Asked to respond during Sunday’s presidential debate to a leaked video of Donald Trump bragging about his celebrity status allowing him to kiss and grope women without their consent, Hillary Clinton said it showed Trump was unfit to be president.
Clinton characterized the comments from the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, which were caught on a hot mic, as typical of Trump’s behavior in the past.
“Like everyone else, I spent a lot of time thinking over the last 48 hours about what we heard and saw,” Clinton said. “You know, with prior Republican nominees, for president, I disagreed with them. Politics, policies, principles. But I never questioned their fitness to serve. Donald Trump is different.”
“What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women. What he thinks about women. What he does to women,” Clinton said. “And he has said that the video doesn’t represent who he is.”
“But I think it’s clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly what he is,” Clinton continued. “Because we’ve seen this throughout the campaign. We have seen him insult women. We’ve seen him rate women on their appearance. Ranking them from one to ten. We’ve seen him embarrass women on TV and on Twitter. We saw him after the first debate spend nearly a week denigrating a former miss universe in the harshest, most personal terms, so, yes, this is who Donald Trump is.”
The Democratic nominee then further detailed Trump’s other attacks on minorities throughout the campaign.
“But it’s not only women and it’s not only this video that raises questions about his fitness to be our president,” she said. “Because he has also targeted immigrants, African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and others.”
“So, this is who Donald Trump is and the question for us, the question our country must answer is that this is not who we are,” she added.
jw1
It was a great reply, and you know that answer was locked and loaded and ready to fire even before the debate started.
What Trump said will not affect his blue collar base. I’ve played poker games with construction workers and to be honest, how they talk is much worse than how Trump talked. Essentially those games were all about making everyone else laugh, and laughter came from saying the most offensive things so things go to extremes - but then again, I haven’t sat at a poker table with construction workers since the late 1980s. I’m sure thought that they will feel that the indictment against Trump for this stuff is an indictment against them, the way they think, and how they live their lives.
The rest of us, however, do not want to see such gutter talk from a president. Also, I will say the construction worker poker table is just talk, it’s meant to be offensive, they all had daughters, wives and mothers. Trump’s statements suggest that he actually did that stuff.
I think two things happened in tonight’s debate. First, I really think Clinton buried Trump once and for all. Trump did better, stylistically, than he did in the first debate, but that’s not saying much. In the first debate Trump came off as an unprepared petulant child. For this debate he came off as a better prepared unhinged lunatic. I don’t think he did himself any favors with anyone outside the Breitbart universe with his performance tonight.
The second thing that happened was that Trump firmly consolidated his base support. The Breitbarts who were watching tonight probably cheered every time he spoke. He’s reaffirmed his hero status with them and guaranteed that they’ll stick with him to the bitter end.
Anyone who is thinking Trump might drop out at any point before November 8 is sadly mistaken. The lines are drawn firmly in the sand now. Republicans are either with Trump or against him. Those who stand with them will incur the wrath of any decent moderate and those who are against him face the wrath of the Breitbarts.
I’m now predicting three things will happen on November 8th:
I believe that there’s a new site called “Go Popcorn Me” which was formed in anticipation of these debates.
Check it out!