Veteran White House journalist April Ryan slammed President Donald Trump this week over his sympathetic response to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh‘s sexual assault scandal.
In a sit-down with CNN host Brooke Baldwin, Ryan argued that Trump’s recent complaints about the death of “innocent until proven guilty” only seem to ring true when it’s politically expedient and/or convenient. The president on Tuesday claimed it was a “very scary time for young men in America,” as they might be accused of something and be “automatically guilty.”
April Ryan argued that Trump has been “strategic” about who he believes. (MSNBC / video screenshot)
Ryan didn’t waste time calling Trump out for his apparent double standards.
“Let’s go back about a year or so ago when President Trump, well, then-candidate Trump believed those women,” Ryan said, referring the women who accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct, whom Trump brought out during a news conference less than two hours before he was set to debate opponent and former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Where are they now with him? That was for the moment,” she added, noting how Trump has been “strategic in believing different people.”
The seasoned journalist also slammed Trump for standing by Kavanaugh amid the sexual assault claims but failing to extend the same courtesy to the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Latino teens he publicly demonized after they were wrongfully convicted and jailed for the brutal rape of a New York City jogger in 1989.
DNA evidence eventually cleared the young men, and they were exonerated after some of them spent more than a decade in prison. However, that was after Trump had taken out a full-page newspaper ad calling on New York to reinstate the death penalty. To this day, he maintains the men were guilty.
“He didn’t believe the Central Park Five, he didn’t believe Bill Clinton, but he’s believing all these other people,” Ryan said.
Watch more in the clip below.
