Trump slams ‘campaign of destruction’
US President hopes to energise Republicans over Kavanaugh
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in — again, for the cameras, this time — at a White House ceremony, but not before US President Donald Trump slammed Kavanaugh’s opponents for a “campaign of destruction.”
Addressing the bitter partisan fight over Kavanaugh’s nomination, Trump said: “On behalf of our nation, I want to apologise to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure.”
With all the sitting justices in attendance, and Kavanaugh’s family and top Administration officials, Trump said Kavanaugh had been the victim of a “campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception.” He told the new justice, “You, sir, under historic scrutiny, were proven innocent.” Critics have argued an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations was not thorough enough to merit that conclusion.
Kavanaugh officially became a member of the high court on Sunday and has already been at work preparing for his first day on the Bench today.
Kavanaugh, who has faced criticism that he appeared too politicised in his Senate testimony, tried to assure the American public that he would approach the job fairly. He said the high court “is not a partisan or political institution” and assured he took the job with “no bitterness.”
It was the end of a deeply contentious nomination process that sparked mass protests, an FBI investigation and a national reckoning over power, gender, sexual assault and the line between violence and adolescent transgression. And it comes less than a month before pivotal Midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress.
Trump’s ceremony speech hammered a theme he has been hitting on all week: hoping to energise Republicans by attacking Democrats for opposing Kavanaugh.
A CNN poll yesterday found general disapproval — by about 55 per cent to 35 per cent — of both Republican and Democrat handling of the Kavanaugh hearings.
Kavanaugh was “caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats,” Trump said earlier. “It was all made up, it was fabricated and it’s a disgrace.”
Later, in Orlando, he called Kavanaugh “a flawless person” and said “evil” people had tried to derail him with “false charges. Horrible statements that were totally untrue that he knew nothing about. It was a disgraceful situation . . . And he toughed it out.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was welcomed at the White House with a standing ovation, on Monday praised his party’s senators, whom he said re-established the “presumption of innocence” in confirmation hearings. “We stood up to the mob,” he said.
Republicans have cast the Trump resistance movement as “an angry mob,” a term used by many of them to describe a faceless amalgamation of forces that they say threaten the country’s order and, they hope, energise their voters.
In Virginia, Congressman David Brat, (R), is running against the “liberal mob,” and GOP Senate candidate Corey Stewart has decried the “mob tactics” that “tried to destroy” Kavanaugh. “When we’re out at grocery stores or at events, we’re finding swing voters are turned off by how Kavanaugh was treated,” Congressman Peter King, (R), said. “Chasing senators down the hall, running up the stairs at the Capitol — we’ve been taken aback by how people have reacted to it. And we’re responding.”
The characterisation evokes fear of an unknown and out-of-control mass of people, and it taps into grievances about the nation’s fast-moving cultural and demographic shifts that Republicans say are working against them.
The turn toward a culture war is also a tacit admission that many of the issues that Republicans had sought to run on, from tax cuts to the upbeat state of the economy, have not been enough to fan GOP voters’ enthusiasm and counter an electrified Democratic electorate.