Research Center proves the opposite.

“False allegations of sexual assaults are somewhere between 2 and 10 percent,” Cooper explained. “Yes, they happen, but they’re not the norm. Not to mention sexual assault is widely underreported, out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, only 310 are reported to the police, according to the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, RAIN.”

Trump questions why Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser waited to report alleged assault

President Donald Trump on Friday questioned why the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a sexual assault waited years to report the incident, leveling his most direct criticism yet at Christine Blasey Ford.

“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”

The comments departed from the more restrained approach Trump has taken when discussing Blasey Ford. In his comments earlier this week, Trump has focused on defending Kavanaugh’s character while lamenting the public attention the case has received.

Blasey Ford has come forward with claims Kavanaugh and a friend took her into a room where he pinned her to a bed, groped her, tried to remove her clothes and put his hands over her mouth to muffle her screams at a house party in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in the early 1980s, when he was 17 and she 15.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations.

Experts say it is common for victims to delay reporting sexual abuse, in part because they feel ashamed or are fearful. Some studies suggest that only about one-third of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement officials.

Blasey Ford reiterated Thursday that she would be willing to testify before senators about her allegations. Ford’s attorney spoke with staff for the Senate Judiciary Committee and laid out requests for her to testify next week, including that Kavanaugh not be in the same room.

After barreling ahead, Kavanaugh’s confirmation was abruptly halted this week when Ford came forward to identify herself as the author of an anonymous letter detailing the accusations. The committee has scheduled a meeting Monday to hear from both Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford, but negotiations over that hearing are ongoing.

Some Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have said the Senate should move quickly to confirm Kavanaugh before the November midterm elections. Others, notably Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, have been more cautious.

Republicans can confirm Kavanaugh without support from Democrats, but they can afford to lose only one of their own members.

Trump’s tweet went a step further in questioning Ford’s account than remarks he made in an interview with with Fox News late Thursday night.

“Why didn’t somebody call the FBI 36 years ago?” Trump said in the Fox interviews broadcast live before a rally in Las Vegas. “I mean, you could also say when did this all happen, what is going on? To take a man like this and besmirch …”

While Trump himself approached the issue cautiously in his initial comments, some of his surrogates have not.

Donald Trump Jr. drew criticism, including from Republicans, for making light of Blasey Ford’s accusations in an Instagram post over the weekend. The post included a fake letter, written in crayon, suggesting Kavanaugh was too young to have harmed Blasey Ford.

“This is sickening,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., wrote on Twitter Wednesday in response to the post. “No one should make light of this situation.”

[USA Today]