Donald Trump’s bullying, sexism, and misogyny was on full display when he told a reporter to “be quiet” on Wednesday after she pressed the Republican nominee over his assertion that he hopes the Russians have Hillary Clinton’s emails.
At a press conference in Doral, Fla., NBC News correspondent Katy Tur asked Trump whether this week’s leak of Democratic National Committee emails, which cybersecurity experts believe were obtained by Russian hackers, gave him pause.
“It gives me no pause,” Trump said. “If they have them, they have them.”
Tur, a London-based correspondent who has been following Trump on the campaign trail for NBC News, tried to ask a follow-up question, but Trump shut her down.
“You know what gives me more pause? That a person in our government, Crooked Hillary Clinton — be quiet, I know you want to save her,” he said. “That a person in our government, Katy, would get rid of 33,000 emails — that gives me a big problem.”
Moments earlier, Trump had delivered a message to the Kremlin.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
It’s not the first time Trump has clashed with Tur.
Last July, he sat down with Tur for a one-on-one interview at Trump Tower during which he interrupted her several times. And at a rally in South Carolina in December, Trump referred to Tur as “Little Katy, third-rate journalist” during a rant about the “absolute scum” media that cover his campaign.
The brash real estate mogul then pointed out to the crowd where she stood on a riser near the back of the rally as his supporters turned and glared.
Media
WATCH: Trump tells @KatyTurNBC to "be quiet" as she presses him on his hope that Russians have Clinton's emails. https://t.co/uBqOXeob3Y
Donald Trump’s national spokeswoman on Monday suggested that Trump’s own sister, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, could be biased as a result of her gender.
“If somebody were to say to her she was biased in regard to some case because she’s a woman, that would be awful, wouldn’t it?” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Katrina Pierson of Trump’s sister, Federal Judge Maryanne Trump Barry.
“Well, it would depend on her past and decisions she made as a judge,” Pierson replied. “There is no question that there are activist judges in this country.”
Trump has pushed this stance heavily in the last few weeks, arguing that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing a fraud case involving the now-defunct Trump University, is “biased” against him because of his “Mexican” heritage. The presumptive GOP nominee took this identity-based argument for unfair treatment further on Monday, arguing that a Muslim judge could “absolutely” be biased against him, too, because of his proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigration to the United States.
As Blitzer pointed out, many of Trump’s fiercest supporters urged him to drop the racial attacks, which they say alienate minority voters and undermine the independence of the judiciary.
Pierson said Trump had no plan to “start saying and doing what everybody else says to say and do.”
“He is not backing down because the media wants to pressure, call him names, call him racist,” Pierson said. “Doesn’t matter which GOP individual comes out, they’re not there and they don’t have the facts. That’s why Mr. Trump is the nominee.”
Republicans have jumped on Donald Trump for attacking the integrity of the judiciary. Some current and former leaders include House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said Trump’s criticism was a ‘textbook definition of a racist comment,’ and ethically-challenged former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it was ‘inappropriate.’
So let’s follow Donald Trump’s “common sense” logic that only people who he has not offended can fairly evaluate a case against him.
An American judge with Mexican heritage is unable to preside over any of his cases because of his plan to build a wall with the United States and Mexico.
An American judge who is of the Islamic faith is unable to preside over any of his cases because of his plan to ban all Muslims entering into the United States and to have a database of every Muslim person living here.
An American female judge is unable to preside over any of his cases (unless she’s a ’10’) because of his repeated sexist and misogynist comments towards women.
An American judge with African heritage is unable to preside over any of his cases because of his racist tweets and calling black protesters “not people.”
Their accounts, many relayed in their own words, revealed unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct, according to the interviews, as well as court records and written recollections. The interactions occurred in his offices at Trump Tower, at his homes, at construction sites and backstage at beauty pageants. They appeared to be fleeting, unimportant moments to him, but they left lasting impressions on the women who experienced them.
