Thread: Donald Trump tells aides he likes Brett Kavanaugh's aggressive tone

Donald Trump tells aides he likes Brett Kavanaugh's aggressive tone

David Jackson, USA TODAY
Published 6:41 p.m. ET Sept. 27, 2018

WASHINGTON – As Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh angrily called the sexual assault allegations against him a "circus" and an effort at "character assassination," President Donald Trump was watching at the White House and was pleased with his aggressive tone, according to administration officials.

Officials who spoke with USA TODAY as the hearing was unfolding said Trump had told aides he thought Kavanaugh did himself some good in his confirmation battle, administration officials said Thursday.

While Trump himself watched the testimony from the residential section of the White House, officials gathered in White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders' office in the West Wing to watch the proceedings. Another group of officials accompanied Kavanaugh to Capitol Hill to lend assistance.

"We're listening and watching like everybody else," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the hearing is still going on.

Trump and others would have a more formal reaction "after it is over," the official added.

Kavanaugh, a 53-year-old federal appeals court judge, was at times angry and at times tearful as he professed his innocence to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He vowed to continue fighting for his confirmation, telling Democrats who oppose him "you’ll never get me to quit. Never."

In emotional testimony that took place just before the Supreme Court nominee appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christine Blasey Ford, 51, told the panel that when she and Kavanaugh were both teenagers, he pinned her to a bed and tried to remove her clothes. Kavanaugh said he "never assaulted anyone.”

In the days leading up to the hearing, Trump had encouraged members of Kavanaugh's team to make the judge more aggressive in fighting the allegations against him, two officials said.

Like many Americans, employees at the White House were riveted on the testimony of Kavanaugh and Ford throughout the day.

In the morning, aides watched with intense silence as Ford told senator she was 100 percent certain that Kavanaugh was the man who sexually assaulted her during a high school party.

By the afternoon, White House officials remained rapt as Kavanaugh angrily denied a variety of allegations, and choked up as he discussed their impact on his family and young daughters. One adviser who had said Kavanaugh might be doomed said the nominee improved his chances with his testimony.

Some aides said tweets from Donald Trump, Jr., summed up the general initial reaction.

"I love Kavanaugh’s tone," the younger Trump said in one post. "It’s nice to see a conservative man fight for his honor and his family against a 35 year old claim with ZERO evidence and lots of holes that amounts to nothing more than a political hit job by the Dems. Others in the GOP should take notice!"

Moving forward, White House officials said the key to Kavanaugh's fate probably rests with three undecided Republican senators: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Jeff Flake.

They predicted that if the three back Kavanaugh, he will be confirmed. Otherwise, Trump may have to consider an alternate plan, those officials said.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ne/1447509002/

Brett Kavanaugh is a wonderful man, a brilliant jurist, and will be a tremendous Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Please vote tomorrow and recommend to the Senate, the confirmation of this nominee to our country's highest court.

You look at his life, how hard he has worked, what a good son, student, athlete, friend and citizen he has been since a very young age, and there is just no question that these allegations are false, they are untrue, they are 100% wrong, and it's all a scam. No doubt about it. Civil responsibility has had nothing to do with this farce.

Dr. Ford has NO evidence, no witnesses!

The witnesses to this SHAME is all who spoke today at the committee hearings!

What disgraceful Demorats!

They portrayed Kavanaugh as a high school drunk, vomiting, groping, raping teenager! That is all they got!


A BIG NOTHING BURGER!

TEENS DRINK, THEY PARTY, THEY BOAST STUPID STUFF! ARE THEY ALL RAPISTS? NO!

WOMEN DRINK, THEY PARTY, THEY VOMIT...SOME...NOT ALL...DO STUPID STUFF!

I DO NOT DOUBT SOMETHING HAPPENED TO FORD...BUT THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH HER AND BRETT DID NOT DO IT TO HER!

Frustrated Trump turns optimistic on Kavanaugh

By Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins, Sarah Westwood, Jim Acosta and Jeff Zeleny, CNN
Updated 7:26 PM ET, Thu September 27, 2018

Washington (CNN)On a Washington day like no other, President Donald Trump found himself in an unusual spot: publicly absent from a melodrama gripping the nation. Closeted in his third-floor White House residence, he avoided opportunities to comment on the proceedings occurring two miles away on Capitol Hill.

But nearing the end of a more-than-eight-hour hearing stamped by unusually raw displays of human emotion and political drama, the President was telling aides and confidants that he believed his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had successfully acquitted himself from accusations of sexual assault and was one step closer to being installed on the highest bench.

"Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him," he wrote on Twitter fewer than five minutes after the hearing was gaveled to a close. "His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting. Democrats' search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist."

He offered a command to Senate Republican leaders: "The Senate must vote!"

The President had spent most of the previous week enraged, in public and private, at how the man he selected to reshape the ideological bent of the Supreme Court was being maligned. He decried Senate Republicans for not pushing for a vote on his nominee's confirmation before the allegations emerged. He was dismayed by a timid defense offered by Kavanaugh himself during a leaden interview with Fox News.

On Thursday, Trump found himself revived by Kavanaugh's irate and tearful denial, delivered over the course of 45 minutes as his wife wept at the edge of the camera frame. The sharply political tinge of his statement -- railing against Democrats' tactics and accusing them of executing "revenge on behalf of the Clintons" -- gave Trump confidence an eventual Justice Kavanaugh would rule in his favor.

"President Trump is very pleased with Brett Kavanaugh's righteous indignation regarding the personal destruction of his good name and his family," a senior White House official said. "He's confident in his choice."

Trump's confidence, of course, isn't wholly relevant in the ultimate question of whether Kavanaugh is confirmed. Republican fence-sitters, namely Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have yet to say how they'll vote after expressing concerns about the accusations that emerged over the past week.

But White House officials who appeared uncertain about a beleaguered nomination earlier in the week had regained confidence as the hearing neared its end.

"Only way to earn respect in Trumpworld is to brawl and he is brawling," said one source close to the White House.
"Brett saved his bacon," said another person with ties to the administration.

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, assessed the day saying: "Anyone who opposes Brett Kavanaugh is basically signaling their retirement."

A student and practitioner of television, the President is highly attuned to the power of televised testimony and the emotional draw of a sympathetic character. Trump recognized quickly that Christine Blasey Ford's account of being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh would prove credible to most viewers.

And along with some White House officials, he recognized the mistake in hiring a sex crimes prosecutor to question Ford in place of Republican senators. Meant to inure the GOP members of the Judiciary Committee -- all men -- from accusations of insensitivity, the move instead appeared like the Republicans were putting Ford herself on trial.

Senior officials in the West Wing were openly complaining Thursday that the female prosecutor Republicans brought in to question Ford and Kavanaugh wasn't helpful. Instead, these officials said Republicans made a mistake with Rachel Mitchell, who specializes in sex crimes, because she was unable to effectively point out their perceived holes in Ford's account.
While the White House initially signed off on the plan, Mitchell was recruited and hired by the committee. An official involved in the process said the White House offered their own suggestions for female lawyers to conduct questioning, all of whom were rejected.

That impression wasn't dampened when the prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, seemed to disappear when it was Kavanaugh's turn to testify. The Republican lawmakers took over instead.

In the end, the President -- like the rest of the country -- was offered hours of compelling testimony from two individuals that both displayed raw and convincing emotion. And like other Americans, Trump interpreted what he saw through his own personal history, one that is pocked with accusations of misconduct and assault.

Watching a time-delayed recording of Ford's emotional testimony aboard Air Force One on Thursday, Trump remained rapt -- and largely quiet. The silence disconcerted some aides, who are used to furious outbursts instead of hushed discontent.
The general feeling inside the White House is that Ford was "very credible" and "compelling," another official said, who added that her testimony doesn't take away the partisan criticism for why she came forward so late in the confirmation process.

Yet it was Trump's hand, working behind the scenes, that led to Kavanaugh firing back in loud partisan tones that have seldom, if ever, been heard by a nominee for the high court. And it was no accident that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham soon followed suit, bellowing to Democrats in the room: "This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics."
The interview Kavanaugh and his wife gave to Fox News on Monday was intended largely to cast Kavanaugh in a "sympathetic" light and to humanize the man behind the allegations. In the immediate aftermath of the interview, some in and around the White House were attempting to tout the interview as a success in achieving that goal.

But Trump felt Kavanaugh didn't come across as forceful enough, and the President urged him to take a more aggressive stance during his testimony. Perhaps taking that advice to heart, Kavanaugh's tone grew increasingly tougher over the week in written statements responding to the additional claims made against him -- he described them as originating from the "Twilight Zone" -- and the nominee prepared to fight back harder against the women accusing him.

It was clear from the first words out of Kavanaugh's mouth that he had shed the amiable veneer he brought to his television appearance and channeled the defiance Trump himself had shown the previous day when defending his nominee.

Republican strategists and aides expressed something approaching panic after Ford's testimony sparked a national outpouring of empathy and support Thursday afternoon. White House aides feared the reaction among Senate Republicans could doom the nomination before Kavanaugh ever took his seat before the committee.

Kavanaugh's emotional account of the toll the allegations had taken on his family -- delivered while his wife wept in the background -- quickly inspired a collective sigh of relief among his supporters.

One Trump ally noted that while the President doesn't like men who display their feelings the way Kavanaugh did, he likes winning even more -- and the nominee's performance will boost his chances for victory.

"Even if he loses, (he) set the table that a stand-alone accusation should never suffice," the ally said.

Still, the harshly political tone adopted by Kavanaugh and Republican senators amounted to a new territory for a judicial nominee. For Trump, Thursday's hearing was less about the search for truth than a political battle producing winners and losers.

"If the Republicans win tomorrow, I think you're going to get some votes from the Democrats," he predicted during a rambling evening news conference in New York a day ahead of the hearing. "You know why? Because we all know why. Because it's called politics."

CNN's Jake Tapper contributed to this report.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/27/polit...ion/index.html