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Donald Trump Covers TIME Magazine – “Total Meltdown”

Illustration by Edel Rodriguez for TIME

Excerpt from TIME Magazine:

The furor over the leaked recording seemed to liberate him. Free of the “shackles”–his own tweeted word–Trump reduced his campaign to a primal grunt.

It sounded, at times, like the last gasp of the angry white man. Trump threatened to throw his opponent in jail, bragged of avoiding income taxes and peddled an empty conspiracy theory about undocumented immigrants’ being given voter-registration cards. He insisted he was right to stoke the racial tensions of New York City during the Central Park jogger drama in the 1990s, refusing to accept the DNA proof that he had the case wrong. He promoted a fiction that Muslim friends of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorists knew their plans but failed to alert authorities, and he injected a crude Russian propaganda effort into one of his rallies without a care about its inaccuracy. Another tape (it wasn’t easy keeping track) caught him agreeing as a radio shock jock labeled his daughter Ivanka “a piece of ass.” Having congratulated himself for keeping the first presidential debate slightly above the muck, in Round 2 he plunged into the wallow, deflecting attention from his own vulgarity by saddling Clinton with the alleged sexual sins of her husband and trying to seat Bill Clinton’s accusers in the front row.

Trump once said on the campaign trail that he would approve of torture as President, “even if it doesn’t work.” With four weeks left to Election Day, he seemed to be testing the proposition on the public. Unshackled, he flirted with unhinged and erased the emollient line between a campaign aimed at the base and one intended to debase.

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Michelle Obama Slams Trump: “This Is Not How Any President Should Behave”

First Lady Michelle Obama, campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton this morning, took Republican Donald Trump to task regarding the recent revelations and accusations of sexual assault without naming him.

Via ABC News:

Stumping for Hillary Clinton today, first lady Michelle Obama said the revelations over the last week about Trump’s treatment of women have “shaken me to my core” and called on voters not to dismiss the incident as “just another day’s headlines.”

“Last week we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexually assaulting women. I can’t believe I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women. I have to tell you that I — I can’t stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted,” Obama said at a Clinton campaign event at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester.

Growing emotional at times, the first lady urged Americans not to ignore Trump’s comments from a 2005 “Access Hollywood” interview.

“This is not something that we can ignore. It’s not something we can just sweep under the rug as just another disturbing footnote in a sad election season, because this was not just a lewd conversation,” she continued. “This wasn’t locker room banter.”

Watch her speech from a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire:

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New York Times Responds To Trump Campaign’s Request To “Cease And Desist”

After the New York Times published an article detailing the alleged sexual assaults on two women by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Trump campaign predictably and publicly sent a letter to the Times demanding the newspaper retract the story.

The New York Times’ lawyer responded today.

The letter reads, in part:

“The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one’s reputation. Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women. He has bragged about intruding on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing rooms. He acquiesced to a radio show host’s request to discuss Mr. Trump’s own daughter as a “piece of ass.” Multiple women not mentioned in our article have publicly come forward to report on Mr. Trump’s unwanted advances. Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.”

See the full response below. Click the image to enlarge.

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Trump Campaign Calls It Quits In Virginia

NBC News is reporting the Donald Trump presidential campaign is “pulling out” of Virginia which may indicate the campaign is choosing to focus it’s resources on a smaller list of states to target.

The announcement was made late Wednesday.

The move to pull out of Virginia shows Trump is “running essentially a four state campaign,” with the focus now shifting to battlegrounds critical to his chances in November: Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, a source with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.

RealClearPolitics currently shows Clinton with a 7.5-point lead in Virginia.

While the race remains very competitive in North Carolina and Ohio, Pennsylvania is looking pretty solid for Hillary at this time as poll averages show she has an almost 9 point lead over Trump.

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Trump Spokesman: Plane Assault Couldn’t Have Happened Because “Seats In First-Class Have Fixed Armrests”

As Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson tries to assert that one of the now many accusations of sexual assault by Donald Trump couldn’t have happened on a plane ride in first class back in the 80s, the rest of the panel begins to lose their shit laughing.

From Mediaite:

The Atlantic‘s Peter Beinart broke into uncontrollable laughter upon hearing Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson go into a convoluted explanation on CNN about how he couldn’t have sexually assaulted a woman on a plane in the 1980’s.

Beinart was keeping it all together until Pierson unexpectedly starting rattling off airplane facts. “We’re talking about the early 1980s, Don. Seriously, back then, you had planes, what, a DC 9, DC 10, an MD-80, a 707, and maybe an L011?” she said.

“But she said specifically this was to New York,” Pierson braved on as Beinart began to laugh uncontrollably. “And this is what’s important. We can ex out the LC 11 and the DC 10. Guess what? The first-class seats have fixed armrests!”

Check out fired Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s face. He’s got nothing.

It’s really come to this?

And by the way – you knew this was coming – folks are already posting pictures of first class seats from the 70s and 80s which show some designs allowed passengers to lift and lower the armrest.