Rowanne Brewer Lane, Companion: Donald J. Trump had barely met her when he asked her to change out of her clothes. “He took me into a room and opened drawers and asked me to put on a swimsuit.” Trump then took Brewer Lane out to parade her in front of the rest of the party and asked the crowd if they thought she was a beautiful “Trump lady” which she was taken aback by it. It did not take long for him to solicit her view on the attractiveness of two of his previous romantic partners, Marla Maples and Ivana Trump. “He did ask me, on a scale of 1 to 10, what I thought of Marla. I thought that was very boyish of him. He asked me the same thing about Ivana. I said, obviously, she is your wife. (Trump was divorcing Ivana at the time.) A beautiful woman. What could you say but a 10? I am not going to judge your wife.”
Ivana Trump, Ex-Wife: An anecdote how, when she was his girlfriend at the time, Donald Trump defended his father Fred Trump when the elder Trump told her what she is having for dinner. Trump let her run Trump’s Castle, a major casino in Atlantic City, and the Plaza Hotel, the storied complex on Central Park South in Manhattan. She ran it well but he compensated her as a spouse, not a high-level employee, paying her an annual salary of $1 for the Trump’s Castle job, according to her tax documents.
Barbara A. Res, Executive for the Trump Organization: Donald Trump hired Ms. Res to manage the building of Trump Tower. He said: “I know you’re a woman in a man’s world. And while men tend to be better than women, a good woman is better than 10 good men.” … He thought he was really complimenting me. Fred Trump did not like the idea that Donald Trump had hired a woman for an executive position but Donald Trump defended her. However his misogyny would still be on display. Out of the blue Donald Trump evaluated the fitness of women in Marina del Rey, Calif. “They take care of their asses,” he said. Years later, after she had gained a significant amount of weight, Ms. Res endured a stinging workplace observation about her own body from Mr. Trump. “ ‘You like your candy,’ ” she recalled him telling her. “It was him reminding me that I was overweight.” Later when The New York Post feasted on his wife’s supposed satisfaction with him in bed, captured in the headline “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had,” Mr. Trump was unabashed. Trump loved it and would show the paper to everyone in the office, much to their horror. Trump also interacted with women with an unthinkable habit of making them feel small. “At Trump Tower he called me Honey Bunch.”
Louise Sunshine, Executive Vice President for the Trump Organization: Experienced similar observations from Mr. Trump when she gained weight. But she saw it as friendly encouragement, not a cruel insult. “He thought I looked much better thin,” she said. “He would remind me of how beautiful I was.”
Temple Taggart, 1997 Miss Utah: Donald Trump, while married to Marla Maples, introduced himself to her as well as other contestants in the Miss Universe Pageant with a direct kiss on the lips. “Oh my God, gross.” He then kissed her again on the lips in Trump Tower. “ ‘We’re going to have to tell them you’re 17,’ ” Ms. Taggart recalled him telling her, “because in his mind, 21 is too old. I was like, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.’ ”
Carrie Prejean, 2009 Miss California: Mr. Trump personally would evaluate the women contestants at rehearsal. It became clear that the point of the whole exercise was for him to divide the room between girls he personally found attractive and those he did not. Many of the girls found the exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress “The Donald.”
Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, 1997 Miss Universe: During the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant, he sat in the audience as his teenage daughter, Ivanka, helped to host the event from onstage. “ ‘Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?’ ” Ms. Lee recalled him saying. ‘I was like, ‘Really?’ That’s just weird. She was 16. That’s creepy.”
Barbara J. Fife, former New York City Deputy Mayor: Trump told her why he was in such a hurry one day as he sat in her office at City Hall. “I have this great date tonight with a model for Victoria’s Secret,” Ms. Fife recalled him telling her. “I saw it as immature, quite honestly,” she said.
Alair A. Townsend, former New York City Deputy Mayor: “[Trump] was dismissive. It was always, “Hon,” “Dear.” Things he wouldn’t have said to a man. It was designed to make you feel small. And he did that repeatedly.”
