Donald Trump mocks Brett Kavanaugh sexual assault accuser Christine Blasey Ford at campaign rally
Video report by ITV News Washington Correspondent Robert Moore
Donald Trump has mocked the woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted by the president’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh decades ago.
A campaign rally audience laughed as Trump ran through a list of what he described as holes in Christine Blasey Ford’s appearance before the US Senate Judiciary Committee.
She alleged that Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, tried to take off her clothes and covered her mouth in the early 1980s when the two were teenagers.
Kavanaugh has denied Ms Ford’s allegations.
“How did you get home? ‘I don’t remember,'” Trump said imitating Ms Ford at the rally in Southaven, Mississippi.
“How did 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. I don’t know. I don’t know.'”
Imitating her, he said: “But I had one beer — that’s the only thing I remember.”
Trump had previously called Christine Blasey Ford a "very credible witness" following her powerful testimony in the Senate.
She described in detail how an inebriated Kavanaugh and another teenager, Mark Judge, locked her in a room at a house party as Kavanaugh was grinding and groping her.
She said he put his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams, and testified: “I believed he was going to rape me.”
The 51-year-old mother of two said the incident was seared into her mind through trauma, while admitting there were some gaps in her memory around the attack.
Ms Ford’s lawyer, Michael Bromwich, called Trump’s attack “vicious, vile and soulless”.
Trump was in Mississippi on Tuesday looking to use his influence to sway the outcome of a low-profile election that could tip the balance of the Senate.
The message from Trump and his allies looks to channel the frustration and anxieties of the party’s core voters — white men — just weeks before an election.
The president said: “It’s a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of. You can be somebody that was perfect your entire life and somebody could accuse you of something…and you’re automatically guilty.”
Trump also pretended to be a son asking his mother how to respond to an accusation.
Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle and the national soul-searching over sexual consent it has provoked threaten only to further motivate liberal female voters, leaving Republicans searching for a counterweight.
The rising frustration came as Kavanaugh’s confirmation process played out before the country, with him and Ms Ford appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week to discuss her accusation.
His confirmation continues to hang in the balance as the FBI investigates the allegation, which Kavanaugh has forcefully denied.
With the midterm elections just weeks away, Republicans risk losing the House and possibly the Senate as they face an energised Democratic party — particularly educated, suburban women and minorities.
They also have to confront a wave of Republican retirements, as well as the president’s sagging approval ratings and the tide of controversy around his White House.
Polls show Republicans are more likely to be sceptical of the #MeToo movement, which has spurred women to come forward with their stories of sexual assault and harassment, and to believe it has gone too far.
Republicans argue the Kavanaugh debate will drive enthusiasm among men and women.