New York Times columnist Charles Blow defended Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in the early 1980s, during an appearance on “Cuomo Prime Time.”
While on the CNN show, Blow said that he too was a victim of childhood sexual assault and that questions about why Ford never came forward at the time were not reasonable.
“If you have never been the victim of a childhood sexual assault everybody needs to calm down and take a step back,” he said, choking up. “Stop asking why she didn’t say anything. I was a victim of a childhood sexual assault.”
“The first time I told somebody was 17 years later,” he continued. “It was 37 years before I told everybody in the world in a book … for us it is a living thing that lives in our bodies.”
Blow spoke about being molested by an older cousin in his 2014 memoir, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.”
On set with Cuomo, the Times columnist also said that it was “crazy” to assume that giving Ford a week to testify was enough time.
“When people start saying ‘we gave her a week,’ that’s a crazy thing to say to someone who has just now at her age decided that she is compelled to say this out loud,” Blow said. “It is incredible.”
While Judge Kavanaugh has denied all of Ford’s accusations, the Senate Judiciary Committee was spooked enough by them to postpone a vote on his nomination, which had been scheduled for Thursday. Senators have now said Ford has until next Friday to testify under oath before the committee.
Ford, who has so far remained mostly out of sight, said through her attorney that she wanted to testify only after an FBI probe into her claims, which GOP senators have resisted so far.