Trump lashes out at Blumenthal for relaying Gorsuch’s 'disheartening' comments The president resurfaces the Connecticut senator’s military record to minimize fallout from the nominee's remarks about Trump’s attacks.

President Donald Trump attacked the military record of Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Thursday morning, suggesting that the Connecticut lawmaker misrepresented his conversation with Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch as he did years ago regarding his service in the Marine Corps Reserves.

Trump appeared to be responding to media accounts published Wednesday night, in which Blumenthal (D-Conn.) relayed some of his conversation with Gorsuch. The senator said Gorsuch called Trump’s regular criticisms of the federal judiciary “disheartening” and “demoralizing,” comments that were confirmed by others present for the conversation as well as a spokesman for the judge.


“Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?” Trump responded Thursday morning on Twitter. He followed up with an attack on CNN for not pressing the issue during an interview with the Connecticut senator. "Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave 'service' in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!" Trump tweeted.

With Gorsuch's statements confirmed and corroborated multiple times, Blumenthal told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that "I would suggest, very respectfully, that Donald Trump needs to be better informed of what his nominee has said to all of us on Capitol Hill."

The “major lie” to which the president referred dates back to Blumenthal’s 2010 Senate campaign, when he was forced to hold a news conference to explain that while he had said multiple times that he served “in” the Vietnam War, he had meant to say he served “during” the Vietnam War. Blumenthal was in the Marine Corps Reserves for six years during the war, but did not serve overseas.

"On a few occasions I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that and I take full responsibility," Blumenthal said at the 2010 news conference, according to a Washington Post report. "But I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to our country."

Thursday afternoon, Trump doubled-down on his criticism of Blumenthal during a brief interaction with reporters ahead of a listening session on the Supreme Court with a bipartisan group of senators. Asked by a reporter for his reaction to Gorsuch's criticism of him the president scolded the media, telling the press pool that "you misrepresented his comments totally."

"His comments were misrepresented. And what you should do is ask senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record that didn't exist after years of saying it did," Trump continued in response to a follow up question. "So ask Senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record. He misrepresented that just like he misrepresented Judge Gorsuch."

Although the judge's comments had been well-publicized by Wednesday morning, Blumenthal said Gorsuch bears a responsibility to more publicly speak out against the president's attacks against the judiciary. Those attacks, the senator told "Morning Joe," are evidence that "we’re careening toward a constitutional crisis way bigger than me or even Judge Gorsuch."

"Judge Gorsuch has a special responsibility to do more than just say to me how disappointed he is behind closed doors or my colleagues. He should condemn these attacks publicly, unequivocally and clearly," Blumenthal said. "I'm worried about the attack on the independence and legitimacy of our American courts. They really depend on credibility and trust from the American public. When the president of the United States attacks them personally and viciously, It undermines their Independence."

"He has to show the American people that he will be more than just a rubber stamp for Donald Trump."

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), an outspoken critic of Trump's who made his own "Morning Joe" appearance before Blumenthal, said his conversation with Gorsuch went much like his Connecticut colleague's. And while he did not directly attack Trump's jabs at the judicial branch, the Nebraska senator said "we need to affirm public trust" in all three branches of government.

Sasse said Gorsuch became especially impassioned when the topic of the president's attacks on the judiciary came up.

"Frankly he got pretty passionate about it. I asked him about the 'so-called judges' comment, because we don't have so-called judges or so-called presidents or so-called senators. And this is a guy who kind of welled up with some energy and he said any attack on any — I think his term to me was 'brothers or sisters of the robe' — is an attack on all judges," Sasse said. "What I saw in that guy is he got some energy about it, was this isn't about somebody just who’s just been nominated to Supreme Court. This is a guy if he were on traffic court in Colorado or in Nebraska would have the same view."

Fresh off her own controversy, in which she referred in multiple interviews to a “Bowling Green massacre” that never occurred, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway seemed in a forgiving mood on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” when discussing Blumenthal’s misstatements regarding his military service. But unlike her own misstep, Conway said Blumenthal’s misrepresentation was “glossed over” and the president was simply trying to offer a reminder of the senator’s track record.

“This is the president's way of reminding everybody, in his view anyway, that Sen. Blumenthal has had a credibility problem of his own. We know that gets glossed over,” Conway said. “He is somebody who said he fought in Vietnam and he meant to say he fought — he was enlisted during Vietnam. So it was just a matter of a word. That happens to some of us sometimes, but in the case of Sen. Blumenthal, it didn't get that much coverage. So perhaps the president is trying to maybe make everybody see the credibility of Sen. Blumenthal as well as he's out there representing the judge's conversation.”

Beyond his complaint that Blumenthal had misrepresented his conversation with Gorsuch, Conway also told “Fox & Friends” that Trump was upset that the senator had made public the contents of an ostensibly private conversation. But in his interview on “Morning Joe,” Blumenthal said Gorsuch “specifically said you should feel free to mention what I said about these attacks being disheartening and demoralizing.”

Asked a follow-up question, Blumenthal clarified that Gorsuch had “unbidden, said feel free to talk publicly about what I said.”

In a terse exchange with reporters during the daily White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer insisted that Gorsuch's comments were not related specifically to Trump's criticism of the judiciary but were instead related to attacks against the judicial branch overall. Spicer stuck to that story even after reporters asked him about Sasse's appearance on "Morning Joe," where the senator specifically said he had raised the issue of Trump's criticism with Gorsuch and inspired an impassioned response.

“He literally went out of his way to say I’m not commenting on a specific instance. So to take what he said about a generalization and apply it to a specific is exactly what he intended not to do," Spicer said. “There’s a big difference between commenting on the specific comments that have been made and the tweet and his general philosophy about the judiciary and the respect for his fellow judges."

Trump, who like Blumenthal is 70 years old, never served in the military and was given five deferments from the draft, four for educational purposes and one because he was diagnosed with bone spurs in his heels.

Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is leading the charge to help confirm Gorsuch, put out a statement Thursday morning that attempted to clarify Gorsuch's comments. "Judge Gorsuch has made it very clear in all of his discussions with senators, including Senator Blumenthal, that he could not comment on any specific cases and that judicial ethics prevent him from commenting on political matters," Ayotte said. "He has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary, and while he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing."