oOo

Trump mocks Christine Blasey Ford at Mississippi rally

President Trump is done playing nice with Christine Blasey Ford.

At a Tuesday rally in Southaven, Miss., Trump attacked the credibility of Ford, one of three women to accuse his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

“How did you get home? I don’t remember,” Trump said, mocking Ford’s answers before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “How did you get there? I don’t remember. Where is the place? I don’t remember. How many years ago was it? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. What neighborhood was it in? I don’t know. Where’s the house? I don’t know. Upstairs, downstairs, where was it? I don’t know. But I had one beer, that’s the only thing I remember.”

With the crowd laughing and cheering his impression of Ford, Trump then turned serious.

“And a man’s life is in tatters. A man’s life is shattered,” Trump continued. “His wife is shattered. His daughters who are beautiful, incredible young kids — they destroy people, they want to destroy people. These are really evil people.”

Trump’s comments marked a departure from his strategy of avoiding any criticism Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hours after Ford detailed her allegation of Kavanaugh’s drunken sexual assault at a party when the two were in high school, Trump offered Ford praise.

“I thought her testimony was very compelling and she looks like a very fine woman to me, very fine woman,” Trump told reporters in the White House last Friday following Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It was an incredible moment I think in the history of our country. But certainly [Ford] was a very credible witness. She was very good in many respects.”

Trump came to Mississippi to try to avert an embarrassing loss in the Senate for Republicans in the deep-red state, throwing his weight behind incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Facing a three-way race between Democrat Mike Espy and far-right Republican state Sen. Chris McDaniel, Hyde-Smith basked in the president’s support. Trump, however, spent far more time discussing Kavanaugh’s confirmation process than Hyde-Smith’s candidacy. 

Earlier Tuesday, Trump praised Kavanaugh as “an outstanding person” who has been “very brutally treated,” and lamented what he described as an unfair playing field for men in the #MeToo era.

“It is a very scary time for young men in America when you could be guilty of something you may not be guilty of,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before boarding Marine One. “This is a very, very — this is a very difficult time.”

The F.B.I. is currently looking into the allegations against Kavanaugh and is expected to wrap up its investigation this week.

oOo