00:00:00.000Brett Kavanaugh has been, I'm sure you've heard by now, Brett Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault when he was 17 over three decades ago.
00:00:12.220And the Democrats became aware of this accusation months ago, but have only coincidentally decided to come forward with it now while right before the confirmation is supposed to go through.
00:00:27.900So they, you know, just coincidentally, they decided at the very last minute to say, oh, hey, by the way, here's this thing.
00:00:35.660Now, we'll get to the Democrats' role in all this in a second, but let's first take a look at the allegation itself.
00:00:44.500I'll read, this is the allegation as reported by Fox News.
00:00:49.460It says, the woman, Christine Ford, is a professor at Palo Alto University, according to the Washington Post, which published her account on Sunday.
00:00:57.900I'm looking for the actual accusation.
00:01:02.740Ford, a 51-year-old registered Democrat who has published in academic journals and trained students in clinical psychology, described the alleged incident on Sunday, saying it occurred at a Maryland teenage house gathering.
00:01:14.040Ford claimed she headed upstairs to a bathroom when she was suddenly pushed onto a bed as rock and roll music blared.
00:01:19.400However, Ford told the Post she did not recall exactly who owned the house, how she came to be at the house, or how the gathering was arranged.
00:01:24.880She remembered only that the house was in Montgomery County near a country club and that parents were not present.
00:01:31.840Ford said she remembered that during one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend, Mark Judge, were stumbling drunk and laughing maniacally, those are both quotes,
00:01:40.060when Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to forcibly remove her one-piece bathing suit as well as the clothes she was wearing.
00:01:45.300According to Ford, Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth when she attempted to scream.
00:01:49.000I thought he might inadvertently kill me, said Ford, who works as a research psychologist in California.
00:01:54.080He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.
00:01:56.100Ford claims she was able to escape to a bathroom and then outside of the house when Judge, Mark Judge, the other guy allegedly involved,
00:02:03.760jumped into the fray and sent everyone in the room, quote, tumbling.
00:02:07.360Okay, now we're told that Ford, the accuser, she told this story to a therapist in 2012 and the notes of that therapy session have been given to the Washington Post.
00:02:23.420And she also passed an FBI lie detector test and a lot of people are making a big deal out of that, that she passed a lie detector test.
00:02:31.600Now, I don't, you know, the fact that she told this to a therapist is potentially significant.
00:05:05.100I mean, they are despicable, wicked, disgusting, satanic, evil.
00:05:09.800I mean, I mean, what we know about this, no matter who's lying, who isn't lying, no matter what happened, no matter what happened 35 years ago, here's what we know for sure.
00:05:21.140That the Democrats involved here are scumbags.
00:05:23.820We know that the Democrats are scumbags.
00:05:25.380Whether Kavanaugh's a liar, whether Christine Ford's a liar, whether, you know, whatever else, we certainly know that the Democrat politicians involved with putting this allegation out there, they are scumbags.
00:05:37.360Because they were contacted with the story months ago, but they held it, they saved it until right before the confirmation so that they could cause maximum panic and prevent Republicans from confirming someone else.
00:05:48.260So what they were concerned with, you know, they don't care about women, they don't care about this woman, they don't care about women in general.
00:05:53.760This is a transparent ploy on their part.
00:05:56.640They are using this cynically and blatantly for their own benefit.
00:06:00.420And they're scumbags either way, because either they think that this allegation is not credible, in which case they're scumbags for coming forward with it, or they think it is credible, in which case they're scumbags for holding on to it all this time.
00:06:15.000So they're scumbags either way, we know that.
00:06:17.360Number two, when we first heard this story out of nowhere on Friday, I said that the allegations deserve to be dismissed out of hand if no additional evidence is provided for them.
00:06:29.840Well, since then, we found out about the polygraph, we found out about the therapist thing.
00:06:34.200Now, I don't know if we would call that, that's not really evidence, okay?
00:06:37.420That's not evidence against Brett Kavanaugh.
00:06:41.780Well, evidence would be like an eyewitness that can corroborate her testimony.
00:06:49.940But the only other eyewitness, Mark Judge, has already denied this.
00:06:56.920So I don't know if we could say that there's any evidence on her side.
00:06:59.180However, the fact that she told this story or a version of it, you know, several years ago, before Brett Kavanaugh was, you know, in the running for the Supreme Court, that would seem to indicate that she probably isn't lying about the whole thing.
00:07:16.920Um, she may be even telling the truth, the entire truth, as she sees it.
00:07:22.760That does not, however, mean that it happened exactly as she's telling it.
00:07:30.820But she's foggy on the details, and it happened a long time ago.
00:07:34.600She doesn't remember when it happened.
00:07:36.100She doesn't remember where it happened.
00:07:37.420She doesn't remember how she ended up, where she was.
00:07:39.380So we've been given a very cloudy snapshot of an event that occurred somewhere in Montgomery County, sometime in the early 80s.
00:07:48.200I mean, that means we can't really say that this happened exactly as she said, because she doesn't even know exactly how it happened or who was involved.
00:08:02.340So we don't even need to get into, you know, accusing her of lying, accusing Kavanaugh of lying.
00:08:09.180Given the fact that this happened 35 years ago, allegedly, and that she's so cloudy about the details, there's just a lot of, there's a lot that isn't known.
00:08:19.720Um, even some supporters of Kavanaugh are saying that, well, look, if this is true, then he lied about it.
00:08:27.620And lying is a very serious thing, especially if he wants to be a Supreme Court justice.
00:08:31.520And if he lied to the FBI during all those background checks that he's taken throughout his career, then, uh, you know, then that's reason enough.
00:08:37.640I mean, even their argument is, yeah, this happened, uh, three and a half decades ago, but the lying is much more recent.
00:08:48.860And I agree, by the way, that if this did happen, and if he has been lying about it all this time, then that is disqualifying, clearly.
00:09:07.680So isn't it possible, isn't it even quite likely that if it did happen, he really doesn't remember this thing that happened when he was extremely inebriated as a teenager 35 years ago?
00:09:23.440Isn't it possible that for 35 years, this has all been to him a non-memory, or at best, a very hazy, you know, recollection of something happening at a party when he was drunk?
00:09:33.380I mean, I think in order to call Kavanaugh a liar, you have to assume, A, that it happened, and B, that he remembers it happening, exactly as Ford says that it happened.
00:09:45.540And I think both of those assumptions, especially the second, are dubious at best.
00:09:50.880Uh, number four, going back to the vagueness of these allegations, remember that, um, she is unsure of some of the fundamental details, like when and where.
00:10:01.880So she doesn't know when and where, but she knows who?
00:10:04.800Well, she doesn't even know exactly who, because she said four before, now she says two.
00:10:07.740So that's, that, that's a, that's a problem.
00:10:10.920And also there are other details here that she, you know, how do we know that she's clear about some of the other details?
00:10:16.680Details like she says that she was shoved into the bedroom.
00:10:21.180She says that, uh, Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth.
00:10:24.620So in order to hold this against Kavanaugh, we have to assume that all this happened, he remembers that it happened, he's been lying about it, and, uh, we also have to assume that she is absolutely 100% sure about those few details there.
00:10:44.660That she's not misremembering them, or she's not exaggerating them, or inventing them, I mean, all these different possibilities.
00:10:51.360Because, hypothetically, if this, if some sort of incident did happen, but she wasn't shoved into the bedroom, let's say she went into the bedroom willingly with two drunk guys, and the hand over the mouth thing never happened.
00:11:06.480Like, if you remove those two things from the situation, it starts to color everything a little bit differently.
00:11:12.080So the point is, with something like this, every last detail is so important, yet we have a lot of, we have very, we have many very good reasons to doubt the details that we've been given.
00:11:27.540Also, another point, I don't know, I mean, I've, I don't know if anyone's asked her this yet, but, um, was she herself drunk?
00:12:01.880Now, I don't think we can assume that.
00:12:03.160Because, as I said, we've got to, we'd have to, we'd have to leap over some other very real possibilities.
00:12:10.460That she's lying, that she's misremembering, that there, you know, that there's some combination of truth and fiction.
00:12:15.800We'd have to skip over all of those to land on the assumption that it actually happened.
00:12:21.100I don't think we can do that, but let's, for a second, let's say that we do do that.
00:12:25.240Let's say that we assume that it did happen.
00:12:26.820Then we're left with another question.
00:12:28.600I think it's an important question, and that is, should a man be denied a position because of a bad thing that he did while he was drunk as a high schooler 35 years ago?
00:12:38.660I, it seems like there are a lot of people who are 100% sure that, well, yeah, of course.
00:12:45.580Now, if it did happen, then it's a really bad thing.
00:12:50.280This is not like knocking over mailboxes or egging somebody's house or even shoplifting a pack of gum from CVS.
