The Trump brothers have come to their father’s defense this week over the disturbing sexual assault allegations that have surfaced.
Eric Trump, defending his dad’s conversation with Billy Bush on Monday, chalked it up to his “alpha” personality. On Thursday, Donald Jr. dismissed Trump’s conversation as something that, “makes him a human,” adding “I think it makes him a normal person not a political robot,” CNN reports.
On Wednesday night, the New York Times published a report about two women who alleged that Donald Trump had groped them.
Donald Jr. responded to the Times report on Thursday’s segment of Charlotte Morning News on WBT radio and said, “Come on guys, it’s so ridiculous, I’ve never heard anything dumber in my life. All of sudden, two, three weeks before election, someone comes out — it’s not like he hasn’t been in the public eye for 30 years.”
Trump surrogates doing damage control this week have all brought up similar questions about timing — specifically that election day is nearing and these women must have come forward now because of that.
However, it is more likely than not that women are coming forward about being assaulted by Trump at this moment because of his denial of the claims.
During the second presidential debate on October 9, CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper asked, “You described kissing women without consent, grabbing the genitals. That is sexual assault. You brag that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”
Trump responded that it was just words, that it was untrue, and that he never engaged in such sexual misconduct. These women are likely coming forward now to hold him accountable for his continued denial of abusing women, not because the election is nearing.
Donald Jr. said in his interview, “[The New York Times] keep libeling and doing these kind of things I imagine that would be the intention. It’s one thing to report the news, it’s another to try to smear someone’s name time and time again for political motives and political gain.”
He added, “I’ve had conversations like that with plenty of people where people use language off color. They’re talking, two guys, amongst themselves.”
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.
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.
During a stop at the Trump campaign’s Denver, Colorado office on Monday, Eric Trump defended his father’s “lewd” conversation with Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women.
The 32-year-old Trump not only excused his father’s conversation with the tired “locker room banter” narrative, he also suggested it’s what happens when two alpha personalities come together, while simultaneously pointing the finger at the Clintons.
Trump alleged that the Clinton campaign leaked the 2005 tape and said, “I think that’s Hillary going low. I think you’ve seen that for a long time,” the Gazette reports. He added, “She’ll dig out dirt on someone from 15 years ago when someone is in entertainment.”
Trump also said, “And, listen, my father apologized for it. He was right to apologize for it, and I’m glad he apologized for it. At the same time, if you look at her track record with women, it’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible.”
A few things: bragging about kissing and groping women without consent is not locker room talk, it is sexual assault; it doesn’t matter when the tape was recorded, it was released on October 7, 2016 and thus should be examined in relation to the GOP nominee’s campaign; Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s husband is not relevant to Trump sexually assaulting women.
The young Trump shared with the office staff, “I think sometimes when guys are together they get carried away, and sometimes that’s what happens when alpha personalities are in the same presence,” on why his father and Billy Bush shared in such a “lewd” exchange about grabbing women by the “p*ssy” and getting away with it because of status.
Add “alpha personalities” to the list of excuses Trump supporters and surrogates are making for the Donald’s gross disregard for women.
According to Trump, it’s only normal for two big wigs to brag about sexual assault while on the bus together — it’s a status thing. They’re also apparently entitled to groping women because of that same alpha status.
A number of top Colorado Republicans have reportedly pulled their support for Trump over the leaked recordings.
Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone — saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it” — according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.
The video captures Trump talking with Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” on a bus with Access Hollywood written across the side. They were arriving on the set of “Days of Our Lives” to tape a segment about Trump’s upcoming cameo on the soap opera.
The tape obtained by the Post includes audio of Bush and Trump’s conversation inside the bus, as well as audio and video once they emerge from it to begin shooting the segment.
In that audio, Trump discusses a failed attempt to seduce a woman, whose full name is not given in the video.
“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it,” Trump is heard saying. It was unclear when the events he was describing took place. The tape was recorded several months after he married his third wife, Melania.
“Whoa,” another voice said.
“I did try and f— her. She was married,” Trump says.
Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”
“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
At that point in the audio, Trump and Bush appear to notice Arianne Zucker, the actress who is waiting to escort them into the soap opera set.
“Your girl’s hot as s—, in the purple,” says Bush, who’s now a co-host of NBC’s “Today” show.
“Whoa!” Trump says. “Whoa!”
“I’ve gotta use some tic tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says.“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”
“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”
“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.
“Grab them by the p—y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”
A spokeswoman for NBC Universal, which produces and distributes “Access Hollywood,” declined comment.
“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close,” Trump said in a statement. “I apologize if anyone was offended.”