Jill Harth, former pageant promoter: Jill Harth and her boyfriend at the time, George Houraney, worked with Mr. Trump on a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, and later accused Mr. Trump of inappropriate behavior toward Ms. Harth during their business dealings. In a 1996 deposition, Ms. Harth described their initial meeting with Mr. Trump at Trump Tower.Donald Trump stared at me throughout that meeting. He stared at me even while George was giving his presentation. … In the middle of it he says to George, “Are you sleeping with her?” Meaning me. And George looked a little shocked and he said, “Well, yeah.” And he goes, “Well, for the weekend or what?” Mr. Houraney said in a recent interview that he was shocked by Mr. Trump’s response after he made clear that he and Ms. Harth were monogamous. “He said: ‘Well, there’s always a first time. I am going after her,’ ” Mr. Houraney recalled, adding: “I thought the man was joking. I laughed. He said, ‘I am serious.’ ” By the time the three of them were having dinner at the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel the next night, Mr. Trump’s advances had turned physical, Ms. Harth said in the deposition. “Basically he name-dropped throughout that dinner, when he wasn’t groping me under the table,” she testified. “Let me just say, this was a very traumatic thing working for him.”
Alicia Machado, 1996 Miss Universe: During her time as Miss Universe she gained weight, and Donald Trump did not keep his critique of her changing body quiet and he publicly shamed her. When going to a gym to take the weight off Donald Trump surprised her by showing up with 90 media outlets to document it. Near tears Ms. Machado declined to be a part of the media circus, but Donald Trump refused her request saying, “I don’t care.” After her humiliation she spent the past years fighting anorexia and bulimia.
The article does highlight how Mr. Trump did help women and how his office stood out for its diversity. For example Alan Lapidus, an influential architect who designed the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City is quoted:
He is a lot more complicated than the cartoon character. The top people in his company were women, like Barbara Res. For any company to hire a woman as chief of construction was actually startling. I don’t know of a single other developer who had a woman in that position. The respect for women was always there. That’s why, in spite of the comments he makes now — and God knows why he says these things — when he was building his empire, the backbone was women.
Reality
The New York Times reporters said there were “themes” that emerged, such as constant commentary on the female form, exploitation of ambitious women, unwanted advances, and physical aggression.
However one of the women featured in the article, Brewer Lane, appeared on Fox and Friends to dispute the Times’ framing of her account which opened up a whole can of worms. “Actually, it was very upsetting. I was not happy to read it at all,” Brewer Lane said. “Well, because The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across. They promised several times that they would do it accurately. They told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly, and it absolutely was not.”
But when asked what the reporters got wrong, Brewer Lane said they took her quotes and “put a negative connotation on it.”
Donald Trump then took to Twitter to claim that Rowanna Brewer Lane’s disagreement with the tone of how her story was presented now discounted the rest of the article.
How quality a woman is Rowanne Brewer Lane to have exposed the @nytimes as a disgusting fraud? Thank you Rowanne.
The New York Times story is just not Rowanne Brewer Lane’s account of Trump in the 1990’s but the experience of 50 women who were interviewed for the article. If we can discount Brewer Lane’s story then that still leaves 49 women, 11 who were named, who had the same experience of misogyny from Donald Trump. Some of those women, such as Barbara Res, publicly supported the article and their portrayal in it.
Unless Donald Trump can prove that the remaining 49 subjects were also misrepresented, it is incorrect of him to declare the story was “proven false.”
This article does not cover the sexist comments made by Trump since announcing his campaign. Just a few examples include:
Mr. Trump seemed to relish injecting gender politics into the race as he looks ahead to a potential general election matchup with Mrs. Clinton. In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” he claimed that women do not like Mrs. Clinton and that he has every right to attack her if she plays up the fact that she would be the first female United States president.
