Photo : Evan Vucci ( AP )

President Donald Trump held a rare, 80 -minute press conference on Wednesday, where he ranted, rambled, and desperately attempted to spin the mounting allegations of sexual assault against his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. It was horrible.



After brief remarks regarding his agenda at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump faced a barrage of questions about his support for Kavanaugh.

Asked whether he believed the allegations against Kavanaugh, Trump struggled to stay on script, calling the accusations a “con job” by Democrats and insisting that the FBI shouldn’t investigate the claims, because there was “nothing to investigate from at least one standpoint.”


Pushed on whether he thought the three women who have publicly accused Kavanaugh of assault were “liars, ” Trump repeated his support for his nominee, rambled about sexual assault, and then—seemingly remembering that he should at least pretend to keep an open mind—added that “it’s possible” Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony on Thursday could prompt him to say “hey, I’m changing my mind.”


He then accused the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee of being so biased that they would have voted against George Washington who, in Trump’s words, could have had “a couple of things in his past.”


He also insisted that despite not knowing anything about Wednesday’s charge by Julie Swetnick that Kavanaugh had been “present” at her gang rape in 1982, he was still sure that Swetnick’s attorney Michael Avenatti was “a lowlife.”


Perhaps the wildest moment of the press conference came when Trump was asked about the multiple allegations of sexual assault that had been made against him over the years. Rather than expanding upon how those allegations might color his feelings regarding Kavanaugh, Trump took the opportunity to trash his accusers.


Then Trump circled back to the Kavanaugh allegations directly, insisting that his calling the alleged assaults a “con job” wasn’t “a bad term at all.” He also claimed that women were “so angry” about the campaign against Kavanaugh.

“I’ve always said that women were smarter than men,” Trump said.




He later denied that he’d claimed he felt a “kinship” with Kavanaugh, before lauding his nominee as a “tremendous genius.”

The awfulness of the occasion could be summed up by the last exchange, when Trump was asked what kind of message he was sending to young men with his support for Kavanaugh.


His answer, such as it was, was a mishmash of repeating his claim about “con jobs,” calling D emocrats “evil” and lamenting that it was a “very dangerous standard” for the United States when people are “guilty until proven innocent.”


Oh, and he also called on a Kurdish reporter by referring to him as “Mr. Kurd,” claimed President Obama almost got the United States into a war that would have killed “millions” of people, and insisted China respected his “very, very large brain.”



You can watch the entire insane press conference below, if you’re feeling brave.