Category: Bullying

Donald Trump’s rhetorical style is straight out of middle school. He’s like an eighth-grade girl.

Ben Carson: It Doesn’t Matter Whether or Not Trump Committed Sexual Assault

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Ben Carson says it doesn’t matter whether the women accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct are telling the truth because the accusations are far less important than what he believes is the impending fall of our nation.

Before they fall, nations “take their eye off the ball, start engaging in things that really don’t matter that much — not that sexual language and abuse is not important, but when you’re talking about the train going off the cliff you really need to deal with that first,” Carson said in a heated interview with the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe Friday.

Carson — who has been known to veer off talking points when he’s acting as a surrogate for Trump —  did say he had doubts about one of the women’s accounts. Jessica Leeds told The New York Times Trump grabbed her on a plane and tried to stick his hand up her skirt.

“If somebody is sitting next to you on the first class section of the airplane, there are stewardesses, there are people around and there’s this gigantic armrest — what happened to all those things?” Carson asked.

“Are you saying that these women are lying?” BBC News reporter Katty Kay asked. Carson avoided the question and said Kay was trying to characterize him as the bad guy.

When the conversation began to get heated Carson jumped in: “Hey can you turn her microphone off please? Turn her microphone off so I can talk.”

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re lying or not,” Carson said, he then added: “What matters is that the train is going off the cliff and we’re taking our eye off of that and we’re getting involved in other issues that can be taken care of later.”

Carson has repeatedly used the train analogy as an example of what’s at stake in this election. He believes Trump is the only candidate who can stop the train before it plummets off the cliff and he compared the recent accusations about Trump to a fight in one of the cabins, which is a distraction but not the big picture.

As Kay pointed out again that Carson’s description of the first class cabin suggests he thinks the women are lying Carson kept trying to interrupt.

“Listen, listen, would you listen for a moment? Do you guys have a plug please?” Carson asked someone off camera.

“It’s like hitting against a brick wall, getting people and particularly people in the news media, to understand how much trouble we’re in,” Carson said.

When the retired neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate was asked how he felt about the fact that multiple women have accused Trump of misconduct, Carson dismissed it.

“Again, not the important issue,” Carson said.

(h/t USA Today)

Reality

The Republicans ran on a platform of moral authority, and with their defense of Donald Trump’s bragging of sexual assault and comments like Dr. Carson, it shows how thin their morals actually were.

Ben Carson for decades wrote books, gave speeches, and just this year ran for president on a platform of morality and now has chose to turn his back on his own message because it is politically beneficial to him.

Dr. Carson claimed there was a gigantic armrest in the first class seats that would have prevented anyone from invading another person’s space.

However while Dr. Carson chooses to use his “common sense” we’ll use actual verifiable evidence. According to Leeds’ interview with Anderson Cooper the flight was on Braniff Airlines flight, which had seats equipped with reclining armrests at that time.

Other photos at the time of Braniff Airlines first class cabins show very small armrests.

Media

Trump Supporting “Journalist” Tweets Accusor’s Personal Info

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Fox Business Network anchor Lou Dobbs publicized the address and phone number of Jessica Leeds, one of the women who accused Donald Trump of groping her, to his 792,000 followers on Thursday morning.

Dobbs linked to a post from a conservative news site that purported to link Leeds to the Clinton Foundation. The site published Leeds’ address and phone number — taken from public records — and then claimed, falsely, that her phone number is the same as a phone number for the Clinton Foundation.

He also quoted a tweet from a Trump supporter, which has since been deleted, that included Leeds’ phone number and address.

Dobbs’ tweet has been retweeted more than 800 times.

(h/t Politico)

Trump Claims People Magazine Reporter Not Attractive Enough to Sexually Assault

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GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump lashed out Thursday at new reports that he has sexually assaulted multiple women over the years, even attacking the physical appearance of one of his accusers.

In 2005, People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff went to Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump and his wife, Melania, for a story on their first anniversary. Before Melania arrived, however, Trump took Stoynoff into a room alone.

“I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat,” Stoynoff wrote on Wednesday.

