Update Donald Trump has postponed his meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein until next week, the White House confirmed today as the nation’s attention was focused on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The meeting had been set for today, but it’s likely the president, like the rest of TV watchers, is glued to the testimony of Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford.
According to the White House press pool, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that Trump spoke with Rosenstein for “a few minutes” today and agreed to reschedule for next week. “They do not want to do anything to interfere with the hearing,” Sanders said.
Previous, Wednesday In a one-hour and 20 minute long, often un-moored presser, Donald Trump said he wanted to hear from all three of the women who have now come forward with allegations against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The Senate Judiciary Committee has only agreed to hear one of the women, Christine Ford, at tomorrow’s hearing.
Trump said he would listen to the women with an open mind, but also called their allegations false, adding that the new one, from “con artist” Michael Avenatti, is a “real beauty.”
The day after Bill Cosby was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in jail for an assault on a woman, though dozens more had accused him of doing same to them in years past, Trump continued to question why Kavanaugh’s three accusers, nor their parents, had filed police reports at the time of the alleged incidents.
“Why did they wait so long?” Trump asked.
“Thirty six year no charge no nothing…These are all false accusations,” Trump said.
“It’s possible they will be convincing,” Trumps said of the women, agreeing there is a circumstance under which he might pull Kavanaugh’s nomination.
“If I thought he was guilty of something like this, yeah, sure. I want to watch [the hearing].”
To facilitate that, Trump said he might delay his meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for another day.
“I’m talking to him; we’ve had a good talk. He says he never said it,” Trump said of a New York Times report that, a year ago, Rosenstein discussed wearing a wire to record Trump and also discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
Rosenstein, and the media, thought he was going to be fired earlier in this week over that NYT report; some inaccurately reported Rosenstein had offered his resignation. Trump said at his presser he would prefer not doing that.
“He has a lot of respect for me, and he was very nice, and we will see,” Trump said.
“My preference would be to keep him and let him finish up. You know, I call it a witch hunt and it is a witch hunt.”
Asked about his previous day’s address to the United Nations, and the laughter that erupted in the hall when he boasted his administration had accomplished more than almost any other administration in US history, Trump shot back, “Fake News!”
“They weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing with me. We were having fun. Fake News said people laughed at Trump. We had a good time together,” he insisted, adding, The United States is respected again.”
Speaking of laughing at Trump, there were a few audible snickers in the room when he insisted that today’s Fake News media would have roasted even the first POTUS. “George Washington,” he said — giving a rare correct answer about American history — “didn’t he have something in his past?”
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