CNN's "New Day" anchor Alisyn Camerota said on Tuesday that the story of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh throwing ice at someone during his college days is relevant in considering whether he committed sexual assault.
The New York Times story published a story on Monday that details a 1985 bar fight in which Kavanaugh was questioned by the police. Kavanaugh's friend Chris Dudley threw a glass bottle at someone's head and was arrested. Kavanaugh was accused of throwing ice at someone.
C0-anchor John Berman asked the panel if the story was relevant to Kavanaugh's confirmation process.
CNN senior political analyst John Avalon said the story appears to be a distraction to him but noted how it plays to the issue of credibility.
"The drinking subplot here runs into questions of credibility – did he lie, did he embrace a choir boy standard when he was more of a frat boy – but it does seem to me to be a distraction from the larger questions of sexual assault that were raised. And so now we're talking about long-ago arrest records for ice being thrown at a bar after a concert," Avalon said. "It's, I think, a symbol of the degradation of the debate we're having."
Camerota interjected that she disagreed, saying she found the story relevant.
"I disagree. I think it's part and parcel of the entire thing. I think that if you are known as a belligerent, mean, fighting drunk, that's relevant. I think that it's relevant to then a woman who says that you would corner her and put your hand over her mouth. Somehow that, I think, makes more sense than if you were just a fun drunk who always fell right asleep," Camerota said. "So I think that it is relevant."
Camerota's comments come as Kavanaugh faces several allegations of sexual assault. Christine Blasey Ford told the Washington Post that Kavanaugh, then a junior in high school, attacked her when they were at a party in Maryland in the early 1980s. A second allegation came from Deborah Ramirez, who accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself at a dorm party during his freshmen year at Yale. Another allegation was brought forth from a woman named Julie Swetnick, who is represented by anti-Trump lawyer Michael Avenatti. Swetnick claimed Kavanaugh committed a series of "gang rapes" when he was in high school. She offered no additional evidence or witnesses to support her allegations, and she backtracked on some of her initial claims in an interview Monday night.
Kavanaugh has denied all the allegations.