The Republican senator from Arizona — the one who struck a deal with Democrats last week to demand a new FBI investigation into Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh before taking a full floor vote on the Supreme Court nominee in the Senate — did not like the comments President Donald Trump made at a campaign-style MAGA rally in Southaven, Mississippi, last night.
Said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz., pictured above left) on the “Today” show Wednesday morning: “Well, there is no time and no place for remarks like that, but to discuss something this sensitive a subject at a political rally is just not right … I wish he hadn’t have done it, and I just say it’s kind of appalling.”
Here’s what he was referencing.
On Tuesday night, Trump talked about the gaps and lapses in memory by the woman who has accused Kavanaugh (shown above right), a sitting circuit court judge, of sexually assaulting her decades ago in high school, when the two were teenagers and supposedly at the same house gathering in suburban Maryland.
Kavanaugh has denied any such allegations.
He’s been vehement in denying all of the accusations lodged his way from other women as well.
The president, speaking to a tremendous crowd in Southaven, talked about how unfairly Kavanaugh has been treated throughout this process — and how anyone, at any time, now can make allegations about people with impunity — and that today, people are presumed guilty, not innocent, before any investigations or corroborations even come to the fore.
“’How did you get home?'” said Trump last night, in recounting the back-and-forth questions and answers from the Senate Judiciary Committee to Ford and her replies to them during the hearing last week.
“‘I don’t remember.’ ‘How’d you get there?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘Where is the place?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘How many years ago was it?’ ‘I don’t know …’ ‘What neighborhood?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘Where’s the house?’ ‘I don’t know … but I had one beer,'” Trump said, imitating Ford’s lack of detail during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Flake did not like any of that, however.
Though Flake and many Democrats have said that Ford’s testimony was “credible” and much more, the sex-crimes prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, earlier this week wrote a memo to the Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and said that Ford’s allegations do not have the level of evidence needed to bring a prosecution.
Said Trump also on Tuesday night in this larger context: “We better start as a country getting smart and getting tough and not letting … [the fake news] tell us how to live our lives.”
“Think of your son. Think of your husband,” added Trump at the Mississippi rally, referring to what might be false or unsubstantiated charges made by anyone for any reason at any time.
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His suggestion was those who have lived an adult life of accomplishment, hard work, success, dignity and more should not be tarnished by offhand and unsubstantiated allegations made by someone for political reasons.
Watch this video of Trump in Mississippi last night:
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