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President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched his most forceful attack yet on Deborah Ramirez, the second of two women who have alleged sexual misconduct by Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
“The second accuser has nothing. The second accuser doesn’t even know, she thinks maybe it could’ve been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk,” Trump said of Ramirez.
“She was totally inebriated and all messed up, and she doesn’t know,” the president added, speaking at a bilateral meeting with Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Trump’s comments about Ramirez seemed at odds with what his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said Tuesday morning about the two women accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
“The president has been clear: Let them speak, but let’s also let Brett Kavanaugh speak, and let’s let him tell his side of the story,” Sanders said. She also suggested that Ramirez could testify before the Senate Thursday, alongside another Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford,.
Ramirez alleges that Kavanaugh aggressively exposed himself to her at a party during their freshman year at Yale University. Ford says that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school. She recounted the experience in a letter to her congressional representatives this summer, and later, to The Washington Post.
Kavanaugh has categorically denied both allegations, and he will testify on Thursday, as well.
As Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle has shifted into crisis mode in recent days, Trump has escalated his attacks on Kavanaugh’s accusers. On Friday, he tweeted that “if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says,” then it would’ve been reported it to police.
Still, the president lays the most blame for Kavanaugh’s predicament on Senate Democrats. He accuses them of trying to destroy Kavanaugh’s life for political gain.
In his Tuesday remarks, Trump upped the ante against the rival party, accusing them of not believing the allegations leveled against Kavanaugh.
“It’s horrible what the Democrats have done. It’s a con game they’re playing,” Trump said. “They’re really con artists. They’re trying to convince — you know, they don’t believe it themselves, okay? They know he’s a high-quality person. They don’t believe it.”
Democrats, however, have repeatedly said they believe the allegations are credible, and have demanded that the FBI investigate Ford’s and Ramirez’s claims.
With the fight over Kavanaugh escalating, the president also began to identify with Kavanaugh in unexpected ways.
For instance, Kavanaugh claims that as a student, he was too focused on being number one in his class to have engaged in the heavy drinking and misogynistic behavior that some of his classmates did.
Trump took a moment to say he knew what that was like. ‘”He was focused on being number one in his class at Yale,” Trump said of Kavanaugh. “To me, that was so believable. I understand college very well. Being number one in your class. I understand a lot of things. When he said that, I understood exactly.”
Trump never released his college transcripts. But he did not appear on the Wharton School Dean’s List in 1968, his senior year, suggesting Trump did not graduate at the top of his class.
Trump also alluded to the fact that he and Kavanaugh share the experience of being accused of sexual misconduct. In Trump’s case, the accusations have come from least a dozen women, spanning decades of Trump’s life.
“Who is going to want to go before the system to be a Supreme Court judge or even a politician? I can tell you that false accusations of all type are made against a lot of people. This is a high quality person, and it would be a horrible insult to our country if this doesn’t happen. And it’ll be a horrible, horrible thing for future political people.It cannot be allowed to happen,” he said.
“The Democrats are playing a con game. C-O-N. A con game. And it’s a shame. And they know it’s a con game,” Trump said again, the Colombian president still sitting quietly to his right. “They know he’s high quality. And they wink at each other. They’re winking. They know it’s a con game.”