Donald Trump’s boasts about his fame allowing him to “do anything to women” were an affront to all women, parents and every citizen in the United States, First Lady Michelle Obama says.
Speaking at a campaign rally in New Hampshire for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Mrs Obama called the comments “shocking and demeaning.”
She also dismissed Mr Trump’s claim that the remarks were simply “locker room talk”.
“I can’t stop thinking about this. It has shaken to me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted,” she said.
“So while I would love nothing more than pretend that this isn’t happening and come out here and do my normal campaign speech, it would be dishonest and disingenuous to just move onto the next thing like this was all a bad dream. This is not something we can ignore.”
Mrs Obama said the comments made by Mr Trump and heard in a video from 2005 were part of a long history of demeaning women.
“We have a candidate for president of the United States who over the course of his lifetime, over the course of this campaign, has said things about women that are shocking, so demeaning,” she said.
“I simply will not repeat anything here today.
“Last week, we actually saw this candidate bragging about sexually assaulting women.
Mrs Obama went onto say the comments were forcing women to recollect painful memories of when they were harassed in their offices or sexually assaulted.
“The truth is it hurts. It hurts,” she said.
“It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you are walking down the street, minding your own business and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body or when you see that guy at work that stands a little too close, stares a little too long and makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin,” she said, as the crowd went silent.
Her comments were some of the most forceful of a week in which scores of Republican leaders abandoned Mr Trump.
Trump says groping allegations ‘absolutely false’
Speaking at a rally in Florida, Mr Trump went on the attack over claims by two women that he groped them, calling the allegations “absolutely false”.
With his numbers dropping in opinion polls only weeks before the November 8 election, the Republican presidential nominee told supporters his campaign was engaged in “a struggle for the survival of our nation”.
He said accusations that he groped women in a series of incidents going back to the 1980s were part of a coordinated attempt to keep him from the Oval Office.
“These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false,” he said, adding that “the Clintons know it”.
He said he would make public at some point evidence to dispute the charges.
Mr Trump was speaking after The New York Times reported that two women said they had endured sexual aggression from him, and several other women made similar allegations in other media outlets.
The businessman has slumped in opinion polls in recent days as uproar over the 2005 video threatens to engulf his White House campaign.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey showed one in five Republicans thought Mr Trump’s comments about groping women disqualified him from the presidency.
The poll also showed him eight points behind Mrs Clinton among likely voters.
Mr Trump trails Mrs Clinton by up to 11 points in other polls.
New York Times respond to Trumps “demand for retraction”
The New York Times has published its response to a request from Mr Trump’s lawyers demanding an article claiming Mr Trump inappropriately touched two women be retracted.
In a letter of reply, vice-president and assistant general counsel Mr McCraw refused.
“You’ve asked that we ‘remove it from [our] website, and issue a full and immediate retraction and apology.’ We decline to do so,” Mr McCraw wrote.
“Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.
“Our reporters diligently worked to confirm the women’s accounts. They provided readers with Mr Trump’s response, including his forceful denial of the women’s reports.”
Mr McCraw then went on to say the media outlet were within their legal rights to publish the story and welcomed any further legal action.
“If Mr Trump disagrees, if he believes that American citizens had no right to hear what these women had to say and that the law of this country forces us and those who would dare to criticise him to stand silent or be punished, we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight,” he said.
NY Times
