Trump’s disgrace
Is his campaign doomed?
Donald Trump’s presidential hopes were hanging by a thread following the leak last Friday of video footage in which he boasted about grabbing women “by the p***y”. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he told a TV host in 2005, during what he believed was a private conversation. Trump, who had just married his wife Melania, also described his failure to “f***” a married TV presenter, although he’d “moved on her like a bitch”. The release of the tape prompted a string of Republicans to call on Trump to abandon his White House bid.
Two days later, he took part in a second TV debate with Hillary Clinton. Trump put in a robust performance: he apologised for his “locker-room talk”, then went on to launch a bitter attack on Clinton, bringing up her husband’s sexual scandals and threatening to jail her, if he was elected, for mishandling confidential data during her time as secretary of state. However, he suffered a fresh blow the next day, when the most senior elected Republican, House Speaker Paul Ryan, said that party leaders should stop campaigning for him and concentrate on elections to Congress.
What the editorials said
Hillary Clinton is “lucky”, said The Times. Had the Trump tape not come out last week, attention would instead be focused on the release of emails hacked from her private server. These appear to show that she told a private audience of bankers that she supports unfettered free trade – a stance sharply at odds with her recent protectionist rhetoric in public. Trump’s scandal totally eclipsed that story. Rightly so, said The Guardian. This appalling video would have been enough to destroy most campaigns. But Trump brazened it out and went on to launch an even more vicious attack on Clinton, whom he referred to in the debate as “the devil”. Clearly, he’s going to “fight as dirty as he can”, all the way to the 8 November election.
The debate was a new low in presidential politics, said The Washington Post. Trump reeled out a stream of falsehoods. He insisted once again, for instance, that he opposed the Iraq war – a claim that has been repeatedly debunked. And he again defended Vladimir Putin, saying there was no evidence to suggest that Russia was trying to intervene in the US election through the hacking of political organisations and individuals. Trump is receiving classified intelligence briefings, so he is well aware that there is evidence of exactly that. “So why does he deny it?”