Donald Trump. Once known as a real estate tycoon and the guy from “Apprentice US”, he has now found global fame as the Republican Presidential Candidate in the US 2016 elections. Or maybe global notoriety is more accurate.
Trump’s presidential campaign has been fraught with controversy from the very start. He has called “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” He’s said that “if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” And perhaps most famously of all, he’s said that Mexican immigrants “are bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”, and he wants to build a wall to keep them out. But now, Trump has reached the pinnacle of controversy.
Recently more and more women have been coming forward accusing Trump of sexual assault and harassment. Accusations range from inappropriate and unwanted touching, to being offered $10,000 to have sex with Trump. The catalyst for this stream of allegations? A tape emerging that caught Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women.
The tape captures Trump conversing on a bus with Billy Bush, as the two arrived on the set of the soap opera, “Days Of Our Lives” as Trump was to make a cameo on the show. This was back in 2005, but it has only just surfaced. And it has made waves.
On the tape, Trump is heard bragging about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women. Trump’s son has dismissed it all as “locker-room talk”, a statement that many celebrities took to Twitter to express their outrage about. Actress Anna Kendrick tweeted,
“Doubling down on “locker room talk”?! Like all men do this?! Trumps words are an attack on women, this pathetic excuse is an attack on men.”
Youtuber Tyler Oakley tweeted out saying,
“calling it “locker room talk” just means you support rape culture BEHIND women’s backs. call it what you want, you STILL SAID IT.”
Even JK Rowling spoke out, tweeting,
“Trump says ‘just words, folks.’ It’s his accusation and his defence. Words don’t matter. Facts don’t matter. If they don’t, we’re all lost.”
These negative feelings are shared by many people across the globe, and some people feel that this has really diminished the support for Trump. This isn’t exactly what happened though. Despite the hugely inflammatory nature of these comments, there has been an influx of support for Trump. Pictures have swept the internet, of signs with slogans like, “Women for Trump”. So this tape hasn’t driven away all of Trump’s support, it may have just created a little more.
Though, there are some who feel that this whole thing is a little suspicious. The recording was made in 2005, so obviously someone held onto it for 11 years. Why is it only just turning up now? It is right in the final stretch of Trump’s campaign. Has Trump’s camp released this tape themselves? The candidate is forefront in the news around the world, and he is certainly getting a lot of exposure. After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity…
Regardless of how the tape emerged, there is one big question on everyone’s mind. Are these accusations true? Trump has emphatically denied all the accusations, after an unprecedented attack on him was launched by Michelle Obama at a New Hampshire Rally, as she spoke of him as an embarrassment to the nation and a disgrace to American men. Speaking to a hugely enthusiastic crowd she said,
“We need to recover from our shock and depression, and we need you to do what women have always done in our country – roll up our sleeves and get going,” she told a wildly-enthusiastic crowd.
“Because remember, when they go low, we go high.”
Trump retaliated though, saying the allegations were “totally false”. He also called a New York Times Story on two women alleging he groped them, “phony” and a “total fabrication”.
He even took to Twitter to deny one of the accusations, that of a writer alleging that in 2005 he pinned her against a wall and aggressively kissed her without consent as she was interviewing him for a story. Trump tweeted,
“Why didn’t the writer of the twelve year old article in People Magazine mention the “incident” in her story. Because it did not happen!”
Trump’s wife Melania has also spoken out in her husband’s defence, saying that parts of a People magazine story alleging a sexual assault by her husband are “false and completely fictionalized”. She has even demanded a retraction and an apology and is threatening to sue.
Trump himself is threatening to sue as well. On Saturday he promised to sue the women who accused him of sexual assault.
“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,”
Trump said during remarks in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
“Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”
This dramatic turn of event is just the latest thing to happen in this long and complex scandal, and only time will tell how this affects Trump’s campaign. We can say for sure though, that every aspect of this whole thing has been hugely controversial, and may have caused a divide between Trump supporters.
Will this man be the the next President of the United States of America?
