During a rare excursion to Los Angeles, President Trump held a high-dollar donor dinner at the Beverly Hills Montage. According to TMZ and Josh Dawsey at the Washington Post, Steve Wynn, former resort tycoon and finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, was in attendance.
There exists a bevy of evidence that Wynn is a serial sexual harasser or even abuser. Trump shouldn’t just cut ties with Wynn — he and the entire RNC ought to return all of his money.
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The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Wynn in January 2018, mere months after reporters had exposed Harvey Weinstein and broken the floodgates on the #MeToo movement. Although Wynn was a part of a wave of abusers taken down in the moment, the severity of the allegations stood out even then, as did the amount of evidence corroborating them. Multiple contemporaneous witnesses claimed that Wynn had sexually propositioned his staff at a number of Wynn resorts, with one documented $7.5 million settlement reportedly issued after Wynn forced a manicurist at his hotel to have sex with him.
Thanks to a booming economy and his impeachment trial acquittal, Trump is on a winning streak. The Democratic presidential primary has devolved into utter disarray. Even without Trump’s $100 million cash on hand, his reelection odds have never looked better.
But he refuses to get out of his own way — say, by pardoning corrupt white-collar criminals minutes after claiming during the impeachment trial that corruption was his priority, or by fraternizing in public with a credibly accused sexual predator.
The case for disavowing Wynn ought to be a purely moral one, but seeing as the RNC continues to cash his checks, clearly a more pragmatic case is needed. So, here it goes.
Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 thanks to 80,000 voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. As one could predict after the Access Hollywood tape, Trump performed poorly with women, earning just 41% of their overall support and 52% from white women. As turnout in the 2018 midterm elections proved, suburban women can flip an election, especially in the swing states of Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Right now, Trump is in relatively decent shape with his support from women, no doubt due to record confidence in the economy and improved satisfaction in the state of our national security. Against Michael Bloomberg, who has his own treasure trove of #MeToo malfeasance, Trump’s storied history with women and association with figures such as Wynn would likely be a nonissue. But against anyone else, it’s an issue.
Trump doesn’t need Wynn’s money, nor should he want it. In this rare case, strategic and moral imperatives have aligned. So, why not disavow Wynn? It’s an easy call, and one that’s long overdue.