But, Katrina, girl, keep yourself together. Only a few weeks left to cash the check while embarrassing yourself.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

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BOMBSHELL: People Magazine Reporter Alleges Sexual Assault By Donald Trump

As the Donald Trump campaign continues to do damage control by moving into “scorched earth” mode, a bombshell from People.com tonight.

A veteran reporter, Natasha Stoynoff, who covered Donald Trump for years has come forward with shocking allegations of a sexual assault committed on her in Trump’s Florida home back in December 2005.

Here’s just an excerpt of the article posted tonight on People:

Our photo team shot the Trumps on the lush grounds of their Florida estate, and I interviewed them about how happy their first year of marriage had been. When we took a break for the then very-pregnant Melania to go upstairs and change wardrobe for more photos, Donald wanted to show me around the mansion. There was one “tremendous” room in particular, he said, that I just had to see.

We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat.

Now, I’m a tall, strapping girl who grew up wrestling two giant brothers. I even once sparred with Mike Tyson. It takes a lot to push me. But Trump is much bigger—a looming figure—and he was fast, taking me by surprise, and throwing me off balance. I was stunned. And I was grateful when Trump’s longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself.

The butler informed us that Melania would be down momentarily, and it was time to resume the interview.

I was still in shock, and remained speechless as we both followed him to an outdoor patio overlooking the grounds. In those few minutes alone with Trump, my self-esteem crashed to zero. How could the actions of one man make me feel so utterly violated?

It’s important to note that even as Trump followers denounce the allegations from Stoynoff, the behavior Trump himself described (and captured by Access Hollywood microphones) is exactly what is chronicled here. This is exactly what he told Billy Bush he did to women.

I find it difficult to believe a veteran reporter for People of many years would be throwing away a career on baseless allegations.

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Two Women Accuse Donald Trump Of Sexual Assault

I feel it was only a matter of time, after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump denied any actions described in his own words in the now infamous Access Hollywood video, that women would come forward alleging sexual assault.

And so it begins.

From the New York Times:

Donald J. Trump was emphatic in the second presidential debate: Yes, he had boasted about kissing women without permission and grabbing their genitals. But he had never actually done those things, he said. “No,” he declared under questioning on Sunday evening, “I have not.” At that moment, sitting at home in Manhattan, Jessica Leeds, 74, felt he was lying to her face. “I wanted to punch the screen,” she said in an interview in her apartment.

More than three decades ago, when she was a traveling businesswoman at a paper company, Ms. Leeds said, she sat beside Mr. Trump in the first-class cabin of a flight to New York. They had never met before. About 45 minutes after takeoff, she recalled, Mr. Trump lifted the armrest and began to touch her. According to Ms. Leeds, Mr. Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt.

“He was like an octopus,” she said. “His hands were everywhere.” She fled to the back of the plane. “It was an assault,” she said. Ms. Leeds has told the story to at least four people close to her, who also spoke with The New York Times.

Mr. Trump’s claim that his crude words had never turned into actions was similarly infuriating to a woman watching on Sunday night in Ohio: Rachel Crooks. Ms. Crooks was a 22-year-old receptionist at Bayrock Group, a real estate investment and development company in Trump Tower in Manhattan, when she encountered Mr. Trump outside an elevator in the building one morning in 2005.

Aware that her company did business with Mr. Trump, she turned and introduced herself. They shook hands, but Mr. Trump would not let go, she said. Instead, he began kissing her cheeks. Then, she said, he “kissed me directly on the mouth.” It didn’t feel like an accident, she said. It felt like a violation.

See the video testimonial from one of the women quoted in the story.

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Reuters Poll: Hillary Clinton Leads Donald Trump By 8 Points

The latest Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll has good news for Democrat Hillary Clinton showing she now leads Republican Donald Trump by 8 points.

The survey also indicates that 1 in 5 Republicans feel his vulgar comments about groping women disqualify him from the presidency.

The poll was taken after the 2nd presidential debate Sunday night where Trump faced questions regarding his recorded statements in 2005 that he liked to grab women by their genitals.

Via Reuters:

The poll released on Tuesday showed Clinton, the Democratic nominee, had increased her lead over Trump, the Republican nominee, to 8 percentage points on Monday from 5 points last week.

When asked to pick between the two major-party candidates, 45 percent of likely voters said they supported Clinton while 37 percent supported Trump. Another 18 percent said they would not support either candidate.

Trump was under pressure during Sunday’s debate to restore confidence in his struggling campaign after dozens of lawmakers repudiated him over the weekend. He hammered Clinton’s handling of classified information while serving as secretary of state and referred to her as “the devil.” At one point, he said he would jail Clinton if he were president.

Among those who said they watched at least portions of the debate, 53 percent said Clinton won while 32 percent said Trump won. The results fell along partisan lines, however: 82 percent of Democrats felt Clinton won, while 68 percent of Republicans felt that Trump won.

Among likely voters who watched the debate, 48 percent said they supported Clinton while 38 percent supported Trump.