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SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeatedly mocked Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, despite having said just days ago that he found her Senate testimony last week “very credible.”
In a one-man re-enactment of her appearance before the Judiciary Committee, with his voice alternating between inquisitor and an impression of Ford, Trump challenged the veracity of the testimony that has paused Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
The extended ridicule of Ford, delivered at the Landers Arena here in deeply conservative DeSoto County, is in stark contrast to the respectful way in which Trump and his aides had previously treated her testimony, even as they have stood by Kavanaugh and his assertion that he never assaulted her or anyone else.
“I had one beer!” Trump said, characterizing Ford’s testimony about her level of intoxication as a teenager when she says she was attacked at a small get-together in Montgomery County, Md., in the early 1980s.
“How did you get home?” the president asked, taking on the role of prosecutor.
“I don’t remember,” he said in his Ford voice, which was deeper.
“How did you get there?” he said, reverting to interrogator.
“I don’t remember,” he replied to himself in the Ford voice.
Trump then asked and answered a series of questions with the responses “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know.”
The crowd in this county, which favored Trump 65 percent to 31 percent in 2016, cheered with gusto in the midst of his banter with himself.
“A man’s life is shattered,” he said of Kavanaugh after making fun of Ford’s testimony. “These are really evil people.”
The Senate has delayed a final vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation while the FBI looks into multiple allegations of sexual misconduct — all of which he denies — that have been lodged against him.
The president’s tone on Ford’s testimony stood in sharp contrast to his assessment last week. “I thought her testimony was very compelling, and she looks like a very fine woman to me, very fine woman,” Trump said of Ford while speaking to reporters on Friday.