Between Friday and the second presidential debate on Sunday, it somehow became taken for granted by the media, with a helpful nudge from Democrats, that Republican Donald Trump had sexually assaulted various women, based on some vulgar comments he had made in a private conversation. In fact, he hadn’t.
At the debate, co-moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC’s Martha Raddatz, Cooper said to Trump, “You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals; that is sexual assault.”
It was a convenient echo of a line Democrats pushing for Hillary Clinton have used since an old video resurfaced Friday showing Trump making vulgar comments about how he approaches women on a sexual level.
On Twitter the day before, Vice President Joe Biden said, “The words are demeaning. Such behavior is an abuse of power. It’s not lewd. It’s sexual assault.”
Except Trump did not commit sexual assault by making a disgusting joke in private with then-entertainment gossip show anchor Billy Bush, who laughed along.
And, as foul and stupid as his comments were, Trump also never said he did anything to women against their will.
As transcribed by the Washington Post, which first published the video, here’s the portion of Trump’s comments that got the most play: “I better use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet, just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
At the debate, Trump replied to Cooper, “No, I didn’t say that at all. I don’t think you understood what was — this was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologize to my family. I apologize to the American people. Certainly, I’m not proud of it.”
But so long as the national media and Democrats want to concentrate on the semantics in the video, here’s what actually happened in the video: Trump said that, as a “star,” women allow him to do anything with them; and he said he kisses women without waiting, because they let him; and before the more lewd comments, he talked about unsuccessfully pursuing a married woman.
Before the debate, Trump had apologized for the 11-year-old remarks, calling them “foolish.”
But the national media have carried the Democrats’ message that his comments were some form of actual sexual assault in themselves OR an account of Trump making unwanted advances on a reluctant women.
Liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof dubbed Trump the “groper in chief.”
The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen, who was accused of “inappropriate behavior” by a 23-year-old colleague in the late 1990s, said the video of Trump showed the businessman having “boasted of sexual assault.”
The statistics blog FiveThirtyEight, a favorite of national reporters, ran a story that purported to show what Trump’s “Brag About Sexual Assault Reveals About This Election And Our Culture.”
On and on.
Incidentally, Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile made similar charges in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I mean, I hope that [Clinton] has an opportunity to call this sexual assault, to say that this was sexual predatory language,” Brazile said ahead of the debate.
The Democratic line and what the media said couldn’t have been as well matched if they had come with a set of “his and hers” bath towels.
Democrats could be forgiven, though. It’s their job to push Clinton into the White House.
The news media, however, aren’t required to say whatever sounds the most gripping, particularly when it’s not true.
Eddie Scarry is a media reporter for the Washington Examiner. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
