WH Defends Trump: Ford’s Testimony ‘Was Compelling,’ But Senate Can't Make Decision 'Based on Emotion'

Monica Sanchez | October 3, 2018
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The White House on Wednesday defended President Trump’s controversial remarks at a rally in Philadelphia Tuesday night, where he mocked the testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week.

At the rally, Trump implied that Dr. Ford’s testimony was not credible, a sharp departure from his comments Friday where he described it as “very compelling.”

In his remarks, he said, imitating Ford, "'How did you get home?' '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 was it in?'" he continued. "'I don't know.' 'Where's the house?' 'I don't know.' 'Upstairs, downstairs, where was it?' 'I don't know, but I had one beer.' 'That's the only thing I remember.'"

Amid backlash for his remarks, the White House defended Trump, saying that while Dr. Ford's testimony “was compelling,” the Senate can’t make its decision to confirm Kavanaugh “based on emotion."

"The president was stating the facts," said White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

“The testimony by Dr. Ford was compelling,” she said, “but you can’t make this decision based on emotion. It has to be based on fact.”

“They have to determine what the facts are of this case,” she continued. “That’s one of the reasons that they asked and begged for the FBI and delayed a hearing vote so that they could get more facts on this case. We expect the FBI to turn those facts over to the Senate and they could make a determination based on that. That’s all we’re asking for.”

Sanders went on to slam Democrats for exploiting Dr. Ford in their crusade to throw out Kavanaugh’s nomination, saying, “I think both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavnaugh are victims at the hands of the Democrats. I think it is absolutely disgraceful what they’ve done and exploited this process.”

“They’ve exploited Dr. Ford. They’re exploiting all of the women who have come out to make any type of accusation. This isn’t the process that should’ve been done and certainly everybody deserves to be heard, but that includes Judge Kavanaugh,” Sanders said.

An ex-boyfriend of Dr. Ford issued a statement on Tuesday that has raised further concerns regarding her testimony. The ex-boyfriend declared in the statement that over the six years of their relationship Dr. Ford had never mentioned Kavanaugh nor an incident of sexual assault, MRCTV reported. He also said that Ford had helped one of her friends prepare for a polygraph test, when during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing she claimed she had “never” done anything of the sort.

Kavanaugh during the hearing last week denied all the allegations against him and has said repeatedly that he has never sexually assaulted anyone.

Sanders said that Trump remains “very confident in his nominee.”

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