2:43
He also told the committee, \"If every American who drinks beer or every American who drank beer in high school is suddenly presumed guilty of sexual assault, it will be an ugly new place in this country. I never committed sexual assault.”
Kavanaugh's clashes with the senators questioning him reached a near boiling point during an exchange with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the self-described child of an alcoholic.
After a recess, Kavanaugh offered an apology for questioning Klobuchar’s drinking habits in a heated exchange.
“I was going to say, I started my last colloquy by saying to Senator Klobuchar how much I respect her and respected what she did at the last hearing, and she asked me a question at the end that I responded to by asking her a question. I'm sorry I did that. This is a tough process. I'm sorry about that.”
Klobuchar responded that she appreciated his apology. “I would like to add when you have a parent that's an alcoholic, you're pretty careful about drinking,” she said.
Asked if he ever drank to the point of blacking out, Brett Kavanaugh responded to Sen. Amy Klobuchar: \"I don't know. Have you?\"
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 27, 2018
After a short recess, Kavanaugh apologized to Klobuchar: \"I'm sorry I did that. This is a tough process.\" https://t.co/Vsk0Fh97zG #KavanaughHearings pic.twitter.com/s9YQ0m76T7
Kavanaugh also grew visibly frustrated under questioning by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) about the definition of the term \"ralph.\"
“I like beer,” Kavanaugh said. “I don't know if you do. Do you like beer, senator, or not? What do you like to drink? Senator, what do you think, like to drink?”
The stunning rhetoric lit up social media. Within an hour a new Twitter account called @KavanaughBeer had been created.
Many Twitter users mocked Kavanaugh.
“Just in case you are not aware….” one person wrote,” Brett Kavanaugh likes beer.”
Others suggested a drinking game in which participants would take a drink every time the judge used the word “beer,” and suggested most people would pass out before the end of the hearing.
The issue took on steam after Kavanaugh’s high school friend Mark Judge — who Ford alleges was in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly attacked her — came into focus.
Judge published a 1997 book called “Wasted: Tales of Gen X Drunk,” in which he makes reference to an apparently fictionalized friend, \"Bart O’Kavanaugh,” who \"vomited in a car after a party.”
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