KEY REPUBLICANS CONDEMN TRUMP'S MOCKERY OF CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD

Jeff Flake called the president’s comments ‘kind of appalling’ and Susan Collins told reporters it was ‘just plain wrong’

Donald Trump has been sharply condemned for mocking Dr Christine Blasey Ford – the woman who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault – with two key Republicans who could determine if the federal judge is confirmed to the US supreme court calling the comments “appalling” and “just plain wrong”.

Addressing a campaign rally in Mississippi on Tuesday night, Trump cast doubt on Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh, his nominee for the US supreme court, attempted to rape her when the two were teenagers in the early 1980s.

As supporters cheered him on, the president ridiculed Ford’s emotional testimony before the Senate judiciary committee last week, where she conceded she could not remember certain details but vividly recounted the alleged assault by Kavanaugh.

“I wish he hadn’t of done it and I just say it’s kind of appalling,” Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, said in an interview with NBC on Wednesday.

“There is no time and no place for remarks like that, but to discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right.”

Flake is one of a handful of moderate Republicans in the Senate whose votes could seal Kavanaugh’s fate. Last week, an FBI investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh was opened after Flake signalled he would not vote to confirm the federal judge to America’s highest court without further inquiry.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, another closely-watched Republican vote, also rebuked Trump for going after Ford, telling reporters on Capitol Hill: “The president’s comments were just plain wrong.”

Even Trump’s close allies were critical of his move, suggesting it could undermine Kavanaugh’s prospects at a time when Republicans are looking to press forward with a vote on his nomination.

“The tactic of the president laying low has been lauded by all sides,” said Brian Kilmeade, a host of Trump’s preferred morning show Fox & Friends. “Last night he chose to blow it as the FBI is handing in the report as early as today.”

“I wonder about the wisdom, as much as the crowd loved it, I wonder about the wisdom tactically of him doing that.”

Trump had initially dubbed Ford a “very credible witness” even as he forcefully defended Kavanaugh against allegations of sexual misconduct, which have also been levied by at least two other women.

But at his rally on Tuesday, the president dismissively imitated Ford’s appearance on Capitol Hill in an effort to cast doubt on her testimony.

“How did you get home?” Trump said, reiterating a question Ford was asked by the committee. “I don’t remember,” he then parroted.

“How did you get there? ‘I don’t remember.’ Where is the place? ‘I don’t remember.’ How many years ago was it? ‘I don’t know.’ What neighborhood was it? ‘I don’t know.’ Where’s the house? ‘I don’t know.’”

Appearing before the committee last week, Ford, a research psychologist in northern California, drew on her own expertise to explain how the brain processed traumatic memories.

“It’s just basic memory functions, and also just the level of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain that ... encodes memories into the hippocampus so that trauma-related experience is locked there [while] other memories just drift,” Ford said.

One of Ford’s attorneys, Michael Bromwich, condemned Trump’s remarks on Twitter, writing: “A vicious, vile and soulless attack on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford Is it any wonder that she was terrified to come forward, and that other sexual assault survivors are as well? She is a remarkable profile in courage. He is a profile in cowardice.”

Democrat Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, called on Trump to apologize.

“Let me condemn in the strongest possible terms the comments by President Trump last night on Dr Ford,” Schumer said in a Senate floor speech.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said: “This vile, mocking attack on a credible, immensely powerfully eloquent survivor of sexual assault is a mark of disrespect and disregard not only for Dr Blasey Ford but the entire survivor community.”

Last week, the Senate judiciary committee voted along party lines to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination for the consideration of the full chamber.

But Republican moderates such as Flake, Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have said their vote will be determined by the outcome of the week-long FBI investigation. Two red state Democrats senators up for re-election in November, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, have also yet to take a position on Kavanaugh.

Flake said Wednesday he did not wish to “prejudge” the work of federal investigators. But he said the nomination would be over if it was revealed Kavanaugh had lied to the committee in his testimony.

“If there are demonstrable lies … and if he misled the committee in that way, then that’s something that is not right and shouldn’t happen,” he said. “But we’ll have to look at what the FBI comes back with.”

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