San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Trump uses Kavanaugh furor to rally votes
WHEELING, W.Va. — President Trump on Saturday turned his embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh into a rallying cry for Republicans to vote in November, saying they can help reject the “ruthless and outrageous tactics” he says Democrats used against the judge.
“We see this horrible, horrible, radical group of Democrats. You see what’s happening right now,” Trump said at a rally with thousands of supporters in Wheeling. Trump won West Virginia in 2016 by 42 percentage points and remains popular there.
“And they’re determined to take back power by any means necessary. You see the meanness, the nastiness. They don’t care who they hurt, who they have to run over to get power,” he said.
Kavanaugh, the federal appeals judge Trump nominated to the nation’s highest court, appeared headed for confirmation until Bay Area professor Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers in Maryland in the 1980s. Kavanaugh denied her accusations and those of two other women since who have accused him of sexual misconduct.
Ford initially made her claims in a confidential letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the letter was leaked after Kavanaugh’s initial confirmation hearing before the committee.
Feinstein denied being the source, but Trump blamed her for the leak and mocked her at the rally. “The entire nation has witnessed the shameless conduct of the Democrat Party,” Trump said.
Feinstein responded to Trump on Twitter, saying she acted “consistent” with Ford’s wishes for privacy from the moment she received the professor’s letter. “We kept her letter confidential and did not leak the contents or its existence to anyone,” she said.
The president urged his supporters to go to the polls on Nov. 6, when control of Congress is at stake, and vote Republican and “reject the ruthless and outrageous tactics of the Democrat Party.”
Besides the Democrats, Trump leveled some of his harshest criticism at the news media, criticizing its coverage of his June summit with Kim and pointing out reporters in the WesBanco Arena. The audience broke into chants of “CNN sucks” when he again referred to journalists as the “enemy of the people.”
Trump’s visit to West Virginia was intended to help rally support for GOP candidates in the November elections, including Senate nominee Patrick Morrisey. The Democratic incumbent, Joe Manchin, faces a tough road to re-election.
Manchin supports the new FBI probe of Kavanaugh but has yet to announce his position on the nominee. He voted for Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, and Trump would also like Manchin’s vote for Kavanaugh.
Saturday’s rally was one of many Trump planned to headline as part of a commitment to campaign aggressively — he has said seven days a week, if necessary — to help the Republican Party overcome significant Democratic opposition and anger and keep control of both houses of Congress.