Trump’s Despicable Double Standard on Sexual Misconduct
President Donald Trump is a sexual predator. Period. There really is no disputing that.
First off, Trump told us as much in the infamous Access Hollywood tape where he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals and kissing women without their consent: “I just start kissing them…I don’t even wait.” As a lawyer, that is the very definition of sexual assault.
And after that tape was released, 16 women came forward detailing Trump’s sexual misconduct directed against each of them. For example, journalist Natasha Stoynoff shared that in 2005 Trump pushed her up against a wall at Mar-a- Lago and shoved his tongue down her throat. And Summer Zervos, who is currently suing Trump, told us that Trump in 2007 kissed her without her consent touched her breasts and “pressed his genitals up against her.” For those who want to see more details, a new video was released just yesterday by Brave New Films that documents each of these 16 women’s story.
And after these women came forward, Trump responded by telling a cheering group of his supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania last October, “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign, adding, “Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”
(For the record, Trump has sued zero of these women.)
You would think with that history Trump would do the right thing now and stand with all victims of sexual misconduct – regardless of the political affiliation of the person who committed the wrongful acts. Or at the very least, he would remain silent in an effort to avoid reminding people of his past vile record.
But instead, Trump has given us yet another display of hypocrisy. You see, when it comes to calling out Republican Roy Moore, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by nine women –including one who was 14 years old at the time, Trump has been silent. Trump tells us he prefers to wait for the people of Alabama to decide if Moore is the type of guy who should be in the U.S. Senate.
Yet when it comes to Democrat Al Franken, Trump didn’t even need to wait more than a few hours to take to Twitter to slam the Senator from Minnesota. Trump, referring to the photo of Franken touching (or almost touching) the breasts of a sleeping journalist Leeann Tweeden, tweeted: “The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps? …..”
This tweet reveals not just Trump’s hypocrisy but also something else about Trump. He shared with us his thoughts of what he believed Franken would do to this sleeping woman; “Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps?”
When I saw that photo, my response was that it was appalling. I would predict that most shared that response. But not Trump. His reaction to the photo was to fantasize about what would Franken do next to the sleeping woman. That vile response says so much about the mindset of the man who currently occupies the White House.
Keep in mind this is the same Trump who also publicly defended Roger Ailes against allegations of sexual misconduct. And he did the same with Bill O’Reilly saying, “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong” despite knowing that Fox had paid various women $13 million in settlements because of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment.
Despite Trump’s despicable hypocrisy, the reality is that the #MeToo campaign has caused a shift in cultural norms. We are thankfully getting to a place where increasingly society believes the victims. And that should be our starting point in every instance. We believe the victims.
It can’t be that we only believe the victims if they accuse people of the opposite political party of wrongdoing. And thankfully we didn’t see any Democratic leaders or progressive hosts defend Franken – even before Franken admitted to the allegations. What a contrast to how GOP leaders in Alabama and countless people on Fox News have responded to the Moore allegation where they attacked the victims in defense of Moore.
In fact, cultural norms have so changed in the year since Trump won the election, we may, in fact, see something that would’ve been considered impossible last year: A Republican lose a U.S. Senate race in Alabama. The latest poll there, ironically enough conducted by Fox News, shows Moore now down by eight points to Democrat Doug Jones.
Trump will never change. But America is changing around him. Hopefully, this means we will get to the place where we have zero tolerance for sexual misconduct. And in the future, those who engage in sexual misconduct are not defended in a partisan manner but instead, we collectedly make it clear we stand with the victims.
