Trump says second Kavanaugh accuser was 'drunk,' 'has nothing' on judge

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the second woman to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual abuse when they were young was not credible because she was "drunk" at the time.

Trump dismissed the allegations by Deborah Ramirez, who according to New Yorker magazine has identified Kavanaugh as the person who sexually assaulted her at an alcohol-fueled Yale University party about 35 years ago.

Ramirez's claim followed an accusation by California professor Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh, currently a federal appeals court judge, tried to tear her clothes off in an assault dating to around 1982 when both were students at elite private high schools in Washington.

"The second accuser has nothing. She thinks maybe it could have been him, maybe not," Trump told reporters in New York.

"She admits that she was drunk. She admits that there are time lapses." Trump said the accusations, which threaten a long-held Republican goal to turn the high court solidly to the right for years to come, are false and simply a political effort by Democrats to block Kavanaugh.

"The Democrats are playing a con game. They know it's a con game," he said.

"Thirty-six years ago, nobody ever knew about it or heard about it, and now a new charge comes up and she said it might not be him, and there were gaps and said she was totally inebriated, all messed up," Trump said.