She said Trump also told her, “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?”

At his rally on Thursday, Trump questioned Stoynoff’s claims, arguing that she wasn’t credible because she didn’t come forward sooner. He also implied that he wouldn’t have been interested in sexually assaulting her anyway because of the way she looks:

Why wasn’t it part of the story that appeared 20, or 12, years ago? … I was one of the biggest stars on television with “The Apprentice,” and it would have been one of the biggest stories of the year. Think of it. She’s doing this story on Melania, who’s pregnant at the time, and Donald Trump. Our one-year anniversary. And she said I made inappropriate advances.

And by the way, the area was a public area. People all over the place. Take a look. You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

(h/t Huffington Post)

Response

PEOPLE stands by Stoynoff’s story of being assaulted by Trump in 2005 while on assignment for the magazine.

The following is a statement by PEOPLE Editor in Chief Jess Cagle:

We are grateful to Natasha Stoynoff for telling her story. Ms. Stoynoff is a remarkable, ethical, honest and patriotic woman, and she has shared her story of being physically attacked by Donald Trump in 2005 because she felt it was her duty to make the public aware.

To assign any other motive is a disgusting, pathetic attempt to victimize her again. We stand steadfastly by her, and are proud to publish her clear, credible account of what happened.

It is heartbreaking that her fear of retaliation by Trump kept her from reporting the incident when it happened. She has carried this secret for more than a decade, and we hope that by coming forward now she is relieved of that burden.

Reality

All of this stems from a leaked 2005 video where Donald Trump bragged about sexual assaulting women.

While ultimately these are all allegations, the hypocrisy of Trump is to dismiss his allegations while say Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual assault victims deserve to be heard.

Media

Trump’s comments are at the 17:30 minute mark:

Trump Tweet Storm Further Divides Republican Party Before Election

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Twitter

Donald Trump attacked House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans who he claimed had been “disloyal” to him in a series of defiant Tuesday morning Twitter messages.

The tweets come after a number of GOP luminaries announced they could no longer support their nominee in the wake of the publication of a 2005 video showing Trump bragging about groping women. Trump apologized for his “locker room” talk and has flatly refused to drop out.

On Monday, Ryan said he would no longer defend Trump through the last month of the general election campaign — but he neglected to rescind his endorsement of the New York businessman.

In the messages, Trump said “the shackles” had been removed, and he said the “disloyal” Republicans are more of an impediment to a victory than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — analysis that could well be correct if some portion of his base refuses to support him at the polls.

Pundits have warned for some time that the Republican Party could be on the verge of a civil war.

A spokesman for the House speaker said, “Paul Ryan is focusing the next month on defeating Democrats, and all Republicans running for office should probably do the same.”

As Trump attacked his fidelity, Ryan’s own Twitter account posted a series of policy discussions on Tuesday morning.

During the primary season, Trump rose to prominence by attacking the “establishment” elements of his party, whom he painted as self-serving and unconcerned with the general populace’s well-being. That populist tactic had seen less use, however, during the general election as Trump sought to win over moderate voters.

(h/t CNBC)

Trump Threatens to Sue Clinton Over Attack Ads That Use His Own Words

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Donald Trump is taking his penchant for lawsuits on the campaign trail. On Wednesday during a rally in Henderson, Nevada, the Republican presidential nominee threatened to take legal action against Hillary Clinton for a “nasty” television ad the campaign ran against him.

“I saw today — I left the room and I saw a commercial where it was really a nasty commercial, totally made up about me with vets,” Trump told the crowd. “There is nobody that loves the vets more or respects the vets more. They’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on false commercials, and it’s a disgrace.”

“So what we’ll do — I guess we’ll sue them,” he said. “Let’s sue them.”

It was not immediately clear which ad Trump was referring to, but last month, the Clinton campaign premiered a 30-second spot that slams Trump and features veterans. The “Sacrifice” ad, like other Clinton ads targeting Trump, relies on Trump’s own words for its impact on voters.  It shows a montage of veterans and their families as they watch Trump on television criticizing the military.

“I know more about ISIS than the generals do,” Trump’s voice says from a TV screen as a Navy veteran looks on.

