The “Bro” Strategy
Maggie Haberman with a good write up of Trump’s demented “press conference” yesterday. This first line is exactly how it should be framed:
If any voters had forgotten that Donald J. Trump was accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct, he spent roughly 45 minutes reminding them on Friday, eight weeks before Election Day.
At a lectern in the lobby of Trump Tower, Mr. Trump, flanked by seven of his lawyers, laid out years-old allegations from the women in detail as he denied that they were telling the truth. He had just attended a federal appeals court hearing related to a civil case in which he was found liable of sexually abusing and defaming a New York writer, E. Jean Carroll, decades earlier. Mr. Trump was not required to attend the hearing, but decided he wanted to.
When the hearing was over, he went to his eponymous building for what the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign called a “press conference.” But he ended it without taking questions, and the session — during which Mr. Trump criticized his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, for avoiding reporters — was more like a venting exercise over his frustrations about his legal travails.
Mr. Trump — who is badly trailing with women voters in polling — used the time Friday to insult the lawyers working for him, saying he was “disappointed” in them before adding that they’re “talented,” as they stood, mute, in a row next to him. He declared that Ms. Carroll’s claim that a dress she owned may have had Mr. Trump’s DNA on it was inspired by Monica Lewinsky, referring to the White House intern whose life was forever changed after she had a sexual relationship with former President Bill Clinton. He couldn’t remember one of the accuser’s names, and spent time at the lectern searching for it through the rectangular note cards he held.
Of another accuser, Jessica Leeds, who alleged an assault on an airplane, he said, “She said I was making out with her. And then, after 15 minutes — and she changed her story a couple times, maybe it was quicker — then I grabbed her at a certain part and that’s when she had enough.” He added, “Think of the impracticality of this: I’m famous, I’m in a plane, people are coming into the plane. And I’m looking at a woman, and I grab her and I start kissing her and making out with her. What are the chances of that happening?”
And, for emphasis, he suggested that one of the accusers wasn’t attractive enough for him to have made a move on. “Frankly — I know you’re going to say it’s a terrible thing to say — but it couldn’t have happened, it didn’t happen, and she would not have been the chosen one,” he said.
Between Trump the groper/rapist and Vance the misogynist incel who wants women barefoot and pregnant, they have quite a team. I think it’s great that Trump is out there reminding everyone of all the women who have credibly accused him of assault.
As Edith Olmsted wrote in the New Republic, he actually went into great detail for some reason. As if he really wanted to remind everyone of exactly what had been alleged:
“There were two witnesses. One is a woman who followed me for years,” Trump said, talking about Jessica Leeds, who told jurors at Carroll’s civil trial that Trump had groped her when they sat next to each other on a plane to New York City in the late 1970s. “There was no conversation. It was like out of the blue. It was like a tussle,” Leeds claimed at the time.
Trump’s characterization of the interaction was quite a bit different: “She said in 1979 I was in an airplane with her, commercial flight, and … we became very intimate,” said the former president.
As he told the story, Trump interrupted himself to say, “I was famous then too. I’ve been famous for a long time,” apropos of nothing. Later Trump tried to return to this point, dismissing the claims, saying, “It’s very funny, when you’re rich and famous, you get lot of people come up with a lot of stories.” Combined, Trump’s remarks sounded eerily similar to his infamous Access Hollywood tape, where he claimed that “when you’re a star they let you” grab their genitals.
Throughout his explanation of the supposedly “totally made-up story,” Trump continued to insist that he didn’t know when exactly their interaction had taken place, noting that this likely happened “a long time ago,” in 1979. “I believe I had some pretty big success then, and I was being talked about a lot. Maybe The Art of the Deal was out, you know, sometime after that, I’m not sure. But I was well known,” Trump said. As it happens, The Art of the Deal came out almost 10 years later, in 1987. In attempting to make light of the serious allegation, Trump boasted about his popularity and seemed to reveal his own faulty memory.
“And passengers are coming into the plane, and she said I was making out with her, and then, after 15 minutes—and then she changed her story a couple of times, maybe it was quicker—that I grabbed her at a certain part, and that was when she had enough,” Trump said.
“So think of the impracticality of this,” Trump urged. Later, he implied that her story made no sense because “back in those days” there was an arm rest between passengers on airplanes. “What are the chances of that happening? What are the chances?” Trump questioned. “And, frankly, I know you’re going to think it’s a terrible thing to say, but it couldn’t have happened. It didn’t happen. And, she would not have been the chosen one. She would not have been the chosen one.”
What kind of a presidential candidate moron would go into such detail in a press conference two months before the election?
The question isn’t why so many women loathe them and refuse to vote for them. The question is why so many don’t. What kind of self-respecting woman thinks that performance — or Vance’s “childless cat ladies are destroying the world” — is admirable? What kind of woman wants her daughter growing up in a world full of pigs like that?
On the other hand, we know that they are making a big play for the “bros” so this would make some sense. He may figure those guys relate to a bunch of bitches accusing them of acting like animals when all they want is what they’re entitled to. It’s not that much different than having an MMA fighter/wife beater introduce him at the RNC.