Many mainstream media members are siding with Christine Blasey Ford (pictured above) as she testifies Thursday about her sexual assault allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, even though they have yet to hear the Supreme Court nominee’s response.
“I mean, half of America is crying because they know. You can feel it. It makes your skin — just makes your hair stand up on your arms, that this woman has been living with that laughter in her head for 36 years,” former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst Cynthia Alksne said on “MSNBC Live.”
“I just think it’s unconscionable that [Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Chuck] Grassley [R-Iowa] is putting her through this, that the Republicans have not figured out a different way to handle this situation, and they should have had an FBI investigation, and this nomination should have been pulled,” Alksne added.
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams agreed, saying, “The dichotomy between her — her humanity and the kind of clunky machinations of the Senate.”
“It’s awful,” Alksne chimed in.
Ford became the first woman to come forward publicly on September 16, when she accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during a high school gathering in suburban Maryland some 36 years ago.
Although Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) received Ford’s allegations in a July letter, she didn’t make them public until September 14, and after they surfaced anonymously — apparently as a result of a leak from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Two other women later came forward with their own sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh: Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick.
Kavanaugh has unequivocally denied all the allegations against him and will testify after Ford.
Ford maintained during the hearing that she is “100 percent” certain that Kavanaugh was the man who assaulted her.
“There were tears there. And I can only imagine the people who were watching on television, crying as well.”
“And we’re told — we’re told Gloria, that people in that — in that hearing room were crying,” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said to Gloria Borger, CNN’s chief political analyst, on “At This Hour.”
“There were tears there. And I can only imagine the people who were watching on television, crying as well,” Blitzer added.
Borger insisted Ford’s testimony “was affecting and believable.”
Even Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said on “America’s Newsroom” that the hearing thus far had been a “disaster for the Republicans.”
“This was extremely emotional, extremely raw, and extremely credible,” Wallace said of Ford’s testimony. “Nobody could listen to her deliver those words and talk about the assault and the impact it had had on her life and not have your heart go out to her.”
“She obviously was traumatized by an event,” Wallace added. “This is a disaster for the Republicans.”
Related: Hearings Just Started, Twitter Already Packed with Support for Christine Blasey Ford
Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said on Fox Business Network that he believed Ford came across “with great credibility” during her testimony.
“With a serious intellect and with appropriate emotion. And at this point, she is 100 percent. No one has laid a glove on her, and she’s absolutely believable, in my opinion,” Napolitano said. “I mean, she went through in vivid and graphic detail what she says happened.”
“She’s absolutely certain that the person who did this to her was Brett Kavanaugh. Her memory of events before and after is fuzzy, but there doesn’t seem to be any deficiency in the stated aspect of her memory,” Napolitano added.
Mediaite founder and ABC chief legal analyst Dan Abrams said on the network that “so far, this has been an unmitigated disaster for Kavanaugh” both “procedurally and substantively.”
“She comes across credibly,” Abrams said of Ford. “And if that’s going to fail, you’re going to need someone to undermine her credibility, and to point out inconsistencies.”
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