One veteran with an artificial leg, along with his family, watches as Trump blasts Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a former prisoner of war, as someone who was “not a war hero.”

“He’s a war hero because he was captured,” Trump says. “I like people who weren’t captured, OK?”

Here’s the video in full:

During last week’s first presidential debate in New York, Trump also slammed Clinton for her “very nasty commercials… which I don’t do on you.”

In fact, Trump has run negative ads against Clinton, including ones that have said Clinton “put our national security at risk” and have called her “careless, reckless, crooked.”

(h/t CBS News)

Media

Trump Tweets Americans Should Watch Miss Amercia’s Sex Tape

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Twitter

Update: In the title we referred to Alicia Machado as “Miss America,” she was Miss Universe.

Donald Trump has doubled down on his attacks on a former Miss Universe in a stream of early-morning tweets.

Trump’s verbal barbs directed at Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe title in 1996, started after the first presidential debate Monday when Hillary Clinton mentioned her and claimed that Trump used to call her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.”

Rather than back away from the accusations, Trump has repeatedly defended his criticisms of the woman and her weight.

His latest came online this morning:

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

Researchers have looked and the so-called “sex tape” came from a reality television show called La Granja, which is nothing more than some grainy, night-vision footage of a couple of covered figures writhing in a bed, hardly qualifies as explicit. And reality television being what it is, the scene the tape depicts was quite possibly staged or fabricated.

Alicia Machado did pose topless for Playboy magazine, though.

However if Machado has a sex tape or not, this does not matter. The argument put forth at the first presidential debate was; Does Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump engage in bullying and sexism and are this qualities you would want in your President?  And by Trump attempting deflect charges of sexism and bullying by turning around and engaging in sexist attacks against a woman’s weight and acting like the textbook definition of a bully over several days does not help his defense.

In Post-Debate Interview, Trump Again Criticizes Pageant-Winner’s Weight

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At the end of Monday night’s presidential debate, Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of taunting one of his former Miss Universe contestants about her weight.

Clinton said the Republican nominee’s criticisms of Alicia Machado, a Venezuelan who won the Miss Universe contest in 1996, was “one of the worst things he said” about women. “He called this woman Miss Piggy. Then he called her Miss Housekeeping because she was Latina.”

While Trump appeared to dispute Clinton’s accusation on the debate stage, he called into Fox and Friends Tuesday morning and once again called Machado fat.

“I know that person. That person was a Miss Universe person,” Trump told the Fox News morning show. “And she was the worst we ever had, the worst, the absolute worst, she was impossible,” he said. “She gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem. We had a real problem. Not only that, her attitude.”

With his past statements about Machado playing into critiques Clinton wanted to make at Monday night’s high-profile debate, the Clinton campaign was quick to pounce. An hour after the debate ended, her campaign tweeted a two-minute video about Machado’s experience with Trump.

“He was very overwhelming. I was very scared of him,” she says in Spanish. “He’d yell at me all the time. He’d tell me ‘you look ugly’ or ‘you look fat.’ Sometimes he’d ‘play’ with me and say ‘Hello Miss Piggy, hello Miss Housekeeping.’ ”

The Clinton campaign’s video also includes archived footage of Trump telling reporters “she weighed 118 pounds, or 117 pounds, and she went up to 160 or 170. So this is somebody who likes to eat.”

Articles at the time confirm Trump’s comments.

  • In 1997, Donald Trump told Howard Stern that Machado was an “eating machine” who “ate a lot of everything.” “You whipped this fat slob into shape,” the radio host told Trump. “I don’t know how you did it. I see all these diet plans, everything else. God bless you.” When asked if Trump had “gotten her down to 118,” he said she is going to be there soon.
  • Around the same time, Trump told Newsweek: “We’ve tried diet, spa, a trainer, incentives. Forget it, the way she’s going, she’d eat the whole gymnasium.”
  • Machado told the Washington Post at the time she was caught by surprise about reporters being present. “I asked him to please send me to a trainer or a nutritionist or something because I needed some orientation, and he sends me to a gym in New York,” she said. “When I get there, there are 80 reporters waiting to watch me sweat. I thought that was in very bad taste.”
  • Donald Trump wrote in his 1997 book Art of the Comeback, “I could just see Alicia Machado, the current Miss Universe, sitting there plumply. God, what problems I had with this woman. First, she wins. Second, she gains 50 pounds. Third, I urge the committee not to fire her. Fourth, I go to the gym with her, in a show of support. Final act: She trashes me in The Washington Post — after I stood by her the entire time. What’s wrong with this picture? Anyway, the best part about the evening was the knowledge that next year, she would no longer be Miss Universe.”

