Republicans are adopting Trump's tactics in Kavanaugh battle
By Annie Linskey and Jess Bidgood GLOBE STAFF SEPTEMBER 26, 2018
WASHINGTON — Deny the accusation. Attack the accusers. Then soothe the political base by going on Fox News to explain it all away. And most importantly: Never back down.
That’s the playbook President Trump has used to sidestep multiple allegations of womanizing and sexual misconduct against him. Now, he and some Republicans are using many of the same tactics to push Brett Kavanaugh’s troubled nomination to the Supreme Court through the Senate.
There was a time these tactics made the Republican establishment both nauseous and nervous. But in another sign of how Trump has taken over the GOP, he and Republicans have ripped up the rules for a high court confirmation and adopted Trump’s battle-tested, hyper-combative ways for the Kavanaugh fight. It comes after a relatively disciplined nomination process for his first nominee and a quiet process through much of the early stages of the Kavanaugh pick.
Not any more. The president — who earlier in the week called sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh “totally political’’ — ratcheted up his counteroffensive Tuesday in a bid to redefine allegations of sexual misconduct as partisan weaponry.
He called the second of Kavanaugh’s accusers “inebriated and all messed up” and implied she couldn’t credibly make an allegation against the judge, whom she accuses of exposing himself more than three decades ago when they were Yale undergraduates.
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/09/25/trump-changes-rules-supreme-court-fight/XZqag84KTgZQD5epZ2jQEL/story.html
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