The confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, dominated headlines this week. The hearings have been mired in controversy since three women accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who attended high school with Kavanaugh, has alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party more than 30 years ago; Deborah Ramirez has alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were undergraduates at Yale University; and Julie Swetnick, who attended a high school near Kavanaugh's, has alleged that Kavanaugh helped facilitate, though did not participate in, rapes of women at various parties between 1981 and 1983. One of these accusers, Dr. Ford, before the hearing committee on Thursday about Kavanaugh's alleged assault on her; Kavanaugh provided emotional testimony of his own.

Trump has continued to stand by Kavanaugh despite the tumult, lauding Kavanaugh's decency and dismissing the allegations against him as false or politically motivated. Nonetheless, under political pressure from important Republican senators, Trump on Friday called for an FBI investigation into Kavanaugh. Trump has placed no limits on the scope of the FBI's investigation, though the inquiry must last no longer than one week.

Meanwhile, Trump's contentious relationship with his own Justice Department caused some as-yet-unresolved drama this week: on Friday, September 21, reports broke that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller's investigation into Trump's collusion with Russia, had discussed potentially wearing a wire to record the president and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office in the days after Trump fired former FBI director James Comey in May 2017. Trump was scheduled to meet with Rosenstein on Thursday this week. Initially, it appeared that Rosenstein would resign at this meeting or that Trump would fire him. However, Trump postponed the meeting until next week to focus on the Kavanaugh hearings, and in later comments said that he would prefer to keep Rosenstein.

Trump also had some testy moments on trade and the economy both with global leaders and the Fed. Trump ranted to French President Emmanuel Macron during a meeting on Monday on the subject of trade, claiming that the EU's trade policies were "worse than China's." Trump also on Monday said that he altogether declined an invitation to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as NAFTA negotiations drag on. On Wednesday, Trump expressed his displeasure with the Fed for raising rates at a press conference in New York: "I am not happy about that. I'd rather pay down debt or do other things, create more jobs...We can do other things with the money." Trump also met a tough crowd when he gave remarks at the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday; the audience laughed at Trump's unintentional humor, though Trump later tried to claim that "they weren't laughing at me; they were laughing with me."

Still, it wasn't all bad news for Trump this week: he signed a bill to avert government shutdown and reached a trade agreement with South Korea.