Machado told the campaign that the experience led to long-term eating disorders. “I wouldn’t eat, and I would still see myself as fat, because a powerful man had said so.”

“He always treated me like a little thing. He always treated me like trash,” Machado said Tuesday in a conference call organized by the Clinton campaign.

She said she was caught off-guard when Clinton talked about her Monday night. “I started to cry because I never imagined that someone so important would care about my story,” she said, speaking in Spanish.

“I’m very sorry that I might be an uncomfortable person for Mr. Trump,” Machado said, “but that’s how things happen, that’s how things go.”

(h/t NPR)

Media

Links

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/05/17/when_donald_trump_humiliated_miss_universe_for_gaining_weight.html

Trump Threatens to Sue New York Times

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Donald Trump threatened to sue The New York Times on Twitter after posting several other messages blasting the paper and its well-known columnist Maureen Dowd.

“My lawyers want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting,” Trump tweeted.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, posted several other tweets Saturday attacking the Times and Dowd, calling her a “neurotic dope.”

On Saturday, the Times published a story digging into Trump’s reliance on tax breaks to build his New York real estate empire. It put the total value of tax breaks on Trump properties at at least $885 million.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Trump has had a long history of harassing the press and individual journalists for reporting on what he says.

In the past, Trump has made his feelings known that journalists should be “congratulating” him, which is not their jobs and sounds more like the role of the press in soviet Russia.

Trump Blasts New York Times Columnist Without Provocation

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Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to blast New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, calling her “a neurotic dope.”

“Wacky @NYTimesDowd, who hardly knows me, makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and column. A neurotic dope!” Trump tweeted.

He added, “Crazy Maureen Dowd, the wacky columnist for the failing @nytimes, pretends she knows me well–wrong!”

It’s unclear what provoked Trump’s outburst at Dowd, who hasn’t written a column since Aug. 27. However, Dowd has often mocked Trump in her columns and written satirical pieces that imitate his voice. And in an interview with CNN Saturday, Dowd said she told Trump she was concerned about the violence at his rallies, to which he responded that he liked the “frisson of excitement.”

Trump has been criticized for employing the word “neurotic” to describe women he dislikes, including MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

(h/t The Hill)

Furious Trump Lashes Out at CNN: They’re ‘Mostly Losers in Life!’

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Twitter

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump continued his war on journalism Saturday morning, taking aim at unnamed CNN panelists who have been critical of his campaign and calling them “losers in life.”

Using his favorite criticism mechanism, Twitter, Trump wrote, “@CNN just doesn’t get it, and that’s why their ratings are so low – and getting worse. Boring anti-Trump panelists, mostly losers in life!”

Trump’s push-back comes one day after the candidate was roundly criticized  by the media for manipulating them to promote his new hotel under the guise of a major announcement regarding his conspiracy mongering over whether President Obama was not born the the U.S.

On an almost nightly basis, Trump advocates — including Kayleigh McEnany and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski — have been taken to the woodshed for making outrageous statements while attempting to spin Trump’s comments and actions.

Friday night, CNN host Don Lemon was forced to cut Lewandowski’s mic when the Trump booster — who receives paychecks from both Trump and CNN — refused to allow Lemon to read a statement on Trump’s birther crusade.

Wednesday night, CNN panelists laughed after a Trump advocate attempted to explain how the candidate was going to deal with the Flint water crisis by beginning, “First, we;re going to build the wall..” a reference to Trump’s proposed multi-billion dollar wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

(h/t Raw Story)

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