It’s not sexist. It’s true. It’s just a very, very true statement. If she were a man, she’d get 5 percent. She’s a bad candidate. She’s a flawed candidate. She’s not going to do very well in the election, and I look forward to showing that.
And again on Morning Joe on MSNBC he repeated the claim. Remarking that he was still “recovering” from Clinton’s “shouting,” an increasingly high-energy Trump remarked:
I know a lot of people would say you can’t say that about a woman, because of course a woman doesn’t shout. The way she shouted that message was not — that’s the way she said it, and I guess I’ll have to get used to a lot of that over the next four or five months.
Mrs. Clinton addressed Mr. Trump’s new line of attack during her victory speech on Tuesday night, telling voters to “deal me in” when it comes to Mr. Trump’s suggestions that he is trying to capitalize on her gender and argued that she would be the best candidate to defend women’s rights on health and in the workplace.
Reality
The statement that Hillary Clinton plays the woman card is one that Trump has repeatedmanytimesover the course of his campaign.
A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released this week found that 66 percent of likely female voters nationwide have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 48 percent who have a negative opinion of Clinton. And women are far more likely to have intensely negative views of Trump. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this month found that 64 percent of women feel “strongly unfavorable” toward Trump, compared with 41 percent of men.
While celebrating sweeping victories in five primaries Tuesday night, Donald Trump mocked the qualifications of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and suggested she was playing “the women’s card” to her advantage in the presidential race.
“Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the women’s card,” Trump said during a news conference at Trump Tower. “And the beautiful thing is, women don’t like her.”
The statement that Hillary Clinton plays the woman card is one that Trump has repeatedmanytimesover the course of his campaign.
A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released this week found that 66 percent of likely female voters nationwide have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 48 percent who have a negative opinion of Clinton. And women are far more likely to have intensely negative views of Trump. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this month found that 64 percent of women feel “strongly unfavorable” toward Trump, compared with 41 percent of men.
The sexist and false claim was perfectly summed up by Chris Christie’s wife, Mary Pat, who stole the show with this little reaction:
The Treasury Department’s decision to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with abolitionist Harriet Tubman was met with mixed results. Donald Trump has weighed in, saying the move was “pure political correctness.”
“Well, Andrew Jackson had a great history and I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill. Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country,” Trump said during a town hall on NBC’s “Today Show.”
While he called Tubman “fantastic,” he suggested she appear on a different bill.
“I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill. I don’t like seeing it. Yes, I think it’s pure political correctness,” he said.
Trump joined with his former GOP presidential rival Ben Carson, who called for Tubman on the $2 bill. The neurosurgeon told Fox Business, “I love what she did, but we can find another way to honor her.”
The $2 bill currently features the image of Thomas Jefferson.
Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, was revered for being the first “common man” elected as president. But the darker side of his legacy includes slave-owning and expelling thousands of Native Americans from their homes, forcing them on the walk now referred to as “The Trail of Tears.”
And while Jackson owned slaves, Tubman’s life mission was to free them. An abolitionist and Union spy, Tubman was responsible for leading hundreds of slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad, an elaborate network of safe houses.
Tubman will become the first person of color and the first woman to grace a U.S. paper currency.
Who is this offending? Andrew Jackson’s descendants? But with the statement that Tubman should appear on the $2 he is equally offending Thomas Jefferson’s descendants.
And finally, isn’t it interesting that conservatives would be “okay” with a black woman on a bill, as long as it is the most rare bill that the United States prints?
Donald Trump on Monday defended his past controversial remarks on women, saying they date from his time as a celebrity entertainer.
Radio host Charlie Sykes challenged the Republican presidential front-runner during an interview on WTMJ in Milwaukee, asking whether the rules are different for celebrities when it comes to insulting women.
“The rules aren’t different, but certainly I never thought I would run for office,” Trump responded before the host finished asking the question.
“Many people, you know, Howard Stern would interview me, and everybody would be having fun and the women would be laughing,” Trump said.
In the interview, Trump said he has always treated women well as a businessman, putting many in executive positions.
