Fox News’s Chris Wallace expressed sympathy for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford Thursday, saying that her coming forward with accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh prompted his own daughters to share stories of sexual assault.
During commentary before Ford’s Senate hearing, Wallace said that his family, “like a lot of American families” has been discussing the allegations against Kavanaugh. During these conversations, “a lot of it on email,” Wallace said, “two of my daughters have told me stories that I have never heard before about things that happened to them in high school.”
He noted that while he doesn’t know if his daughters shared these experiences with friends, they never told their parents, and “certainly they never reported it to police.” He added that their stories “weren’t as serious as the allegations against Kavanaugh, but the point is that there are teenage girls who don’t tell stories to a lot of people, and then it comes up.”
“And I don’t think we can disregard that,” Wallace added. “I don’t think we can disregard Christine Blasey Ford and the seriousness of this. I think that would be a big mistake.”
Ford, a research psychologist and professor, has claimed that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a small house party in 1982, when the two were teenagers. “I believed he was going to rape me,” said Ford during her testimony Thursday. Kavanaugh said he “categorically and unequivocally” denies the accusation.
Afterwards, on Fox News, Wallace called Ford’s testimony “extremely emotional, extremely raw, and extremely credible.”
“Nobody could listen to her deliver those words, talk about the assault and the impact it had had on her life, and not have your heart go out to her,” he said. “She obviously was traumatized by an event.”