As sex accusations fly, Trump stays selective
President Donald Trump’s decision to mock U.S. Sen. Al Franken, DMinn., for groping a sleeping woman while posing for a photo has once again made him a central figure in the national discussion about sexual assault, harassment and misconduct — and has again brought attention to past accusations against the president himself.
As a growing number of prominent men have publicly faced accusations, Trump has been selective in responding, largely on the basis of whether the accused is an ally or foe and focusing relatively little on the alleged victims.
Trump called his own accusers “horrible, horrible liars” and threatened to sue them, while coming to the defense of friends such as political commentator Bill O’Reilly and former Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes, accused of harassment or assault. Trump has also been mostly silent on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, who has been accused of trying to initiate a sexual encounter with a 14year-old girl when he was in his 30s, sexually assaulting a 16-year-old waitress and pursuing relationships with at least five other teenagers who were much younger than he.
Trump’s responses have been notably different for some Democrats. Late Thursday night, the president tweeted about Franken, saying that a photograph of Franken appearing to grope a woman “is really bad, speaks a thousand words” and chastising the Minnesotan for “lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment and respect for women.”
Trump has also said he was not surprised by accusations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, a major Democratic donor; released an ad during the presidential campaign calling former New York congressman Anthony Weiner a “pervert;” and hosted a campaign news conference with three women who had accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual assault or misconduct, calling those women “very courageous.”
Liz Mair, a Republican communications consultant who has been critical of the president, said Friday that Trump appears to be attempting to egg on Democrats to react and, in the process, muddy distinctions between allegations against him and others accused of wrongdoing.
“Even if he’s totally loathed, as long as he’s a little less loathed by comparison, he’s good,” Mair said.
But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday pushed back against the idea that Trump treats Democrats differently than Republicans, pointing to comments of concern over the Moore allegations. Sanders also said that there was a key difference between the accusations against Franken and those against Trump.
“Sen. Franken has admitted wrongdoing, and the president hasn’t,” Sanders said. “I think that’s a very clear distinction.”
Last week, The Washington Post published allegations that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14year-old girl nearly four decades ago when he was in his early 30s and that he pursued three other girls around the same time who were between the ages of 16 and 18. On Monday, another woman held a news conference in New York to accuse Moore of sexually assaulting her in the late 1970s when she was 16 and he was in his 30s.
And on Wednesday, The Post published the accounts of two additional women who say that Moore pursued them in the late 1970s and early 1980s when he was in his 30s and they were teenagers who worked at the local mall.
One of those women said that she went to a movie with Moore and that he aggressively kissed her without permission.
During Trump’s lengthy overseas trip to Asia last week, Sanders told reporters that “like most Americans, the president does not believe we can allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person’s life. However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.”
Since returning late Tuesday, Trump has not mentioned Moore in any public comments or tweets, and he has ignored questions about Moore that reporters have shouted at him.