No touching
by digby
Word to the wise. If you don’t already know it, this is wrong. Don’t do it.
In the book, Tur reveals that Trump forced an unwanted kiss on her just before a November 11, 2015, appearance on Morning Joe. The details are pretty gross (emphasis added):
Trump arrives. Word spreads. I take a few steps toward the entrance and see Trump’s private security detail, coming in just ahead of him. Despite my desire to avoid any interaction, I walk toward the front doors and spot Trump—who shifts his path ever so slightly so he’s walking straight toward me—barreling, really. Suddenly he is so close I can smell what he had for breakfast. And then, before I know what’s happening, his hands are on my shoulders and his lips are on my cheek. My eyes widen. My body freezes. My heart stops.
Tur adds that after Trump let go of her and continued on to the set, he seemed “very proud of himself,” but that she was “mortified.” The reasons, aside from the smell, are obvious:
F**k. I hope the cameras didn’t see that. My bosses are never going to take me seriously. I didn’t have time to duck!The cameras didn’t pick up the kiss, but Trump was, indeed, proud enough of his maneuver to brag about it on air:
“Katy Tur, what happened? She was so great. I just saw her back there and I gave her a big kiss.”
In the book, Tur recounts the humiliating, and intended, reaction. “A middle-aged man in the crowd is laughing openmouthed,” she writes, adding “As the student at the next table picks up her jaw, she looks around the room and finds me. Her eyes are wide. She has the same uncomfortable smile as Mika.”
Remember this part of the Access Hollywood tape:
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. You can do anything.
He was in public so he couldn’t really go for the gold.
Her description of the event is that feeling of being ambushed by someone physically larger than you against your will in a professional situation where to make a stink will derail your standing. It’s all about humiliation and dominance. It’s horrifying when it happens to you.
And then the asshole proceeded to call her out by name at his rallies full of slavering misogynists and she needed escorts to her car. Nice guy.
But hey, no big deal. They love him for his trade policies.
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