Right's Response to Sexual Abuse Verdict Against Trump ‘Embarrassing’
Republicans call sex crime liability a "joke," and rally around former president
Many of those on political right have embarrassed themselves since a jury in New York found that Donald Trump sexually attacked a woman in a Manhattan department store dressing room back in the 1990s — and then lied about it.
The jury of six men and three women found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse, though not liable for her alleged rape, and awarded journalist and author E. Jean Carroll $5 million.
Trump, of course, showed no contrition after the verdict, vowing to appeal and calling the verdict against him a “disgrace” and “political witch hunt.”
And, almost immediately, Republicans and others on the right joined Trump in mocking not only the verdict, but Carroll herself.
When he traveled to New Hampshire for CNN's “town hall” forum as the former president once again runs for the White House, those in the audience laughed when Trump denigrated the woman who he had just been found liable for sexually abusing.
“It was embarrassing, right? Now, I can understand, as the camera panned through that audience, I knew pretty much everybody in that audience, they’re all Trump supporters, so the audience was absolutely filled with Trump supporters,” said New Hampshire Gov Chris Sununu, who himself is considering jumping into the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. “So, I wasn’t surprised to hear the support. But when you’re talking about a serious issue like that, and laughter and mocking and all that, it’s completely inappropriate, without a doubt, and it doesn’t shine a positive light on New Hampshire. But again, I understand what the audience makeup was.”
Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic and a “Never Trump” conservative, attempted to explain that crowd's deplorable behavior.
“One thing to understand about today’s GOP is that they think of themselves — despite having had unified government in 2016, despite being quite powerful across the country in statehouses and state legislators — they think of themselves as this beleaguered minority that is being put upon and being castigated and being looked down upon by people — ironically, by people who they claim they don’t care about,” he said. “It drives them crazy.
“So, anytime something like this happens, people on the right circle the wagons and say, ‘We simply cannot admit any fault, any wrongdoing. Our guy is our guy, our tribe is our tribe,’ when, in fact, all of them know privately that if this were a Democrat, they would be having collective aneurysms and their minds would be blown,” Nichols added. “But it comes from that sense of being this kind of put-upon minority that really has to defend itself at all costs against everything.”
It wasn't only the right's rank-and-file willing to embarrass themselves to attack a survivor of sexual abuse, but prominent Republican elected officials as well.
When Rep Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican and Trump supporter, was asked about the verdict, this congressman was willing to take the once-unthinkable step of attacking the American jury system, a foundation of what Republicans like to call “law and order.”
Asked by a reporter, Donalds replied, “Come on man, serious? Don’t say that stuff to me. That might work for somebody else. That doesn’t work for me. Jury of my peers. Yeah, whatever. What else you got?”
On her MSNBC program Sunday, host Jen Psaki offered a rundown of other Republican politicians willing to spurn a serious verdict of sexual abuse.
“Take Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee. He responded to the verdict this week saying that, ‘Trump has been amazing in his ability to weather these sorts of attacks.’ Attacks from who? A unanimous jury that found him liable for sexual abuse? Amazing. That’s amazing,” Psaki said. “Then there’s Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who said the ruling only makes him want to ‘vote for Trump twice.’ You heard that right. Trump’s sexual abuse makes the senator want to vote for him twice.
“Other Republicans took a defensive approach, responding with the same tired attacks on the integrity of the legal system,” Psaki added. “Sen Lindsey Graham declared that, ‘The New York legal system is off the rails,’ while Sen. Marco Rubio called both the jury and the case ‘a joke.’ I’m not sure what is a joke to the senator about sexual abuse, maybe he can explain that to us, but the most common Republican refrain was indifference to a jury finding the de factor leader of their party liable for sexual abuse.
Trump's former vice president Mike Pence brushed of the verdict saying it’s not “where the American people are focused,” Psaki noted.
“Call me crazy, but I think more than a few people out there do care when a candidate has committed sexual abuse,” she said.
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