The tape appears at a time when Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has sought to make a campaign issue out of his opponent’s marriage. Trump has criticized former President Bill Clinton for his past infidelity, and criticized opponent Hillary Clinton as her husband’s “enabler.”
“Hillary Clinton was married to the single greatest abuser of women in the history of politics,” Trump told the New York Times in a recent interview. “Hillary was an enabler, and she attacked the women who Bill Clinton mistreated afterward. I think it’s a serious problem for them, and it’s something that I’m considering talking about more in the near future.”
Trump carried on a very public affair with Marla Maples — his eventual second wife — while still married to first wife Ivana Trump.
Trump has been criticized in this campaign for derogatory and lewd comments about women, including some made on TV and live radio. In an interview Wednesday with KSNV-TV, a Las Vegas television station, Trump said that those comments were made for entertainment.
“A lot of that was done for the purpose of entertainment. There’s nobody that has more respect for women than I do,” he told the station.
“Are you trying to tone it down now?” asked the interviewer, Jim Snyder.
“It’s not a question of trying, it’s very easy,” said Trump.
The tape obtained by The Post seems to have captured Trump in a private moment, with no audience beyond Bush and a few others on the bus. It appears to have been shot around September 16, 2005, which was the day press reports said Trump would tape his soap-opera cameo.
The video shows the bus carrying Trump and Bush turning down a street on the studio backlot. The two men cannot be seen.
“Oh, nice legs, huh?” Trump says.
“Oof, get out of the way, honey,” Bush says, apparently referencing somebody else blocking the view of Zucker.
The two men then exit the bus, and greet Zucker.
“We’re ready, let’s go,” Trump says, after the initial greetings. “Make me a soap star.”
“How about a little hug for the Donald?” Bush says. “He just got off the bus.”
“Would you like a little hug, darling?” Zucker says.
“Absolutely,” Trump says. As they embrace, and air-kiss, Trump says, “Melania said this was okay.”
The video then follows Trump, Bush and Zucker into the studio. Trump did appear on Days of Our Lives, in late October. In a tape of that cameo posted online, Zucker’s character asks Trump — playing himself — for a job at his business, and tells him suggestively, “I think you’ll find I’m a very willing employee. Working under you, I think, could be mutually beneficial.”
Trump’s character gives her the brushoff.
“That’s an interesting proposition,” Trump says onscreen. “I’ll get back to you.”
A publicist for Zucker did not immediately respond to questions on Friday afternoon.
In a 2005 interview on the TV show “Soap Talk,” posted online, host Lisa Rinna asked Zucker if Trump was cute.
“He is so cute and charming,” Zucker said. “You just don’t look above…” she said, and motioned to her hairline.
Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani on Sunday suggested that a man such as Donald Trump would be a better president “than a woman.”
“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails,” the former New York City mayor said on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
Giuliani’s statements come on the heels of a week during which the Republican nominee has been criticized by Hillary Clinton’s campaign for comments he has made about women. At Monday’s debate, Clinton said Trump had insulted former Miss Universe Alicia Machado by calling her “Miss Piggy.” Trump and Giuliani both criticized Machado and tried to justify Trump’s comments about how much weight Machado had gained.
Giuliani told Stephanopoulos that Clinton was “programmed” to bring up Machado’s story.
“Then she mentioned the woman’s name, the model’s name, and then she made it appear as if [moderator] Lester Holt had brought it up. She had obviously been programmed to bring that up,” Giuliani said.
In addition, the Trump surrogate also said that if Clinton is going to attack Trump on how he “deals with women,” the GOP nominee’s campaign will discuss how the former secretary of state “deals with women.”
“We have to respond by how she deals with women, which is to take money from governments that kill women, take money from governments that stone women, take money from governments that have women who can’t drive cars,” he said. “Not just money, millions and tens of millions of dollars from countries in which women are treated like property and killed when they get raped.”
“And so now, basically, it’s ‘Don’t lecture me, Hillary, on feminism, because you’re a phony.'”The Trump and Clinton campaigns both released ads targeting women this past week.
Giuliani also claimed this was a “jobless” recovery. This is not factual at all. Over 15.1 million jobs have been created since Obama took office in 2009.
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:
Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an "angel" without checking her past, which is terrible!
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.
Donald Trump wanted to fire female employees he considered unattractive and replace them with better-looking women at a golf resort he owned, according to court documents from a 2012 lawsuit.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the court documents detail a lawsuit that alleges Trump pressured employees at the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos to replace those he viewed to be unattractive female employees over a number of years in the 2000s.
