Trump Admitted He Doesn’t Think ‘Grabbing By the P***y’ Is Assault
The question on everyone’s minds during last night’s presidential debate — the second of three taking place in the lead-up to the election — was whether Trump would address the sickeningly rapey comments about “grabbing [a woman’s] pussy” that came to light last week.
And thankfully, co-moderator Anderson Cooper got right to the point. The first question he asked of Trump was whether he understood this to be sexual assault.
“You described kissing women without their consent, grabbing their genitals,” Cooper said. “That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”
Trump completely brushed off the accusation.
“No, I didn’t say that at all,” he said to Cooper. “I don’t think you understood what was said. This was locker-room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologized to my family, I apologized to the American people.”
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The exchange continued, as reported by the Washington Post:
“Just for the record, though,” Cooper cut in, “are you saying that what you said on that bus 11 years ago, that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent?”
“I have great respect for women,” Trump responded. “Nobody has more respect for women than I do. Frankly, you hear these things — they’re said.”
“Have you ever done those things?” Cooper asked.
“No, I have not,” Trump said.
As the Post points out, the Justice Department defines sexual assault as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.”
So yeah, sorry Donny, but grabbing someone’s junk out of the blue is sexual assault, I don’t care how beautiful you find them.
He also described the leaked tape as “words” rather than “actions,” which seems like maybe a plausible excuse until you remember that Trump’s been accused of sexual assault plenty of times — including by ex-wife Ivana Trump, who swore under oath that he raped her.
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He also continually referred to it as “locker room talk,” even though, as many on Twitter pointed out, it took place not in a locker room but on a bus, in mixed company, only a few feet away from the woman whose pussy Trump was apparently thinking about grabbing.
Oh, and then to top it all off, he launched into a tirade about defeating ISIS without giving any concrete information as to, you know, how we would actually do that.
Hopefully all the young, impressionable bros in Middle America weren’t watching this sorry excuse for a human defend his words and actions last night, because this is literally exactly what perpetuating rape culture sounds like.
