Trump's unhinged, batshit press conference was just the capper on a very crazy day
by digby
My Salon column this morning:
If you are a news junkie, Wednesday September 26 2018 was the day you overdosed. It started with Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti releasing a sworn affidavit from a client by the name of Julie Swetnick which laid out a story of alcohol-fueled parties in which boys lined up to rape girls who were too inebriated or drugged against their will to resist. This was not the first story that such debauchery took place in those prep school parties back in the 1980s. In Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow's New Yorker story about another incident at Yale University a woman named Elizabeth Rasor went on the record saying that her high school boyfriend, Kavanaugh's good friend Mark Judge, had once admitted to her that he had participated in such a "line-up." She is willing to testify under to oath to what he told her. To be sure, nobody is claiming that Brett Kavanaugh himself actually raped anyone but Swetnick claims she saw him at the parties and witnessed him spiking a girl's drink as well as unwelcomely groping and "grinding" on another.
Stories in the media about the culture of these boys and girls prep schools and at Yale during that era have proliferated in recent days which, along with a close reading of comments in Kavanaugh's High School yearbook, describe a very ugly picture of a group of young men routinely abusing girls at drunken house parties. Mark Judge himself has written extensively about his heavy partying during that period, all of which makes Kavanaugh's self-serving portrayal during his Fox News interview on Monday of his youth as a virginal choir boy less than believable.
As the media reported all these new accusations, Republican Senators came out swinging. Led by Senator Lindsey Graham, they cast aspersions on the victims, suggesting that they were immoral people for failing to come forward at the time if these things were true.
More than a few people commented that Graham and his cohort should probably think twice about making that accusation considering all we know about the culture of abuse that's been revealed in recent years in the Catholic Church. Saying that accusers are immoral and lacking credibility if they didn't come forward or reject any further interaction with the perpetrators, no matter the social and emotional cost to a young person, is typical victim blaming. Even older people have a hard time coming forward, knowing that people like Lindsey Graham will call them liars.
According to Capitol Hill reporters Republicans are very angry at having to deal with this unfortunate little hiccup in their mad rush to confirm one of their favorite partisan henchmen to a lifetime appointment. Throughout the day, they would turn up on camera to blame Democrats, complain about the process and generally whine about how this whole thing is taking much too long, ignoring all inconvenient reminders that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held open the last open seat for a year in order to get a right-wing Republican appointed.
This cascade of new information and high emotion was already overwhelming when Donald Trump appeared at the UN late in the day to give only the second free-wheeling formal press conference in his presidency, acting so wired he must have guzzled at least two six packs of diet coke just before he came out. It had been reported that he was unhappy with how the Senate Republicans and allies had been handling the situation and had decided to take over.
Naturally, he was unable to resist making it all about him. It appeared he felt the need to remind people that he had even more accusations than Kavanaugh, obviously making him the more manly man of the two. He said, “I’ve had a lot of false charges made against me, really false charges. I know friends that have had false charges. People want fame. They want money. They want whatever. So when I see it, I view it differently then somebody sitting home watching television, where they say, ‘Oh, Judge Kavanaugh this or that.’ It’s happened to me many times.”
brought up his own situation several more times, at one point alleging that some of the women who had accused him had been proved to have been paid off, but the fake news refused to cover it. (That's because it was a Fox News fantasy story.)
It only went downhill from there. But as bad as his excuses and accusations and insensitivity on this subject were throughout the press conference, the final question and answer said it all:
QUESTION: What about the message that you may be sending to young men? You’re a father. What does this moment that we’re in, the cultural moment...
The reporter pressed again,
QUESTION: And, sir...
TRUMP: We’ll do it again.
QUESTION: ... the message to young men?
TRUMP: Thank you.
QUESTION: [voice rising] Sir, that -- young men...
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
QUESTION:[louder] ... young teenage men...
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: ... nothing to say, sir?
With that Trump left the podium.
But there was really nothing left to say, was there? Trump had quite clearly told young men that women are evil, con artists who will falsely accuse them of sex crimes. After all, it's happened to him "many, many times."
As I write this, the hearing is still scheduled for this morning with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh scheduled to testify. Trump insisted at one point that he would listen (if he had time --- he says he's going to be very busy talking to other countries today) and he could change his mind and withdraw the nomination if he finds the victim to be credible.
It's possible that Kavanaugh will withdraw but it won't be because Trump has suddenly decided to believe a woman in this situation. He's made it very clear what he thinks about that. If Kavanaugh withdraws it will be because Mitch McConnell tells him that the votes aren't there.
Last night the word was that there were a few Republican senators who already had cold feet and after watching that debacle of a press conference it's likely they had visions of campaign ads with Trump's crude, sexist comments hung around their necks like a 50-pound kettlebell. They can read polls a little bit better than he does and the latest have Kavanaugh losing 18 points and Trump losing 16 from Republican women in the last two weeks. Are they willing to go down with Trump's Titanic?
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