The Hillary Clinton campaign tried to discredit Donald Trump in the run-up to last nights debate in St. Louis, Missouri between the two presidential candidates by referring to a notorious “hot mic” video that recorded lewd remarks made privately by Trump over a woman in 2005.
Clinton, ever the feminist – although her husband is a notorious womaniser – tried to land a knock-out punch by saying:
“Like everyone else, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking over the last 48 hours about what we heard and what we saw… ‘Donald Trump is different. I said back in June that he was not fit to serve as president and commander-in-chief.
“What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women, what he thinks about women, what he does to women.
“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 who he is.
“He has also targeted immigrants, African-Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities, POWs, Muslims, and many others.
‘This is not who we are.”
Trump took the punch by apologising for his remarks from 11 years ago, but launched into his own account of Bill Clinton’s chequered history of philandering and abuse of women. His campaign had already prepared the ground by means of a press conference held shortly before the debate with four women who had brought sex-assault charges against the Clintons: Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, Donald Trump, Kathy Shelton and Paula Jones. As a lawyer, Hillary had also defended the rapist of Shelton when she was only 12 years old, and laughed about it on two different tapes when he got off.
In reply to Clinton’s attack over his misogynous remarks from 2005, Trump said: “When Hillary brings up a point like that and she talks about words that I said 11 years ago, I think it’s disgraceful and I think she should be ashamed of herself.”
Trump brought up the issue of Hillary Clinton’s emails that was hardly referred to in their first debating encounter by saying that Hillary should be investigated and perhaps even imprisoned for her violation of US secrecy laws.
Former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani, one of Trump’s staunchest supporters within the Republican Party used a baseball metaphor after the debate, saying that he had hit a “home run”. However, CNN was quick to declare Hillary Clinton the winner on the basis of a snap poll including mostly Democratic supporters.
On the whole it does not seem as if the latest revelations of Trump’s “locker-room talk” as he referred to it from 2005 has done him serious harm, with his supporters seeing it as part of the unusual degree of mud-slinging that has characterised the current presidential election.
