Gillibrand relishes fight after Trump’s tweet
Senator has focused for years on battling sexual assault.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand got a fight she wants after President Donald Trump lashed out at the New York Democrat in a provocative tweet that claimed she’d begged him for campaign contributions and would “do anything” for them.
Gillibrand, who’s up for re-election next year and is considered a possible presidential contender in 2020, has been an outspoken voice in the national debate over how to confront sexual assault and harassment. She’s argued that the rules in institutions from Congress to Hollywood to the U.S. military are set to benefit the powerful and the favored at the expense of the vulnerable.
Gillibrand and a chorus of Democrats declared Trump’s tweet to be sexually suggestive, an assertion the White House flatly rejected. Appearing Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” show, Gillibrand was asked whether she’d misread the meaning of Trump’s tweet. “No,” she responded.
She said the tweet was “a sexual smear intended to silence me.”
The fiery exchange with Trump could brighten the spotlight on Gillibrand’s campaign to upend the dynamics and put power in the hands of the victims while simultaneously pushing the 51-yearold mother of two boys to the forefront of an unformed Democratic presidential field.
She’s scathed icons in her own party along the way. Gillibrand was appointed to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, but she recently said Bill Clinton should have resigned the presidency for his improprieties. That led Clinton loyalists to criticize her as an ungrateful opportunist.
The back-and-forth between Trump and Gillibrand on Tuesday came as a wave of sexual misconduct allegations roils Capitol Hill, forcing several lawmakers out of office in just the last week alone. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said he would resign amid an ethics probe into accusations that he sexually harassed several women. Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Trent Franks, R-Ariz., also quit after misconduct accusations surfaced.
“I do think this is a reckoning. This is a watershed moment,” Gillibrand said of the resignations in speaking to The Associated Press late last week. “Politicians should be held to the highest standards, not the lowest standards.”
And she rejected the notion that she and other Democrats, by demanding Franken and Conyers step aside, are making a calculation they hope will pay off politically as Trump continues to fend off allegations of sexual misconduct lodged over the last year by more than a dozen women.
“That couldn’t be more cynical and backward,” said Gillibrand, who was one of the first Democrats to call for Franken to step down. “It has nothing to do with politics. This whole debate is, ‘Do we care about women?’”
Gillibrand served notice several years ago that combating sexual assault would be her issue. A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she and other female lawmakers dressed down senior military leaders at a headline-making hearing, insisting sexual assault in the ranks has cost the services the trust and respect of the American people as well as the nation’s men and women in uniform.
“Not every single commander necessarily wants women in the force. Not every single commander believes what a sexual assault is. Not every single commander can distinguish between a slap on the ass and a rape because they merge all of these crimes together,” Gillibrand told the uniformed men in 2013.
Four years later, Gillibrand added her voice to the growing number of male senators calling for Trump to resign in the face of multiple accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior.