"This is a disaster for the Republicans," Fox News host Chris Wallace declared Thursday after Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, testified that she is "100 percent" certain that President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court had assaulted her.
"This was extremely emotional, extremely raw and extremely credible," Wallace said of Ford's opening statement. "And nobody could listen to her deliver those words and talk about the assault and the impact it had had on her life and not have your heart go out to her. She was obviously traumatized by an event."
Wallace's comments came after he acknowledged earlier Thursday how difficult it is for survivors to come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct. The anchor said on Fox News that the public debates over the validity of the allegations against Trump's Supreme Court nominee prompted his own daughters to reveal some uncomfortable incidents from high school for the very first time.
"Over the course of this week, like I think a lot of American families, my family ― a lot of it on email ― has been discussing this and disagreeing and arguing about it," Wallace said. "And two of my daughters have told me stories that I had never heard before about things that happened to them in high school."
He added that they "hadn’t told their parents ― I don’t know if they told their friends ― certainly they never reported to police. They weren’t as serious as the allegations against Kavanaugh, but the point is that there are teenage girls who don’t tell stories to a lot of people. And then it comes up, and I don’t think we can disregard that."
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"I don’t think that we can disregard Christine Blasey Ford and the seriousness of this," Wallace continued. "I think that would be a big mistake."
Over the last few weeks, Kavanaugh has been accused by at least three women of sexual misconduct. Ford has accused Kavanaugh of pushing her into an empty bedroom and onto the bed during a small high school gathering in the 1980s and while the two were in high school. She alleges that Kavanaugh got on top of her, groped her body, attempted to remove her clothes and covered Ford's mouth when she tried to scream for help. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday morning, Ford claimed that she "believed he was going to rape me."
Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh's second accuser, who was a classmate of his at Yale University, alleges that Kavanaugh exposed himself during a party, thrust his penis in her face and she was forced to touch it as she tried to push him away.
Kavanaugh's third accuser, Julie Swetnick, who is being represented by attorney Michael Avenatti, claimed that she watched the judge at house parties allegedly spike drinks to get girls drunk and then "engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior towards girls." Swetnick has also alleged that Kavanaugh and his peers "gang-raped" girls at these house parties.
Kavanaugh has vehemently denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and described them as "last-minute smears."
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