The president’s morning TV viewing might have made him a little uncomfortable today.
The hosts of Fox & Friends offered rare criticism of Donald Trump on the morning after he openly mocked Christine Blasey Ford—one of the women who has accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in high school—during a rally in Mississippi on Tuesday night.
Trump made his crowd laugh by imitating Ford saying “I don’t remember” or “I don’t know” about various details related to the alleged attack in the summer of 1982. “But I had one beer, that’s the only thing I remember,” he added. Ford testified last week that what she remembered most about her alleged assault was the “uproarious laughter” of her attackers.
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The president had been relatively diplomatic since the testimony. “I thought her testimony was very compelling, and she looks like a very fine woman to me,” Trump said at the time, calling her a “very credible witness.”
Which is why Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade thinks the president made a mistake with Tuesday night’s attack and abandoning his more careful stance. “The tactic of the president laying low has been lauded by all sides,” said Kilmeade.
“Last night he chose to blow it as the FBI is handing in the report as early as today. I wonder about the wisdom, as much as the crowd loved it, I wonder about the wisdom tactically of him doing that.”
The Fox & Friends criticism was particularly surprising because it’s not as if it’s been particularly tactful about Ford’s allegations about Trump’s Supreme Court pick. Kilmeade lost his temper last Wednesday morning when discussing the sexual-assault allegations against Kavanaugh.
“I was at back to school night last night for my 10th and 12th graders and little did I know, I was just trying to see if they’ve blown any shot of any success in life at 10th and 12th grade,” he said. “Because that’s what I’m getting from this whole process. When in doubt, go back to high school and college, even if you’re in your fifties.”
Hosts from the Fox News show also helped to spread an absurd doppelgänger theory about Ford’s allegations, speculating whether she was mistaken in accusing the federal judge of sexual assault—and that it was actually another classmate who a Republican think-tanker said looked quite similar.
Kilmeade isn't the only friendly face who criticized Trump for his attack on Ford. Sen. Jeff Flake, a key Republican swing vote on the fate of Kavanaugh, also rebuked him Wednesday morning.
“There’s no time and no place for remarks like that. To discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right. It’s just not right. I wish he hadn’t had done it,” Flake told NBC’s Today show, adding, “It’s kind of appalling.”
