Trump calls allegations against his court nominee a 'con game'

During her appearance, Conway mentioned that she thought it was odd that Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted women during his teenage years and then went on to hire and promote female law clerks.

In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America", host George Stephanopoulos asked if the president would want Ramirez to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee at Thursday's hearing. "Judge Kavanaugh will be voted on, here, on the Senate floor, up or down".

"He's never had any charges like this", Trump said. When she pushed him away, she accidentally touched it without her consent. And she doesn't know if it was him, but it might've been him.

The White House said on Tuesday it is open to hearing public testimony from another woman who has accused supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

As he and other Republicans have said before, Trump today said that "a con game being played by the Democrats" with regard to the accusations against his nominee Kavanaugh.

Trump blamed the accusations, which arose late the confirmation process, on Democrats.

A comment by Murkowski to CNN on Tuesday could be an ominous sign for Kavanaugh.

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill and the Justice Department have so far rejected her request.

The new accusation landed late Sunday in a report from The New Yorker, just a few hours after negotiators had reached an agreement to hold an extraordinary public hearing Thursday for Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who accuses him of sexually assaulting her at a party when they were teenagers.

Answering allegations that he may have had too much to drink on several occasions during his college years, he said: "I think all of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit". But that's not what we're talking about.

Kavanaugh said on the conservative-friendly Fox News Channel that he wasn't questioning that Ford, his initial accuser, may have been sexually assaulted in her life.

Brett Kavanaugh speaks to Fox News, Sept. 24, 2018.

The controversy over Kavanaugh is unfolding just weeks before November 6 congressional elections in which Democrats are trying to take control of Congress from Trump's fellow Republicans, against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement fighting sexual harassment and assault.

One of the male classmates Ramirez claimed to have egged on Kavanaugh denied any memory of the party while the second claimed, "I have zero recollection".

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on McConnell to apologize to Ford "for labeling her allegations a 'smear job, '" adding, "I challenge you, Leader McConnell, if you are so convinced this is a smear campaign, you'll have no problem with an FBI investigation to prove your case".

"She was inebriated", he said of Debbie Ramirez, who claims that when they attended Yale, Kavanaugh stuck his penis in her face at a party.

Is that right? The vibe I got from right-wing reaction yesterday to the New Yorker's story was that it was hot garbage (I agree), promoting an allegation which Deborah Ramirez herself claims she was unsure about for the past 35 years before mysteriously recovering her memory in the past six days.

Grassley's counsel said in a note to Ford's lawyers that "the Chairman asked me to relay again that he will do everything in his power to provide a safe, comfortable and dignified forum for Dr. Ford to testify".

"The American people know that sexual misconduct is gravely serious".