Lisa Belkin, correspondent for Yahoo News and a former New York Times reporter, wrote Thursday that Donald Trump once hit on her and that it’s cause for concern.
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But less than a year ago, Belkin said it was “fun” to muse at length about what kind of “first gent” former president Bill Clinton would be should Hillary Clinton become the next president, even though the former president carries some baggage related to his own scandals with women.
In her column Thursday, Belkin recalled that in 1987, she was a Times reporter covering an event attended by Trump, who at the time was fast becoming a New York celebrity businessman and icon.
“Trump said there would be an even better afterparty and I was welcome to join him, but only if I came alone,” wrote Belkin, noting that she was present at the event with a male companion whom she later married.
Belkin said that she kept her encounter with the now-presumptive Republican nominee “mostly to myself” since then. But she recently decided that it’s now relevant.
“What then does Trump’s behavior — in and out of the workplace — mean for this election? Let’s start with the indisputable fact that Trump objectifies women,” she wrote.
Trump regularly deflects the criticism that he is sexist or otherwise treats women inappropriately by pointing to his likely rival in the general election, Hillary Clinton, and the sexual controversies that have swirled around her husband for decades. During an interview Wednesday night on Fox News, Trump referred to past rape accusations against Bill Clinton.
Belkin explained away those controversies by reminding readers that Clinton “is not running for president.”
Hillary Clinton said last weekend, however, that the former president would have an important job in her White House. At a campaign event in Kentucky, she said Bill Clinton will be “in charge of revitalizing the economy, because, you know, he knows how to do it.”
Belkin did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner on whether having an important responsibility like overseeing the U.S. economy would make any difference on her opinion of Clinton’s past sex scandals and their significance.
Instead, Belkin has mused about the possibility of Bill Clinton returning to the White House, and how he might reinvent the role of first spouse.
“It’s not just that he would be the first ‘first man’ (some joke he should be called ‘Adam’),” she wrote in June 2015, “but also the fact that he would be this particular man — a former president, a legendary schmoozer and shaker, with the potential to redefine the (let’s face it, anachronistic) role.”
“Some who have watched the Clintons for decades say it’s safe to assume this is something the couple has discussed,” said Belkin, positing that Clinton might be called the “first gent,” “but probably not in a way they will share with the public. That only enhances the fun of speculating …”
