By now, the massive media uproar over Donald Trump’s admitting on a recorded statement that he wanted to sexually assault a married woman is blowing more wind than Hurricane Matthew on Florida and the east coast of North America.

Republicans rush to condemn Trump — and distance themselves — after lewd video of Trump emerges

By Abby Phillip October 7 at 8:04 PM

NEW YORK — Republicans and Democrats denounced Donald Trump, and down-ballot Republican candidates braced for impact after new video of the Republican presidential nominee speaking lewdly about women emerged on Friday afternoon.

“No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus in a statement, a rare condemnation from the party’s chairman who has stood by Trump through several other controversies.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., both sharply denounced Trump‘s comments in statements. Ryan also asked Trump not to appear at a scheduled campaign stop in his home state of Wisconsin on Saturday.

Republican strategists warned that the new revelations would be likely to hurt Trump, especially with women voters. Meanwhile, vulnerable GOP down-ballot candidates and sitting lawmakers either sought to distance themselves quickly or remained eerily silent.

“His comments are totally inappropriate and offensive,” said Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), who is locked in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country.

The graphic comments, which Trump made in 2005 on a bus and on the set of a soap opera, feature him bragging about his sexual pursuit of a married woman.

“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “Grab them by the p—y. You can do anything.”

One by one, Democratic challengers moved quickly to tie their Republican opponents to Trump’s newest statements.

By the time Ayotte released the curt one-sentence comment, her Democratic opponent, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, had already sought to tie her to Trump, reminding voters that at a debate earlier in the week, she called Trump a role model.

“These vile comments from Donald Trump cannot be excused,” Hassan said in a statement. “It is beyond comprehension how Sen. Ayotte could continue to support this man for the highest office in the land, let alone call him a role model.”

One by one, Democratic Senate candidates in key races, including Arizona and Ohio, joined in.

“Everyone in America is disgusted and fed up with Donald Trump — except Senator Portman,” said a spokesman for Ohio Democrat Ted Strickland’s senate campaign, David Bergstein. “Senator Portman’s continued support for Trump is equal parts pathetic and offensive, but that’s what Ohioans have come to expect from a lapdog like Portman.

“If Portman won’t stand up to Trump, there’s no way Ohioans can trust him to stand up for us in the Senate,” he added.

Other Republicans warned that the comments combined with the timing — just days before the second presidential debate in St. Louis — could leave a mark.

“This one will cause real damage,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said.

Women are already a challenging demographic for Trump in many battleground states, and Republicans’ swift reaction to these latest revelations signal how damaging they think it could be for the party and the Republican nominee.

Longtime Trump foe Jeb Bush signaled that Trump’s couched apology was insufficient.

“As the grandfather of two precious girls, I find that no apology can excuse away Donald Trump’s reprehensible comments degrading women,” Bush tweeted.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) who has long been a vocal critic of Trump, exploded on Twitter.

“DJT is a malignant clown — unprepared and unfit to be president of the United States,” Kirk said. 

And former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican who recently said he would vote for Trump, called for Trump to resign.

“In a campaign cycle that has been nothing but a race to the bottom — at such a critical moment for our nation — and with so many who have tried to be respectful of a record primary vote, the time has come for Governor Pence to lead the ticket,” Huntsman told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee who has vocally criticized Trump said that Trump’s comments “corrupt America’s” image to the world.

But Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman Corey A. Stewart insisted that women voters wouldn’t be moved by Trump’s comments.

“When people voted for Donald Trump, they knew he wasn’t an angel,” said Stewart, a 2017 contender for Virginia governor and chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. “They are not concerned that, at times, Donald Trump acts like a frat boy. Sometimes he does, but that’s okay.”

“They know he’s not an angel. They know that he can save the country, though,” he added.

Florida-based Republican strategist Al Cardenas questioned whether these remarks might become yet another controversial remark from Trump that failed to move the needle in this election.

“The query is whether after 50-plus outlandish, offensive comments towards women and minorities by Mr. Trump, is this one so over the top over the others that it will finally make a difference with voters where others have not?” Cardenas mused. “It does seem to reach new lows.”

Trump was expected to appear for the first time on the campaign trail with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan in Wisconsin on Saturday. But Friday night, Ryan, in condemning Trump’s comments, said that Trump would no longer appear at the event.

“I am sickened by what I heard today,” Ryan said in a statement. “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, campaigned in Ohio and reporters noted that a small group of journalists who usually travel with the Indiana governor were abruptly ushered out of a restaurant where he was eating and campaigning. He did not respond to questions shouted by reporters.

