The Latest: Trump cites Kavanaugh to rally voters
WHEELING, W. Va. (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and his rally in West Virginia (all times local):
9:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump is turning his embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh into a rallying cry for Republicans to vote in November. He said at a West Virginia rally that they can help reject the "ruthless and outrageous tactics" he says Democrats used against the judge.
Trump won the state in 2016 by 42 percentage points and remains popular there.
Kavanaugh, the federal appeals judge Trump nominated to the nation's highest court, appeared headed for confirmation until California professor Christine Blasey (blah-zee) Ford accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers in Maryland in the 1980s. Kavanaugh denied her accusations and those of two other women since have accused him of sexual misconduct.
8:20 p.m.
During his rally, President Donald Trump also poked fun at Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, considered a possible challenger to Trump in 2020.
Booker is a former mayor of Newark, the state's largest city.
Trump told the crowd that Booker "ran Newark, New Jersey into the ground" and asked: "now he wants to be president?"
"What was the moment he said he had?" When the crowd yelled back, "Spartacus," Trump said: "I don't think so. I think we take Kirk Douglas in his prime."
Douglas starred as Spartacus in a movie about the leader of a slave revolt in antiquity.
During Kavanaugh's initial confirmation hearing before the Judiciary committee on which Booker sits, Booker declared he was having a "Spartacus" moment when he said he was breaking committee rules and releasing documents about Kavanaugh, though the papers had already been cleared for release.
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7:45 p.m.
President Donald Trump is praising his Supreme Court nominee and condemning Democrats for what he calls shameless, disgraceful conduct, particularly in the last week.
Hosting a rally in Wheeling, West Virginia, Trump accused Democrats of ruthless and outrageous tactics to get their way.
The rally is Trump's first since Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh gave an angry, emotional denial of a woman's accusation that he sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.
Trump also mocked the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as unconvincingly denying that she leaked the letter in which Kavanaugh's accuser told her story. Feinstein has insisted Democrats on the committee weren't the source of the leak.
Trump warned that "bad things will happen" if supporters stay at home on Election Day.
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4:30 p.m.
Another state and another campaign rally for President Donald Trump — this time in West Virginia.
Trump was appearing in Wheeling on Saturday a day after he reversed course and ordered a new FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination to the Supreme Court was upended when a California woman accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers.
Kavanaugh denies the allegation.
Democrats and some Republicans had been asking for the new investigation. It will delay by at least a week a Senate vote on confirming Kavanaugh, who would fill an opening and help shift the high court's balance to the right.
