Trump sees asset where others see election liability
When a bitterly divided Senate confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh despite sexual misconduct allegations a month before the midterm elections, strategists in both parties anticipated that it could turbocharge Democratic efforts to take over the House, if not all of Congress.
One person who did not get the memo? President Trump.
Rather than falling back on defense amid roiling outrage, especially among women, Trump is going on offense, trying to turn the furor into an asset instead of a liability. With the world’s loudest megaphone, he hopes to make the issue not the treatment of women in the #MeToo era but the treatment of men who deserve due process.
For Trump and his Republican allies, this is a big gamble, with control of at least one house of Congress and possibly both on the line. Polls generally show that more Americans believed Christine Blasey Ford, the main accuser, than Kavanaugh. The national mood over the past year has been less forgiving of powerful men accused of taking advantage of women.
The president’s calculation, however, is that conservative voters who for most of the year have been lethargic about the congressional elections can now be motivated to turn out by anger over the Democratic attacks on Kavanaugh. Liberal voters, in this view, were already animated by their opposition to Trump and likely to vote even before Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault and exposing himself during drunken school parties, so Democrats have less to gain.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of things happen on Nov. 6 that would not have happened before,” Trump told reporters Monday before flying to Orlando to address the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “The American public has seen this charade, has seen this dishonesty by the Democrats.”
Rather than moving on to other issues, Trump made a point of showcasing his appointment of Kavanaugh on Monday evening with a nationally televised swearing-in ceremony at the White House, an event unnecessary legally since he was already sworn in on Saturday but useful politically, as the president sees it.
Trump continued his combative tone at the White House ceremony, in a highly unusual departure of the usual platitudes featured at such events.
“I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain you have been forced to endure,” Trump said, citing “a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception.”
Kavanaugh, Trump said, had been “proven innocent.”
The president took a far different tone from Kavanaugh, who noted at the ceremony that the Supreme Court “is not a partisan or political institution” and pledged to be “an independent and impartial justice.”
Democrats acknowledge that the battle over Kavanaugh may help select Republicans, particularly in red states that voted for Trump like North Dakota, where Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, was already struggling before voting against confirmation. But in general they say voters are more driven to the ballot box by grievance than gratitude.
“Midterm elections are always about punishment and never about reward,” said Steve Israel, a former congressman from New York and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.