Trump’s Latest Controversy

Last Week a leaked video of 2016 Republican Presidential Nominee came out… And it wasn’t pleasant for anyone to watch… The video was of Donald Trump 11 years ago in 2005 with Billy Bush who was a former anchor of Access Hollywood and until the leakage of this video was on the third hour of the Today Show. The video took place before filming an episode of Access Hollywood. The conversation was “extremely lewd” and Trump said, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything.” and some other disrespectful and offensive comments about women.

The Washington Post leaked this video two days before the Second Presidential Debate and there was outrage. Many Republicans rescinded their endorsement on October 8th as a result of this video and some went as far as to say that Trump should drop out. These top Republicans include John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, and Mike Crapo (these three are running for reelection). Other top Republicans who had never endorsed Trump also spoke out. John Kasich said this video is “indefensible” by Trump and Mitt Romney tweeted “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such a vile demeanor wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan did not retract his endorsement but said he would only focus on down-ballot races for now on and uninvited him to an event in Wisconsin for Senator Ron Johnson. This signals that Ryan has essentially given up on the presidential race. Senator Ted Cruz complained that the media should have released this in the primaries and are only releasing it now to help Hillary Win.

At the debate, Trump defended himself and said: “nobody respects women more than I do”. He also invited accusers of Bill Clinton to prove that he also wasn’t the only one with a poor history of women. However, this is little or no evidence against Bill Clinton. The winner of the debate (besides Ken Bonne) was unclear in which isn’t a bad outcome for Trump considering this scandal.

Billy Bush who is the nephew of former President George W. Bush was suspended (and later removed) from the Today Show. Arianne Zucker who was referred to the video came out and said, “Not with that type of personality, I wasn’t shocked, which is probably why it doesn’t mean a lot to me.” Trump’s wife, Melania Trump said, “The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me. This does not represent the man that I know.”

This highly publicized scandal became the most talk about the topic of the election on Facebook and became a topic of discussion at Oratory as well. Students had wide-ranging opinions on the controversy that usually corresponded with who they wanted for president. Most students wished to remain anonymous which is why there will be no names. A few students said they simply did not care about the scandal and/or they did not find it offensive. A plurality of students, 1.) said they supported Trump and 2.) felt that it was a long time ago and shouldn’t matter anymore and/or that what Bill Clinton had done was worse. However, a decent percentage of students did say that it did matter and that a man running for president should not say things like that. A small group of students who said they supported Hillary went as far to say that Trump should be jailed for what he said pointing to sexual assault which is in line with what Planned Parenthood and Anderson Cooper have said.
Polls have shown that Trump has gone further down even in the LA Times poll which typically has him ahead. Trump will have to have a strong 3rd debate and be able to recover from this significant blow to his campaign if he wants to be competitive on November 8th.