Big boys don’t cry, according to President Trump.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh broke down in tears Thursday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as he faced questioning about Christine Blasey Ford’s claims that the judge sexually assaulted her during the early 1980s — a display that clashes with Trump’s opinions about male emotions.

Alternating between tears and rage, Kavanaugh denied the allegations, choking up when he described his 10-year-old daughter suggesting praying for Ford.

“Liza, all of 10 years old, said to Ashley, ‘We should pray for the woman,’” Kavanaugh said. “That’s a lot of wisdom from a 10-year-old.”


But it was the tears that caught the most attention, both online and from former and current White House staffers.

“I wonder how #45 is reacting to Kavanaugh’s crying,” Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the former Office of Public Liaison communications director, tweeted during Thursday’s hearing. “The former #45 hates for men to show any sign of weakness.

Vanity Fair reporter Gabriel Sherman echoed that sentiment, saying Kavanaugh’s tears had “unnerved some White House aides.”

Brett Kavanaugh broke down in tears in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)


“People don’t know why he is crying,” a source told him.

Those reactions follow a long-running narrative directly from the President himself: no crying allowed.

“I don’t believe in crying,” Trump told his biographer, Tim O’Brien, in the 2005 “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald. “It’s just not my thing. I have nothing against it when someone cries, but when I see a man cry I view it as a weakness. I don’t like seeing men cry. I’ll give you an example. I never met John Gotti, I know nothing about John Gotti, but he went through years of trials. He sat with a stone face. He said, ‘F--k you.’”

In January 2016, during an overly friendly late show appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” Trump said he hasn’t cried since he was a baby.


“Yes, when I was 1, I cried,” he said when Fallon asked about his emotions.

Trump has also slapped Sen. Chuck Schumer with the nicknames “Cryin’ Chuck” and “Fake Tears Chuck Schumer” after the Senate Minority Leader teared up during a speech about the travel ban.

“I’m going to ask him: Who is his acting coach?” the President said during a meeting with small business leaders in Jan. 2017. “I know him very well. I don’t see him as a crier. If he is, he is a different man.”

On Twitter, Trump has also used “crying” as an insult to Glenn Beck several times, as well as Omarosa and Joe Biden.


“Wacky @glennbeck who always seems to be crying (worse than Boehner) speaks badly of me only because I refuse to do his show--a real nut job!” he tweeted in October 2015.