President Trump pushed questions about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the new FBI investigation to the end of his instead of press conference regarding a new North American Free Trade Agreement deal.
Immediately at the conclusion of the press conference about his negotiations with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Trump took questions from reporters.
The first reporter began by asking a question about Trump limiting the scope of the FBI investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh.
“What does that have to do with trade? I don’t mind answering the question, but I’d like to do the trade questions first,” Trump said. “How about talking about trade, and we’ll do that later. Does anybody have a trade question?”
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Another reporter indicated that he wanted to ask a question about Kavanaugh as well, and Trump maintained that he would come back to that issue after he finished answering trade questions.
Following a few questions on trade, a third reporter said she wanted to turn to Judge Kavanaugh.
“Don’t do that. Excuse me, do you have a question on trade? We will do one or two more questions on trade,” Trump said.
“You’ve answered several questions on trade —”
“Okay, don’t do that, that’s not nice. Do you have a question on trade?”
The reporter went on to ask a question about Kavanaugh’s third accuser Julie Swetnick, but Trump instead took another question from a different reporter regarding negotiations with Canada and Mexico on border security and funding for a wall at the southern border.
“You want to, I guess, get off trade. I don’t know, people are falling asleep with trade. I think, to me, it's the most exciting thing you can talk about, right?” Trump said and was met with applause as he moved to the first woman who wanted to ask a question about Kavanaugh. “All right, let's go. Come on.”
Kavanaugh and his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday to testify about allegations that the nominee groped her at a high school party 36 years ago.
Multiple other women came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh denies the incident ever occurred, and the FBI is investigating the allegations this week before Kavanaugh’s nomination goes to vote on the Senate floor.