--- title: Trump Says His Misconduct Claims Make Him Less Likely to Believe Kavanaugh Accusers description: Donald Trump said the sexual misconduct allegations against him have "absolutely" affected how he views allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. canonical: https://time.com/5407590/doanld-trump-less-likely-to-believe-kavanaugh-accusers/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-26T23:38:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:33:24.470Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Says His Own Sexual Misconduct Allegations Make Him Less Likely to Believe Kavanaugh Accusers og:description: "It's happened to me many times" og:url: https://time.com/5407590/doanld-trump-less-likely-to-believe-kavanaugh-accusers/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d29517659a4e783/69893b37656a3f570abd5954/donald-trump-press-conference-kavanaugh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4332 og:image:height: 2437 og:image:alt: US-TRUMP-politics og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Says His Own Sexual Misconduct Allegations Make Him Less Likely to Believe Kavanaugh Accusers twitter:description: "It's happened to me many times" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d29517659a4e783/69893b37656a3f570abd5954/donald-trump-press-conference-kavanaugh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Says His Own Sexual Misconduct Allegations Make Him Less Likely to Believe Kavanaugh Accusers > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Sep 26, 2018 11:38 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference on Sept. 26, 2018, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference on Sept. 26, 2018, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.Nicholas Kamm — AFP/Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Sep 26, 2018 11:38 PM UTC President Trump said Wednesday that the many sexual misconduct allegations against him [have “absolutely” affected](http://time.com/5400582/brett-kavanaugh-donald-trump-sexual-misconduct/) how he views the claims of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Trump has been [accused of sexual misconduct](http://time.com/5058646/donald-trump-accusers/) by at least 18 women in incidents spanning from the early 1980s to 2013\. He has denied the allegations. At press conference Wednesday, Trump said the accusations against Kavanaugh are [part of a “Democratic con game”](http://time.com/5405928/trump-kavanaugh-con-game/) and praised Kavanaugh as “one of the highest quality people that I’ve ever met.” Christine Blasey Ford — who accused Kavanaugh of holding her down on a bed at a high-school party, putting his hand over her mouth and trying to remove her clothes — is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, as is Kavanaugh. Trump said he “could be persuaded” by Ford’s testimony. But when asked whether the sexual misconduct allegations against him have affected how he approaches the allegations against Kavanaugh, Trump said “absolutely.” “It does impact my opinion. You know why? Because I’ve had a lot of false charges made against me,” Trump 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. So when I see it, I view it differently than somebody sitting home watching TV where they say, ‘Oh, Judge Kavanaugh this or that.’ It’s happened to me many times. I’ve had many false charges.” “So when you say does it affect me in terms of my thinking with respect to Judge Kavanaugh, absolutely,” Trump said. “Because I’ve had it many times.” Three women [have now accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct](http://time.com/5407289/brett-kavanaugh-julie-swetnick-congress/) in incidents that took place when he was in high school and college. Kavanaugh is scheduled to testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he [plans to continue to deny](http://time.com/5407189/brett-kavanaugh-transcript-senate-testimony/) the accusations against him. When asked whether he thought the women accusing Kavanaugh were liars, Trump said: “These are all false to me. These are false accusations in certain cases.” Trump also repeated claims that he “never met” the women who have accused him sexual misconduct, even though [photo evidence refutes that](https://people.com/politics/donald-trump-natasha-stoynoff-photo-proof/) in some cases. “I’ve had numerous accusations about me. I mean they made false statements about me, knowing they were false,” Trump said, claiming there were “four or five women who got paid a lot of money to make up stories about me.” “I never met them,” he said. “I never met these people.” It is not clear which “four or five women” Trump was referring to. Last year, [_The Hill_ reported](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/365068-exclusive-prominent-lawyer-sought-donor-cash-for-two-trump-accusers) that attorney Lisa Bloom set up a GoFundMe account in 2016 to help [Jill Harth](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/20/donald-trump-sexual-assault-allegations-jill-harth-interview) — who said her business suffered after a 1997 federal complaint in which she accused Trump of groping her became public during the presidential campaign. One donation helped Harth pay off her mortgage. But both [Harth and Bloom have denied](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/365010-lisa-blooms-and-jill-harths-statements-to-the-hill) that the financial assistance had any affect on the veracity of her claim, which was first made in 1997. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5407590/doanld-trump-less-likely-to-believe-kavanaugh-accusers/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5407590/doanld-trump-less-likely-to-believe-kavanaugh-accusers/"},"headline":"President Trump Says His Own Sexual Misconduct Allegations Make Him Less Likely to Believe Kavanaugh Accusers","datePublished":"2018-09-26T23:38:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T21:33:24.470Z","description":"\"It's happened to me many times\"","url":"https://time.com/5407590/doanld-trump-less-likely-to-believe-kavanaugh-accusers/","keywords":["Supreme Court","White House","Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d29517659a4e783/69893b37656a3f570abd5954/donald-trump-press-conference-kavanaugh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d29517659a4e783/69893b37656a3f570abd5954/donald-trump-press-conference-kavanaugh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-TRUMP-politics","caption":"US-TRUMP-politics","creditText":"Nicholas Kamm — AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/supreme-court/","name":"Supreme Court"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5407590/doanld-trump-less-likely-to-believe-kavanaugh-accusers/","name":"President Trump Says His Own Sexual Misconduct Allegations Make Him Less Likely to Believe Kavanaugh Accusers"}}]}] ```