Hillary Clinton’s aides expect the issue to be a major one in Sunday night’s debate at Washington University.

Before then, however, the campaign has been galvanizing supporters with the new revelations, encouraging them to register to vote and to donate to the campaign.

Top Clinton aides and Congressional Democrats also indicated that they would seek to hold Republicans accountable for failing to rescind their support for Trump.

“This is a moment of truth for Republicans,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV. “It is time for every Republican elected official in this county to revoke their endorsements of Donald Trump and state that they will not vote for their party’s nominee, who has been caught on tape bragging about routinely sexually assaulting women.

“There is no way to defend the indefensible. In the name of decency, Republicans should admit that this deviant – this sociopath – cannot be president,” he added.

And how Trump handles the questioning at the debate on Sunday could help determine how much of an impact it has on voters, said Sarah Isgur Flores, a Republican strategist and former deputy campaign manager to presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina.

“It’s an understatement to say this now means Trump heads into Sunday’s debate on defense, which hasn’t worked out well for a candidate that has trouble staying on message even under normal circumstances,” Flores said. “That being said, there’s a huge overlap between Trump voters and voters who already think Trump is a risky bet.

“So unclear whether this alone will move numbers, but it does make his ability to handle it at the debate in 48 hours wildly more important,” she added.

In a statement, Trump described the recording as “locker room banter” and apologized “if anyone was offended.”

But allies of Hillary Clinton called it something else: sexual assault.

“Donald Trump apparently thinks he has the right to sexually assault women because he’s famous,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America National Communications Director Kaylie Hanson Long. “Never mind consent, he doesn’t think he needs it.

“He’s not a role model, he’s vulgar and dangerous, and his disregard for women has never been more clear,” she added.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, predicted in an interview that it would sink his candidacy.

“If someone, quote, grabbed someone by the p—y, to quote Donald Trump, on a subway or on a bus or at a school, they would be in jail. They would be arrested and prosecuted, and they would go to jail,” Laguens said. “I think we are now moving to the end of the end of Donald Trump.”

The Clinton campaign’s deputy communications director Christina Reynolds added: “This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president.”

Sean Sullivan and Laura Vozzella contributed to this report from Washington.

And Trump is not the only Republican that has gotten busted over issues of sexual assault. Long ago, there was…..Arnold the Terminator!

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/02/local/me-women2

Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them

The acts allegedly took place over three decades. A campaign aide denies the accusations.

October 02, 2003|Gary Cohn, Carla Hall and Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writers

Six women who came into contact with Arnold Schwarzenegger on movie sets, in studio offices and in other settings over the last three decades say he touched them in a sexual manner without their consent.

In interviews with The Times, three of the women described their surprise and discomfort when Schwarzenegger grabbed their breasts. A fourth said he reached under her skirt and gripped her buttocks.

A fifth woman said Schwarzenegger groped her and tried to remove her bathing suit in a hotel elevator. A sixth said Schwarzenegger pulled her onto his lap and asked whether a certain sexual act had ever been performed on her.

According to the women’s accounts, one of the incidents occurred in the 1970s, two in the 1980s, two in the 1990s and one in 2000.

“Did he rape me? No,” said one woman, who described a 1980 encounter in which she said Schwarzenegger touched her breast. “Did he humiliate me? You bet he did.”

Four of the six women told their stories on condition that they not be named. Three work in Hollywood and said they were worried that, if they were identified, their careers would be in jeopardy for speaking out against Schwarzenegger, the onetime bodybuilding champion and box-office star who is now the front-runner in the Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election.

The other unnamed woman said she feared public ridicule and possible damage to her husband’s business.

In the four cases in which the women would not let their names be published, friends or relatives said that the women had told them about the incidents long before Schwarzenegger’s run for governor.

None of the six women who gave their accounts to The Times filed any legal action against him.

Schwarzenegger’s campaign spokesman, Sean Walsh, said the candidate has not engaged in improper conduct toward women. He said such allegations are part of an escalating political attack on Schwarzenegger as the recall election approaches.

“We believe Democrats and others are using this to try to hurt Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign,” Walsh said. “We believe that this is coming so close before the election, something that discourages good, hard-working, decent people from running for office.”

Walsh said Schwarzenegger himself would have no comment.

The Times did not learn of any of the six women from Schwarzenegger’s rivals in the recall race. And none of the women approached the newspaper on her own. Reporters contacted them in the course of a seven-week examination of Schwarzenegger’s behavior toward women on and off the movie set.

Schwarzenegger’s attitudes about women have been an issue on the campaign trail, where critics have accused him of being misogynistic, based on past statements he has made to various publications. In response, Schwarzenegger has said he respects women and that many of his comments were made in jest or simply meant to be provocative.

