Trump: Dems using ‘con’ to sink Kavanaugh

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump accused Democrats on Tuesday of using a “con game” to try scuttling Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination and disparaged the account of the second woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying she herself conceded she was “totally inebriated and all messed up.”

Trump’s remarks came as Republicans worked to shore up GOP support for the beleaguered Kavanaugh, whose march toward Senate confirmation has been rocked by allegations of decadesold sexual improprieties from two women. On Friday, Trump had mocked claims by Kavanaugh’s chief accuser of a sexual assault at a 1980s high school party, tweeting that she would have reported the incident to police if it was “as bad as she says.”

While other Republicans have sought to undermine the women’s accounts, Trump has gone further. Most GOP lawmakers have been less acidic in challenging the women’s credibility, mindful of competitive November elections in which many female voters are already expected to abandon Republican candidates because of hostility toward Trump.

In remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh’s second accuser.

She told The New Yorker magazine that at a party both attended as Yale freshmen in the 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh placed his penis in front of her and caused her to involuntarily touch it. She’s said she was inebriated as well and has admitted to holes in her memory of some details.

“She said well it might not be him, and there were gaps, and she was totally inebriated and all messed up,” Trump told reporters. “She doesn’t know it was him but it might have been him and ‘Oh gee let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that.’ This is a con game being played by the Democrats.”

Trump called Kavanaugh “just a wonderful human being” and suggested that Democrats were skeptical of Ramirez, saying, “They don’t believe it themselves.” He said rejecting Kavanaugh would be “a horrible insult” and “a very dangerous game” for the U.S.

Trump spoke two days before the Senate Judiciary Committee plans a pivotal, election-season hearing at which both Kavanaugh and his chief accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are due to testify separately. That session, certain to be must-watch television for the nation, looms as a do-or-die wild card for Kavanaugh in which a split-second facial expression, a tear or a choice of words by either witness could prove decisive.