The report comes as Trump has faced renewed criticism that he disrespects women, a narrative fueled by his controversial remarks about a former Miss Universe that he worked with when he owned the beauty pageant. Hillary Clinton raised in Monday’s debate the fact that he called Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” after she won his 1996 Miss Universe pageant.
Hayley Strozier, an employee at the golf club until 2008, alleged in a sworn declaration she “had witnessed Donald Trump tell managers many times while he was visiting the club that restaurant hostesses were ‘not pretty enough’ and that they should be fired and replaced with more attractive women.”
According to the LA Times report, the employees said in their lawsuit that they rotated employees schedules “so that the most attractive women were scheduled to work when Mr. Trump was scheduled to be at the club.”
The Trump Organization called the allegations “meritless.”
“We do not engage in discrimination of any kind,” said Jill Martin, vice president and assistant general counsel for The Trump Organization. “The statements made by a group of former disgruntled employees are far from an accurate portrayal of what it is like to work at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles. Mr. Trump’s sole focus is on ensuring that the facility and operation are providing the highest level of service and an unparalleled golf experience. The only appearance Mr. Trump cares about is that of the facility and the grounds. Rather than looking to old statements from a handful of employees with an ax to grind, the media should focus on the thousands of happy employees, of all races, gender, size and shape, whose lives upon which Mr. Trump has made an incredibly positive impact.”
In the lawsuit, employees claim that Trump’s stated preferences regarding female employees caused managers to value appearance over skill when making hiring and staffing decisions. They also allege that Trump himself made inappropriate and unprofessional comments toward female employees.
The LA Times described the case as a “broad labor relations lawsuit” that is “focused on the course’s high-pressure work culture” in addition to spotlighting the revelations about Trump’s treatment of female employees.
According to the Times’ report, “the bulk of the lawsuit was settled in 2013” with a $475,000 payment to plaintiff employees without any admission of wrongdoing. Another female employee who said she was fired for complaining about the treatment of women at the golf club agreed to a separate settlement with confidential terms.
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.’ ”
Donald Trump called her "Miss Piggy" and "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.”
"She gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem." —Trump just defended his attacks on Fmr. Miss Universe Alicia Machado. pic.twitter.com/HbVtaBpK3R
Donald Trump on Thursday slammed the pastor who interrupted him onstage during Wednesday remarks at a Michigan church.
In a telephone interview with “Fox and Friends,” the Republican presidential nominee accused the pastor of the church in Flint, Michigan, of planning to come onstage to cut off his remarks when he addressed her congregation on Wednesday.
“When she got up to introduce me she was so nervous, she was shaking,” Trump said. “And I said, ‘Wow this is sort of strange.’ And then she came up. So she had that in mind. There was no question about it.”
He added: “She was so nervous. She was like a nervous mess. And so I figured something was up. Really.”
Several minutes into Trump’s remarks at Bethel United Methodist Church on Wednesday, Rev. Faith Green-Timmons reminded the real-estate mogul that the event was intended to focus on the water-crisis recovery in Flint, where state cost-cutting measures resulted in lead contamination in the city’s water supply.
“Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done for Flint, not to give a political speech,” Green-Timmons said.
“Oh, OK, OK, OK, that’s good,” Trump said. “Then I’m going to go back on to Flint.”
Trump then told Fox and Friends, “The audience was saying, ‘Let him speak, let him speak!’ ”
That isn’t true. In fact, several audience members began to heckle Trump, asking pointed questions about whether he racially discriminated against black tenants as a landlord. (Which he did several times, even after being caught and punished.)
Donald Trump’s comment that Hillary Clinton doesn’t have “a presidential look” is seen by some as the Republican presidential nominee’s latest knock on a woman’s appearance.
During an interview with ABC News in Ohio Monday, Trump said, “I really do believe that” Clinton doesn’t look the part.
“I just don’t believe she has a presidential look, and you need a presidential look,” he told ABC News anchor David Muir.
When pressed for specifics, Trump avoided giving any, saying, “I’m talking about general.”
This isn’t the only time that Trump has talked about other candidates’ appearance during this campaign. In one of the most notable cases, he talked about another female candidate, Carly Fiorina, before she dropped out of the Republican Party primaries.
During an interview last year for a September 2015 Rolling Stone cover story, he said, “Look at that face” when a camera zoomed in on Fiorina, according to the magazine. “Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”
Trump followed up in other interviews, saying he was talking about her persona and not her appearance. But she made it clear at the next Republican prime-time debate that she wasn’t buying it.
“Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” she said.