Schwarzenegger’s conduct toward women also has been widely discussed in Hollywood over the years, notably after a March 2001 article in Premiere magazine called “Arnold the Barbarian.” After the article appeared, a number of Schwarzenegger’s colleagues wrote to the magazine saying that the story was inaccurate and that Schwarzenegger treated women with respect and kindness.

The earliest incident of the six described to The Times was said to have occurred in 1975 at Gold’s Gym near Venice Beach. E. Laine Stockton, then newly married to professional bodybuilder Robby Robinson, said she had gone to the gym to watch her husband work out.

Stockton was 19 at the time. She said she was wearing slacks, tennis shoes and a loose-fitting T-shirt. She said she was not wearing a bra.

As she sat on an exercise bench, Stockton said, Schwarzenegger walked up behind her, reached under her T-shirt and touched her bare left breast.

“The gym is full of bodybuilders and Arnold comes and he gropes my breast — actually touches my breast with his left hand,” she said.

She said Schwarzenegger then walked away without saying a word.

Stockton said she does not rule out that Schwarzenegger “may have meant it in playfulness.” But she did not take it that way.

“I was just shocked, shocked to the point where I almost didn’t know how to react, because it was so out of the blue and so unexpected,” she said. “It just completely caught me off guard, and when I finally came to my senses, I immediately went over to Robby and I said, ‘Look, Arnold just groped my breast.’ ”

Robinson, a former Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe, said he “tried to comfort her.”

Robinson has since had a falling out with Schwarzenegger. An African American known as the “Black Prince” during his years on the professional bodybuilding circuit, Robinson has accused Schwarzenegger of racism — a charge that Schwarzenegger’s campaign denies.

Robinson said he was upset by what Schwarzenegger had done to his wife, but did not confront him. “What he did was uncalled for, but I couldn’t say nothing,” Robinson said, explaining that he feared he’d be ostracized by the bodybuilding world.

You can read the rest of that. Later….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-ostroy/still-think-schwarzenegge_b_863477.html

Still Think Schwarzenegger’s Not a Serial Groper?

05/18/2011 12:22 pm ET | Updated Jul 18, 2011

Andy Ostroy Political and Pop Culture Analyst

He’s a liar, a cheater, a home-wrecker and a predator. No, I’m not referring to the 1987 sci-fi action pic he starred in, but more likely a sexual predator. After the explosive revelation this week that former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a love-child with a household employee about 13 years ago, it should erase all doubt about whether he in fact was guilty, as accused in 2005, of groping many women over the course of his 30-year bodybuilding and acting career.

Schwarzenegger’s newest bombshell is not much of a shock in political circles, especially those out west. Rumors of affairs and children swirled around him during the 2005 campaign against incumbent Gov. Gray Davis. But those rumors were quickly dwarfed by the groping scandal in which fifteen women came forward with allegations of sexual attacks against them at gyms, movie sets, production facilities and elsewhere. Schwarzenegger and his camp vociferously denied the charges, and his wife Maria Shriver went to bat for him as well in what many experts believe was a campaign-saving defense. He went on to win the election and served two terms until 2011 when Jerry Brown became governor again after first serving in that office from 1975-1983.

So here’s what happened: somewhere around 1988 Arnold had sex with the worker, Mildred Baena, now 50, and she became pregnant with his baby. She recently left the job after serving twenty years with the family. The affair, pregnancy and eventual birth of their son was kept secret from Shriver — who was said to be pregnant with her son Christopher at the same time as Baena — and the rest of the family until Schwarzenegger’s recent revelation. He and Shriver officially announced their separation last week after twenty-five years of marriage. Apparently, this tawdry episode was chief among the reasons for the split.

It’s easy to feel sympathetic towards Shriver, who’s clearly dealing with a highly emotional, humiliating public scandal. No one likes to see anyone suffer like that, and my heart goes out to her and her five children. But I also can’t help feeling for those fifteen women who her husband allegedly molested. Women whose reputations were attacked and whose lives were forever changed by the man Shriver so loyally defended as they both sought even more fame and power than they already had. You can’t tell me that on some very visceral level Shriver did not know of or at the very least suspect the sort of lewd behavior of which Arnold was likely guilty. I’m not at all saying she’s responsible for this new love-child scandal, but she certainly helped feed the beast. What goes around comes around.

What it is about white men who are rich and Republican that drives them to think that they can treat women like living sex toys?

More to the point, why are Republicans denouncing Trump when Schwarzenegger is still a Republican in good standing to this day?