00:12:56.940But, assuming that this is not part of a pattern of behavior, assuming that he hasn't continued doing these things, if he did do it at all,
00:13:04.920and there hasn't been any other women that have come forward to accuse him.
00:13:07.220In fact, there have been 65 women that came forward to attest to his, to his, his, his character.
00:13:13.120So, assuming that it was, you know, that this is not part of a pattern, then we have to ask ourselves,
00:13:18.140what should we do with the bad behavior of a 17-year-old guy 35 years ago?
00:13:25.500So, this is where, and I know a lot of you will disagree, but I, you know, I give a fair amount of leeway to people
00:13:35.880for indiscretions, even really bad indiscretions from their teenage years.
00:13:41.060I just have trouble with the idea that a person's life and career should be destroyed
00:13:44.560because of the worst thing they did as a drunken kid decades ago.
00:13:48.340And I also think that the vast majority of people setting that standard and defending it now
00:13:52.260would not be happy if it was applied to them.
00:13:54.520Listen, I'm not saying that most people have sexual assaults in their background or attempted assaults.
00:13:59.720I'm not saying that this kind of thing is, quote, normal for, for teenagers.
00:14:04.760But, you know, there, there, there are a lot of really bad things that teenagers can do to each other,
00:14:12.820a lot of different ways they can abuse each other.
00:14:15.860And so there are a lot of people who have bad things from their teenage years in their past,
00:16:57.340Look, this is not, it's, this is not the same thing as saying that just because something happened a long time ago,
00:17:03.940that automatically means that you are, you know, that you shouldn't be held responsible for it now.
00:17:10.660Because, you know, if, if, if you're 55 years old and you did something terrible when you were 35, which is 20 years ago, that's a long time, but you were 35 years old.
00:17:24.620So you were a grown adult at that point.
00:17:27.760Or if you're 70 years old and you did something when you were 60 or in your fifties, yeah, you could say, well, that was two decades ago.
00:18:28.300On the other hand, it's very common that you could know someone when they're 16 and then meet them again when they're 36 and say, wow, this is a totally different person.
00:18:36.400A person's character and personality has not set in, has not solidified at the age of 17 or 20 or even 25 these days.
00:18:51.740So I, I, I just think you have to allow, you have to take that into consideration.
00:18:59.760You know, you have to allow for that, um, reality while you're, you know, when you're, when you're analyzing these sorts of situations.
00:19:07.200So that's all, I mean, when you, when you, if you're looking at a guy now, and then you find out that 35 years ago when he was a kid, he did a really terrible thing.
00:19:20.020What bearing does that necessarily have on who he is now?
00:19:23.860Um, and remember that, uh, that if, well, here's the sixth thing with all these things considered, I don't see how you could take this nomination away from Brett Kavanaugh.
00:19:40.320And in fact, not only should it not be taken away unless something changes like between now and I mean, unless there's some huge revelation, something significant change, but as it stands right now, I don't see how you could take this, uh, this nomination away from Kavanaugh.
00:19:52.520And in fact, I think it'd be a very, very, very dangerous precedent.
00:19:56.220If you did think about the precedent, the precedent is that a guy at the last minute can have an opportunity or position taken away from him based on unsubstantiated, uncorroborated accusations, which are, which are, which have been vaguely transmitted, um, from someone who can't even remember all the details, uh, you know, accusations dating back to when the person was a kid decades ago.
00:20:23.100That to me is a very dangerous precedent.
00:20:25.140And it's a precedent that, um, a lot of the people that are setting that precedent, if it were applied to them, they would be not happy.
00:20:35.360Even if they don't have sexual assaults or a quote, you know, alleged attempted assaults in their background, they have things that they did when they were teenagers that, you know, now that it's 20 years later, 30 years later, if it was held against them or used as justification to take an opportunity from them, they would think it was the most unjust and unfair thing in the world.
00:20:57.740But I think that's the case for a lot of the people who now want this precedent to be set.
00:21:02.700On the other hand, if the confirmation goes through, what's the precedent there?
00:21:07.180Well, the precedent is that you can't come at the last minute with these unsubstantiated allegations from decades ago when the guy was a kid.
00:21:21.420So unless something changes, unless something really serious changes, I think you just have to go through, push through this.
00:21:32.080And if Republicans allow themselves to be beaten back and they give up on Kavanaugh because of this, because they're scared away by it, I think that would be an enormous, enormous mistake.