Trump is very sad that 'incredible individual' Brett Kavanaugh is 'going through this'

Donald Trump is making it obvious why he won't have the FBI investigate the sexual assault allegations against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. As usual, Trump is reflexively siding with the white Republican man credibly accused of sexual abuse or assaulting a woman. Roy Moore, Rob Porter, himself—it’s no doubt a partial accounting of a list that will continue to grow, and Brett Kavanaugh is decisively joining the list.

Trump spoke about Kavanaugh Tuesday afternoon, saying that Kavanaugh is “an incredible individual” with “impeccable history in every way.” Unfortunately, Trump saying Kavanaugh has an impeccable history in every way doesn’t necessarily rule out Trump believing that Kavanaugh attempted to rape a girl at a party during high school.

Trump naturally zeroed in on the real victim here, and it’s not the woman who fought off an attacker as a 15-year-old and is now being publicly vilified by some of the most powerful people in the country: it’s her alleged attacker. “I feel so badly for him that he’s going through this, to be honest with you,” Trump said. “This is not a man that deserves this.” 

Honest question: is there any straight white elite Republican American-born man that Donald Trump does think deserves “this”? Such an awful experience, having your major career promotion put in jeopardy by the possibility that you tried to rape someone 35 years ago. How could one event in high school possibly define your life for all time such that you might have to stay a federal appeals judge rather than becoming a Supreme Court justice? I’m sure thousands of people who’ve been tried as adults and imprisoned for crimes they committed while in high school are really sorry for Kavanaugh.

Trump doesn’t reserve feeling “terribly” for Brett Kavanaugh, though. He also feels terribly for some women—specifically, Kavanaugh’s wife and “beautiful young daughters.” Of course, if it came down to it and Trump had to choose between feeling bad for Kavanaugh or the women in his life, we know from the Rob Porter case that he’d go with the male perpetrator, not the female victim.