Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s role in the book’s account of the Kavanaugh confirmation controversy is defined by the way he made Ford’s allegation part of a larger political argument. A president who himself faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, he publicly challenged Ford, defended Kavanaugh, and used the dispute to cast suspicion on the broader #MeToo movement. His interventions linked the nominee’s fate to his own claims of unfair treatment, shifting attention from the allegation alone to who would be believed and what accountability should mean.

Identity and Political Context

The book follows Trump across several connected subjects: allegations about his treatment of women, The New York Times investigation into that treatment, his presidency, and his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Its reporting, conducted from spring 2016 through spring 2019, places him within the same public reckoning that later shaped the Kavanaugh hearings. The account does not treat him as a detached commentator: the movement’s scrutiny also carried consequences for a president who faced multiple allegations himself.

By the time Ford’s allegation became public, the meaning of #MeToo was already contested. The phrase was being applied to a wide range of conduct, and journalists were debating how to distinguish carefully investigated reporting from thin or unsupported claims. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey supported the impulse to hear women’s accounts but emphasized that journalists still had to scrutinize and verify them. The book notes that the impact of their Weinstein reporting rested partly on broad agreement about the facts. Against this backdrop, Trump’s responses to Ford were not only interventions in a nomination fight; they also became part of a struggle over whether allegations should be assessed through evidence or dismissed as a category.

Challenging Ford and Supporting Kavanaugh

As pressure mounted over Ford’s allegation, Trump publicly questioned why she had not promptly reported the alleged assault to local law enforcement, invoking the absence of an earlier complaint to cast doubt on her account. The challenge came as Republicans were pressing to move ahead with Kavanaugh’s confirmation and Ford’s legal team was negotiating the terms of her possible testimony. A confidential list of demands sent by her lawyer, Debra Katz, to Chuck Grassley’s team appeared on CNN, apparently after a leak by a Republican staff member. Trump’s public intervention added presidential weight to an atmosphere in which Ford was being asked to decide quickly whether to appear.

The book also places this response in a wider pattern of Trump’s public opposition to #MeToo. Two months before the Ford controversy, he had mocked the movement’s name at a political rally and defended a member of Congress accused of disregarding sexual-abuse complaints from his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University. The passage describes Trump as likely to attack not only Ford but the movement itself, which posed a political danger to him while threatening the confirmation of his Supreme Court nominee. His public defense of Kavanaugh therefore connected the nominee’s predicament to Trump’s own exposure to allegations.

Making the Controversy Personal

After Bill Cosby was sentenced to prison, Trump appeared on television and described the Kavanaugh allegations as part of a Democratic effort to deceive the public. He then compared the accusations against Kavanaugh with accusations he said had been made against himself, presenting his own experience as a reason to view the case differently from ordinary television viewers. The comparison repositioned him from president commenting on a nominee to a supposed fellow target of false charges.

Trump also attacked Megan Twohey and Andrew Barbaro’s reporting on his treatment of women, calling it false reporting and fake news. He claimed that several women had been paid to invent stories about him; the book states that no evidence supported this claim. It also notes a documented effort by Lisa Bloom to arrange donations from prominent Democrats for potential Trump accusers. Trump’s version altered and exaggerated that reporting, turning it into a talking point for his broader claim that allegations were fabricated. In this account, a verifiable detail was made to serve a claim the evidence did not establish.

Public Mockery and the Credibility Fight

Ford’s testimony did not end the public pressure on her. After she had turned down interview requests and said she wanted to return to teaching, Rachel Mitchell sent Senate Republicans a five-page memorandum challenging her credibility. Three nights later, at a campaign rally in Southaven, Mississippi, Trump imitated Ford’s uncertainty about details such as when and where the alleged assault occurred. The performance made gaps in her memory the subject of public ridicule rather than treating them as part of the account she had given.

At the same time, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a sworn statement from a man Ford had dated in the early 1990s. He claimed to have seen Ford coach a roommate preparing for a federal law-enforcement polygraph examination, an assertion that appeared designed to cast doubt on the polygraph Ford had passed. The statement also implicated Ford’s friend Monica McLean, a former FBI agent, who had to publicly deny that she had helped Ford or anyone else prepare for such a test. The episode widened the dispute: efforts to challenge Ford’s credibility also reached someone she knew, requiring that person to answer the claim publicly.

Narrative Role and Significance

Trump’s interventions joined the personal and institutional stakes of the confirmation battle. By questioning Ford’s delay in reporting, repeating claims of false accusations, and publicly mocking her testimony, he helped make the allegation a test of competing accounts of #MeToo: one centered on scrutiny and accountability, the other on the possibility that allegations were politically motivated or exaggerated. The book presents these as political claims and actions, not as proof that Ford’s allegation was false.

His role also reveals how the hearing became a venue for a president to recast scrutiny of a nominee as an attack on himself. That move connected the Kavanaugh controversy to the allegations Trump faced and to the reporting that had examined his treatment of women. The result was a public contest over credibility in which Ford’s account, Trump’s self-defense, and the Senate’s confirmation process were repeatedly made to stand for more than themselves.