U.S. President Donald Trump took the opportunity to mock Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford at a rally in Mississippi on Tuesday.
Trump has spoken favourably of Ford in the past, calling her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee — in which she accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when they were teens — “credible” and “compelling.”
On Tuesday, however, he took a completely different tack, mocking what he characterized as a faulty memory — even though Ford remembers details that Trump claimed she forgot.
WATCH: White House says Trump was ‘stating facts’ not mocking Ford
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Responding to chants of “We want Kavanaugh!” at the rally in Southaven, Miss., Trump lamented the process that the judge is undergoing as he tries to secure a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump noted that Neil Gorsuch, his previous appointee, “was put through the paces but nothing like what’s happening right now. Just crazed, it’s crazy.’
Then he launched into the various allegations that Kavanaugh has faced — and mocked Ford, in particular, for misremembering certain details she described very clearly before the Senate committee.
READ MORE: Brett Kavanaugh was questioned by police after 1985 bar fight
“I had one beer, right? I had one beer, well, you think, nope! It was one beer,” Trump said.
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“How did you get home? I don’t remember. How did you get there? I don’t know.
“What neighbourhood was it? 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.”
WATCH: Republican senators criticize Trump’s comments mocking Christine Blasey Ford
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Trump’s mocking stood in stark contrast to Ford’s testimony.
Speaking before the committee, Ford admitted that she did not remember certain details from a night that unfolded 36 years ago.
But she nevertheless described details of the alleged assault that she said were “seared into my memory,” and that have “haunted me episodically as an adult.”
READ MORE: Republicans’ prosecutor for Kavanaugh hearing says she wouldn’t lay criminal charges
Ford said she arrived at a small gathering where people were drinking beer in a family room-type area on the first floor of a home.
Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were at this gathering and “visibly drunk,” she said, according to a transcript by the Washington Post.
Ford said that, early in the night, she went up to the second floor of the home to use the bathroom.
Then, she said that when she arrived on the second floor, she was pushed into a bedroom across from it.
Coverage of Christine Blasey Ford on Globalnews.ca:
After that, she said Kavanaugh and Judge came into the room and locked the door.
Ford said she was pushed onto a bed and that Kavanaugh climbed on top of her, “running his hands over my body and grinding into me.”
READ MORE: Brett Kavanaugh was a ‘frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker,’ Yale classmate says
Asked by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar to describe the details she recalls from that night, Ford mentioned “the stairwell, the living room, the bed on the right side of the room as you walk into the room.
“There was a bed to the right. The bathroom in close proximity, the laughter — the uproarious laughter — and the multiple attempts to escape and the final ability to do so.”
Testifying before the committee after Ford did, Kavanaugh said he denied the allegation “immediately, categorically and unequivocally.”
WATCH: Schumer says Trump owes Christine Blasey Ford an immediate apology for mocking comments
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