Donald Trump lashes out at ‘big fat con job’ in wild press conference

DONALD Trump has lashed out at a “big, fat con job” that’s consuming his administration in a fiery press conference.

Donald Trump speaks at his press conference today. Picture: Nicholas Kamm / AFP

DONALD Trump held a rare solo press conference today, where he lashed out at a “big, fat con job” consuming his administration.

The President is struggling to get his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, confirmed by the US Senate.

Mr Trump picked Mr Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy back in July. But with a Senate vote on his candidacy looming, Mr Kavanaugh has been rocked by multiple disturbing allegations of sexual misconduct.

A third woman levelled accusations against him today, adding to those already made by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez.

Julie Swetnick, through her high profile lawyer Michael Avenatti, claimed Mr Kavanaugh was present at a party where she was drugged and “gang raped”.

Brett Kavanaugh. Picture: AFP

A photo of Julie Swetnick released by her lawyer.

Dr Ford says a “stumbling drunk” Mr Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, tried to remove her clothes and then covered her mouth when she tried to scream at a high school party in the 1980s.

Ms Ramirez alleges he exposed himself to her at a university party and thrust his genitals into her face.

The judge denies all three accusations.

“This is ridiculous and from The Twilight Zone. I don’t know who this is and this never happened,” he said in response to Ms Swetnick today.

At his press conference, a frustrated Mr Trump told reporters his political opponents, the Democrats, were “con artists” who had “destroyed a man’s reputation” by promoting the women’s claims.

“They know it’s a big, fat con job. And they go into a room, and I guarantee you, they laugh like hell at what they pulled off on you and on the public. They laugh like hell,” the President said.

“This is one of the highest quality people that I have ever met. And everybody that knows him says the same thing. And these (allegations) are all false, to me.”

Donald Trump gesticulating during the press conference. Picture: AP

The room grew particularly tense when CBS reporter Weijia Jiang asked Mr Trump about the allegations of sexual misconduct against himself.

The president spoke over Ms Jiang before she had even finished her question.

“I’ve been accused. I’ve been accused. False accusations. Excuse me. I’ve been accused. I was accused by — I think it was four women,” he said.

“Excuse me. I was accused by four or five women who got paid a lot of money to make up stories about me. We caught them and the mainstream media refused to put it on television.

“There were four women, and maybe more, I think the number is four or five. But one had a mortgage paid off her house, $52,000. Another one had other things happen.”

It is unclear where Mr Trump’s information came from. There is no public evidence of his accusers receiving payments.

After a couple of minutes, Ms Jiang interjected: “If I could just actually ask my question, Mr Trump. You didn’t let me ask my question.”

“You’ve been asking a question for 10 minutes,” he shot back, telling her to “sit down” before begrudgingly relenting. She asked whether his own experiences had made him sceptical of the claims about Mr Kavanaugh.

“It does impact my opinion. You know why? Because I’ve had a lot of false charges made against me,” he said.

“I’m a very famous person. Unfortunately, I’ve been a famous person for a long time. But I’ve had a lot of false charges made against me. Really false charges. I know friends that have had false charges. People want fame, they want money, they want whatever.”

A very famous person. Picture: AFP

Now, we should point out that Mr Trump’s estimate of “four or five” allegations against himself was far lower than the true figure.

More than a dozen women came forward during the 2016 election campaign to accuse him of some form of sexual misconduct.

For example, Jessica Leeds claimed he had groped her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt during a flight.

Jill Harth said Mr Trump forcibly kissed her, groped her breasts and grabbed her genitals. She described it as “attempted rape”.

Natasha Stoynoff told People magazine Mr Trump pushed her against a wall and forced his tongue down her throat.

Multiple women described his weird habit of entering changing rooms at beauty contests while contestants were half-naked.

You get the picture.

The next step in the Kavanaugh saga is a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow, where Dr Ford will be grilled on her claims, then Mr Kavanaugh will be given a chance to respond.

“I’m going to see what happens tomorrow. I’m going to be watching. I’m going to see what’s said. It’s possible they will be convincing,” Mr Trump said.

“I can be persuaded also. I can’t tell you if they (the women) are liars until I hear them,” he added, after spending a solid hour strongly implying they were lying.

‘I won’t know whether these lying liars are lying until tomorrow. I’m going in with an open mind.’ Picture: AFP

Mr Trump also used the press conference to double down on his claims China was trying to meddle in America’s midterm elections because of its opposition to his trade policies.

“They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president to challenge China on trade. And we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level,” he said.

“They would like to see me lose an election because they’ve never been challenged like this.”

Mr Trump said China had “total respect for Donald Trump and for Donald Trump’s very, very large brain”.

He claimed yesterday’s stories about other world leaders laughing at him during his speech to the United Nations were “fake news”.

Laughter did indeed ring through the General Assembly when Mr Trump said his administration had “accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country”. But he insisted he was in on the joke.

“They weren’t laughing at me. They were laughing with me. We had fun. That was not laughing at me. So, the fake news said people laughed at President Trump. They didn’t laugh at me. People had a good time with me, we were doing it together. We had a good time.”

Good times.