President Trump took a victory lap after his nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, was confirmed to the Supreme Court, telling reporters Saturday that his controversial campaign speech last week challenging the sexual assault allegations was a pivotal moment.
“I think that the Mississippi speech had a great impact,” he said of his remarks, which a number of press outlets labeled “mocking” of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman whose claim to have been assaulted by Justice Kavanaugh at a high school party in 1982 had threatened to derail the nomination.
Ms. Blasey Ford had struggled to remember details of the assault and there has been no contemporaneous corroboration of her claim — points Mr. Trump made during his rally, though in a fashion that left many, including Republican senators, upset.
The president said he’s “100 percent certain” that Justice Kavanaugh was not responsible for the assault, saying he was confident because of the FBI’s quick investigation over the last week, and because of Justice Kavanaugh’s previous decades of public service.
And he dismissed Democrats’ predictions that women will be furious at the outcome and turn out to vote against Republicans.
“Women were outraged at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, outraged, and I think that’s a total misnomer because the women, I feel, were in many ways stronger than the men in his favor,” he said. “So you have a lot of women that are extremely happy. A tremendous number of women. Because they’re thinking of their sons, they’re thinking of their husbands and their brothers, their uncles, and others. And women are I think extremely happy.”
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• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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