October 3, 2018

White House Defends Trump’s Mockery of Kavanaugh Accuser at Political Rally

Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed the president was simply “stating the facts.”

Ron Sachs/ZUMA

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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday rejected accusations that President Donald Trump mocked Christine Blasey Ford during a Tuesday night rally in Mississippi, arguing the president was simply stating the facts.

She also claimed in aggrieved terms that “every single word” from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony had been unfairly scrutinized, while critics of the president and his nominee were willfully overlooking dubious elements of Ford’s remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“The president was stating the facts and, frankly, facts that were included in prosecutor Rachel Mitchell’s report,” Sanders said during an afternoon press briefing. She continued, “Every single word Judge Kavanaugh has said has been picked apart, every single word, second by second of his testimony has been picked apart. Yet if anybody says anything about the accusations that have been thrown against him, that’s totally off limits and outrageous.”

Sanders added, “No one is looking at whether or not the accusations made are corroborated, whether or not there is evidence to support them.” Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school.

The White House’s defense came after three key Republicans—Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)—condemned the president for his remarks, which included a derisive rendition of Ford’s testimony and her inability to remember certain details surrounding the alleged attack by Kavanaugh.

“The president’s comments were just plain wrong,” Collins told reporters on Wednesday. Shortly before the briefing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) similarly claimed that Trump’s remarks were factually true but said he disapproved of them.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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