According to a new book by Michael Wolff, Donald Trump said he’s “very disappointed” in Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s votes on the court and bemoaned that Kavanaugh “hasn’t had the courage you need to be a great justice.”
Trump reportedly expressed his views to Wolff in an interview for his book.
Can anyone tell me why Trump is giving an interview to Michael Wolff? Did he forget about Wolff’s book Fire and Fury? That book was endlessly hyped in the media because of a number of alleged bombshells it was supposed to contain. Wolff himself claimed his book would “finally end” the Trump presidency.
Of course, after Fire and Fury became a bestseller, the book was revealed to be full of fiction. Wolff would eventually admit that the book was full of lies. Still, the endless coverage of the book, a media blitz most authors can only dream of getting, contributed to a number of anti-Trump narratives being believed by the left and the Never Trump right. The book ended up selling nearly five million copies.
“I am an observer: I investigate nothing,” Wolff said in response to criticism of Fire and Fury. “All I do is look and write what I see and what I hear, and my job — which has nothing to do with truth — is to take what I see and what I hear and write that in a way that readers can come as possible — as close as I came — to the experience of doing this.”
So, I have absolutely no idea why Trump is talking to this man. “The fact that he was talking to me might only reasonably be explained by his absolute belief that his voice alone has reality-altering powers,” Wolff says in his book. I don’t know about that, but it was definitely not a smart move.
But I digress. For now, I’ll assume that since Trump actually spoke with him, Trump is being quoted accurately.
“There were so many others I could have appointed, and everyone wanted me to,” Trump told Wolff. “Where would he be without me? I saved his life. He wouldn’t even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him.”
Except that’s not true. Before his Supreme Court nomination, Kavanaugh served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. If Trump hadn’t nominated him, he’d still be there. If Trump had withdrawn his nomination, he’d still be there—if for no other reason than the bogus allegations made against Kavanaugh were meant to keep him off the Supreme Court.
“Practically every senator called me … and said, ‘Cut him loose, sir, cut him loose. He’s killing us, Kavanaugh.’ … I said, ‘I can’t do that,'” Trump told Wolff.
“I had plenty of time to pick somebody else,” Trump added. “I went through that thing and fought like hell for Kavanaugh — and I saved his life, and I saved his career. At great expense to myself … okay? I fought for that guy and kept him.”
“I don’t want anything … but I am very disappointed in him, in his rulings,” Trump said. “I can’t even believe what’s happening. I’m very disappointed in Kavanaugh. I just told you something I haven’t told a lot of people. In retrospect, he just hasn’t had the courage you need to be a great justice. I’m basing this on more than just the election.”
Last month, Trump did an interview with David Brody on Real America’s Voice, during which he expressed his disappointment in the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Obamacare but insisted he wasn’t second-guessing his picks. “Second-guessing does no good,” Trump said. “But I was disappointed with a number of rulings that they made.” At the time, I said I was glad that Trump appeared to acknowledge that disappointing rulings will happen. But if Trump really did say these things about Kavanaugh, that’s even more disappointing. All of Trump’s predecessors have certainly been disappointed in how their Supreme Court picks have ruled from time to time. Trump isn’t the only one, that’s for sure. But fighting tooth and nail for Kavanaugh in the face of false allegations was the right thing to do because Republicans have too often retreated like cowards in response to Democrats’ dirty tricks.
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So I really hope Wolff was fictionalizing Trump’s words the same way he wrote a bunch of bunk in Fire and Fury. Because blasting Kavanaugh doesn’t make Kavanaugh look bad, it makes Trump look bad.
