Trump’s female accusers feeling forgotten
But court ruling due next month may change that
While allegations of sexual misconduct against powerful men in recent weeks have drawn wide public support and prompted quick response, women who came forward during the presidential race with accusations against Donald Trump said they spent the past year feeling dismissed and forgotten.
“With Trump, it was all brushed under the rug,” said Temple Taggart, who claimed Trump had kissed her on the mouth when she was competing in his Miss USA pageant in 1997.
But that could change if a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances is allowed to proceed in New York state Supreme Court, a legal ruling that could come before the end of the year. Lawyers in the suit sought a subpoena seeking all Trump campaign records related to his female accusers. If the case advances, the accusers could be deposed, going up against Trump yet again.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit — Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s show “The Apprentice” — is represented by the law firm of Gloria Allred, who has helped bring cases against Bill Cosby and other high-profile defendants. They claimed that Trump defamed Zervos during the campaign when he repeatedly described her and other accusers’ accounts
“You are looking live ...” was his signature intro over a sweeping camera shot, but instead of a snow-capped Lambeau Field or sunny Los Angeles Coliseum, Brent Musburger finds himself in a television studio plopped in the middle of a casino floor guarded by a battalion of one-armed bandits.
Inside this glass box, Musburger, 78, is dressed in all black. He has traded “looking-live” greeting and weekend jaunts to football’s most hallowed athletic grounds to talk gambling five days a week to “My Guys in the Desert,” who today are Vinny Magliulo and Jimmy Vaccaro, bookmakers here at the South Point Casino.
Musburger’s cadences are as strong, his amiability as thick as it was in the mid-1970s when he anchored CBS’S pioneering live pregame show, NFL Today, a mélange of features and football talk with a cast aimed at the widest demographic.
Irv Cross was the ex-player and designated explainer of a sport that was in its infancy as televised entertainment. Phyllis George, a former Miss America, spoke to the softer side of a brutal game. Jimmy Snyder, known as Jimmy the Greek and who died in 1996, told gamblers which team to bet. Sort of. He picked a winner and final score, which signaled to gamblers how the teams would perform against the point spread.
“He was our prognosticator,” Musburger said with a wink.
More than four decades later, Musburger remains a trail blazer. He is the co-founder of Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSIN), a family business aimed at building a streaming service offering actionable information for sports bettors.
In short, VSIN wants to be the CNBC for gamblers.
It may be a niche market, but it is a booming one perhaps on the verge of exploding. In Nevada, sports betting is a nearly $5 billion a year industry. In December, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether to strike down a federal ban on betting amateur or professional games except in the four states that already have operations.
The case was brought by the state of New Jersey, but more than a dozen other states have introduced legislation legalizing the activity in pursuit of what law enforcement and industry experts say is the $150 billion that is wagered annually with illegal or offshore bookmakers.
In betting parlance, the