'Nauseous': Trump’s refusal to grasp 'consent' revives 'Access Hollywood' scandal

31 October 2024

As Election Day fast approaches, Donald Trump is suffering yet another self-inflicted wound. The Republican presidential nominee’s vow to “protect” women, “whether the women like it or not,” is leading critics to say it reminds them of his 2016 “Access Hollywood” tape comments and showcases his refusal to understand the concept of consent.

Trump is an adjudicated rapist, and a has been convicted of 34 felony charges in a “scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.” He is awaiting sentencing and additional trials in both state and federal courts—which may never come if he wins re-election.

On Wednesday he stood before supporters in Green Bay, Wisconsin, wearing a safety vest after being driven around a parking lot in a white garbage truck with the “TRUMP” logo on it. He told a story describing himself from “about four weeks ago,” arguing with his advisors, saying, “I’m president. I want to protect the women of our country”:

“And my people told me about four weeks ago, I would say, ‘no, I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women.’ ‘Sir, please don’t say that.’ ‘Why?’ They said, ‘we think it’s, we think it’s very inappropriate for you to say.’ ‘Why? I’m president. I want to protect the women of our country.’ They said, They said, ‘sure, I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say’ — I pay these guys a lot of money. Can you believe it?”

“I said, ‘well, I’m gonna do it whether the women like it or not. I’m gonna protect them. I’m gonna protect them from migrants coming in. I’m gonna protect them from foreign countries that wanna hit a hit us with missiles and lots of other things.'”

Backlash was swift.

Daily Kos chief content officer Kaili Joy Gray responded to a clip of Trump’s remarks and invoked his infamous words from the “Access Hollywood” tape. She wrote:

“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.”

She continued, writing, “That nauseous feeling so many of us had in 2016 when we heard the tape of Trump bragging about assaulting women … Listening to him threaten to ‘protect’ us against our will REALLY brings it all back.”

“The women do not like it,” she added. “They never have. And on Tuesday, they have their greatest chance to tell him no. No, he can’t do whatever he wants. No, he cannot get away with it. Not anymore. It’s over. For good.”

“This is Donald Trump’s sick, sadistic closing argument in the final days of his third presidential run,” she wrote at Daily Kos, “a threat against the women of America.”

Others also saw a similarity.

Calling it, “a pithy encapsulation of the concerns that are spurring a lot of women’s votes,” Washington Post columnist Philip Bump also invoked the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. He noted that Trump’s promise to “protect” women “sounds an awful lot like the audio recording that nearly doomed Trump’s presidential campaign eight years ago.”

But Bump told readers it would be “too crass to articulate exactly how groping or assaulting a woman comports with the phrase Trump used at his rally in Wisconsin.”

Also responding to Trump’s remarks from Wednesday, David Simon, the author, journalist and TV writer/producer known for “The Wire,” observed: “Women are today dying of sepsis explicitly because he ended Roe, for which he proudly credits himself. Consent remains an elusive concept for this fellow.”

MSNBC legal contributor and correspondent Katie Phang wrote, “Trump’s nonconsensual ‘protection’ is a hard pass.”

Dr. Jennifer Mercieca, professor and historian of American political rhetoric, wrote simply, “Trump‘s kinda rapey.”

Back in September, Trump had made similar remarks, vowing: “I will protect women at a level never seen before.”

“Women are poorer than they were four years ago, are less healthy than they were four years ago, are less safe on the streets than they were four years ago, are more depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago, and are less optimistic and confident in the future than they were four years ago!” claimed Trump via social media, in a single all-caps paragraph.

“I will fix all of that, and fast, and at long last this national nightmare will be over. Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free! You will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and a vote of the people – and with powerful exceptions, like those that Ronald Reagan insisted on, for rape, incest, and the life of the mother – but not allowing for Democrat demanded late term abortion in the 7th, 8th, or 9th month, or even execution of a baby after birth. I will protect women at a level never seen before. They will finally be healthy, hopeful, safe, and secure. their lives will be happy, beautiful, and great again!”

Professor of public policy and former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, at the time responded to Trump’s remarks: “Donald Trump posted this unhinged, all-caps rant about how only he can make women happy and ‘PROTECT’ them. Remember, he’s an adjudicated rapist, accused of sexual assault or misconduct by more than 20 women, and he’s the reason that one-in-three adult women now live under a Trump abortion ban that puts their lives at risk.”

Also last month, in a New York Times opinion piece, contributing editor Jessica Bennett wrote: “Depending on how you count them, 19 or 26 or 67 women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct. Women who have said he ‘squeezed my butt,’ ‘eyed me like a piece of meat,’ ‘stuck his hand up my skirt,’ ‘thrust his genitals,’ ‘forced his tongue in my mouth,’ was ‘rummaging around my vagina,’ and so on.”

“So about five years ago, toward the end of Mr. Trump’s presidency, 10 of these women formed a little club of sorts, a sisterhood meets therapy circle meets support group — one with a hideous initiation.”

As for Trump’s vow—or threat—to protect women, “whether the women like it or not,” media critic Jennifer Schulze declared, “Quite a closing argument from an adjudicated rapist.”

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