“I thought this was actually a dead issue until I just spoke to you,” Trump said when pressed about his remarks on women, including his feud with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, whom he has taken to calling “crazy Megyn” on Twitter.
“Really?” Sykes responded.
“I’d rather be talking about trade; I’d rather be talking about, you know, the things I’m best at: border security,” Trump said, pivoting to other campaign topics.
Reality
As we’ve documented, Trump made a whole ton of sexist comments after declaring his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the President of the United States of America, and not just towards Megyn Kelly. For example:
Just earlier this week he tweeted which wife between him and Ted Cruz is more doable.
After multiple polls continue to come to the conclusion that he has a massive unfavorable rating with women, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is lashing out at media coverage of his treatment of women in a series of tweets that culminated in the statement:
“The media is so after me on women. Wow, this is a tough business,” Trump tweeted Saturday. “Nobody has more respect for women than Donald Trump!”
The tweets include:
"@Tytan01: Dear @CNN, after doing a quick Google & Twitter search there are over 15,000 women's groups supporting DonaldTrump. Stop Lying."
Yes Donald Trump, it’s the media fault and all of your own comments where you disrespected women have nothing to do with this. Here are just a few examples where it was the media’s fault:
When you joked that Hillary got “shlonged” in 2008.
The scuffle between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz over their wives escalated briefly late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, after Trump retweeted an image comparing a photo of his wife Melania to Heidi Cruz.
“NO NEED TO ‘SPILL THE BEANS,'” the photo’s macro caption reads, over side-by-side images, one an unflattering screenshot of Heidi Cruz next to a glamour shot of Melania Trump. “THE IMAGES ARE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS.”
Please, someone convince me how this behavior can be seen as presidential. People who support Trump and choose to see past the sexist and dirty humor are simply refusing to see the big picture and must have no respect for our democracy.
Donald Trump responded to an increasingly heated series of attacks from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by mockingly referring to her as “the Indian.”
After a reporter brought up the Democrat’s recent criticism of him, Trump interrupted, asking sarcastically, “Who’s that, the Indian? You mean the Indian?”
“The problem with the country right now is it’s so divided,” he said, after touting his success in the GOP primaries. “People like Elizabeth Warren really have to get their act together because it’s going to stay divided.”
In 2012, Warren’s past claims about her Native American ancestry came under scrutiny, with her Republican campaign rival Scott Brown demanding she provide documented proof. But Warren said her heritage had been passed down in words, not on paper.
“Being Native American has been a part of my story, I guess since the day I was born,” she told reporters in May of that year. “I don’t know any other way to describe it.”
Earlier on Monday, Warren in a storm of heated tweets had called Trump a “loser” who threatens “to tear apart an America that was built on values like decency, community, and concern for our neighbors.”
.@RealDonaldTrump knows he’s a loser. His insecurities are on parade: petty bullying, attacks on women, cheap racism, flagrant narcissism.
Trump introduced the “Indian” insult during an interview later on Friday with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
“I think it’s wonderful because the Indians can now partake in the future of the country,” the Republican front-runner offered glibly when asked about Warren’s comments. “She’s got about as much Indian blood as I have. Her whole life was based on a fraud. She got into Harvard and all that because she said she was a minority.”
Reality
BRN’s critique echoed my original comments but wrote it better than I ever could have:
When he refers to Warren as “the Indian,” he’s not merely being insulting—although that, too—but he is seeking to to discredit her critique on the basis that she isn’t fit to criticize him; isn’t his peer; is less than; isn’t even deserving of recognition of her complex humanity.
This reductive dismissal, like so many others he has issued, is a clear signal of his contempt for marginalized people, unless he can exploit their support to undermine credible challenges to his ubiquitous claims of being well-liked by “everybody.”
Trump must be held accountable for his sickening reliance on racism, misogyny, and dehumanization. He is not an insult comic. He is a candidate for President of the United States of America.
