The outburst came as lawyers for Blasey and top Senate Judiciary Committee aides struggled to reach an agreement that would lead to her testimony next week before the committee.

Those talks continued late into Friday night, appearing to break down at one point, but are now expected to resume Saturday. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter shortly before midnight that he had granted lawyers for Blasey — who sometimes goes by her married name, Ford — another day to negotiate.

Grassley’s tweet, which he directed to Kavanaugh, saying, “I hope u understand,” came after a tense late-night back-and-forth between the two sides. First, Grassley announced that the judiciary panel would vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation Monday morning unless negotiators reached an agreement by 10 p.m. Friday.

Blasey’s lawyer, Debra Katz, responded with a blistering email, accusing Grassley’s aides of pressuring her client “to agree to conditions you find advantageous to the nominee,” and of imposing “aggressive and artificial deadlines” whose “sole purpose is to bully Dr. Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family.” She asked for an additional day to negotiate.

Earlier Friday, their legal tango riveted Washington, as the two sides tried to work out details like how many photographers and television cameras would be in the room (Blasey, fearful of being mobbed by the news media, wanted one of each), who would ask the questions (Republicans wanted an outside lawyer; Blasey favored senators) and what day the session would take place (Blasey asked for Thursday; Republicans wanted Wednesday).

Blasey’s allegations, which for weeks had been kept secret by the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, have thrown Kavanaugh’s confirmation process into turmoil. She has accused him of pinning her to a bed, grinding his body against her and muffling her screams at a teenage gathering in the early 1980s. He has categorically denied the accusations, and says he is eager to testify to clear his name.

When, or whether, such testimony will occur remains unclear.

But the allegations have knocked the White House and its conservative allies — who fear that their chance to remake the court is slipping away — on their heels. In a bizarre turn, one of those allies, the conservative legal analyst Edward Whelan, posted pictures on Twitter Thursday night of a high school classmate of Kavanaugh’s — with the man’s name — and suggested he was responsible for the assault. On Friday, facing condemnation from liberals and conservatives alike, Whelan apologized.

In his tweet Friday, Trump called on Blasey — who sometimes goes by her married name, Ford — to produce contemporaneous law enforcement reports “so that we can learn date, time, and place!” Blasey, who was around 15 at the time of the incident, has said publicly that she did not report it to the authorities, and that she does not recall exactly when it took place. Experts say many women are reluctant to come forward and report sexual assaults, in part because they fear they will not be believed.

Trump’s broadside outraged many women who took to social media and the news media to reveal their own stories of long-ago sexual assaults and rapes. Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, wrote a piece for The Washington Post revealing that she was raped about 40 years ago, and like Blasey, is hazy on the details.

In taking to Twitter, Trump did what his aides had feared for a week: He questioned, before hearing a full account, the veracity of a woman who had alleged a sexual assault. In doing so, he risked looking like a bully, and further inflaming the bitter divisions between Democrats and Republicans over Kavanaugh’s nomination during a midterm election in which his party is struggling to win support from female voters.

Until Friday, Trump — who himself has faced sexual assault allegations — had largely left it to senators on the Judiciary Committee to handle Blasey’s claims. His aides had repeatedly reminded him how important it is for Republicans to get Kavanaugh confirmed. So Trump instead trained his fire on the top Democrat on the judiciary panel, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who waited until last week to disclose the existence of a letter Blasey had sent in late July. Feinstein has said she did so because she was respecting Blasey’s wish to remain anonymous.

But with the negotiations dragging on, Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated. “Let her testify, or not, and TAKE THE VOTE!,” he wrote in another tweet Friday. In still another, he called Kavanaugh “a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault from radical left wing politicians who don’t want to know the answers.”

Democrats, meanwhile, took to Twitter themselves to criticize Trump for questioning Blasey.

“This is EXACTLY why Dr. Ford didn’t want to come forward,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said in a tweet.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., called Trump’s comments “unacceptable and beneath the Presidency of the United States.”

And Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said the president should call for the FBI to investigate if he wanted to “get to the bottom” of Blasey’s account.

As the Twitter wars were playing out, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, assured an audience of conservative Christians on Friday that Kavanaugh’s confirmation would go through. If confirmed, Kavanaugh would replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who retired after years as the court’s swing vote. The judge, a reliable conservative, could potentially change the course of American jurisprudence for decades to come — fulfilling a campaign promise of the president.

“Keep the faith. Don’t get rattled by all of this. We’re going to plow right through it and do our job,” McConnell said. “In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court.”

Blasey declined an invitation to testify this coming Monday, but through her lawyer, Debra Katz, she said she was open to testifying later under several conditions. She said she would be willing to speak with senators on the committee as long as she is questioned by lawmakers — not outside counsel — and as long as Kavanaugh is not in the hearing room while she speaks. She also asked for steps to be taken to ensure her safety — she has received death threats.

Privately, Republicans are worried about the fallout from any testimony that comes from Blasey. Republicans are well aware that, in the era of #MeToo, they can ill afford to look as if they are bullying a victim of sexual assault. They know they must tread carefully at any hearing — especially because all 11 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are men, which is one reason they were seeking an outside lawyer, preferably a woman, to do the questioning.

Blasey’s team and Democrats, though, have pushed back hard on that idea. Lawyers for Blasey say that if a lawyer conducts the questioning, instead of senators, the hearing could take on a prosecutorial tone. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, say that no matter what Republicans do, they intend to question Blasey themselves.

Lawyers for Blasey are also pressing Republicans to subpoena outside witnesses, notably Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaugh’s who Blasey says was in the room when the assault occurred. Judge has said he has no memory of any such episode taking place, and Republican officials have deemed the proposal to subpoena him “a nonstarter.”

With a spate of public opinion polls showing that fewer than 40 percent of Americans favor confirmation, allies of Kavanaugh are trying to shore up support. The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative advocacy group, is running a $1.5 million television advertising campaign featuring a woman who has been friends with Kavanaugh for 35 years. And on Friday, dozens of women who know Kavanaugh held a news conference at a downtown hotel here to praise him as a man of upstanding character.

Blasey, for her part, was to meet Friday afternoon with FBI officials — not to discuss Kavanaugh, but rather to tell them about the threats she has been receiving over the telephone and online, according to her lawyer, Lisa Banks. A senior White House official said Friday that Kavanaugh and his wife were also receiving threats.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Eileen Sullivan © 2018 The New York Times