Over the course of the past week, sexual assault and harassment against women in Hollywood have been in the headlines as a result of shocking allegations against Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax and the Weinstein Company.
The scandal has turned a microscope on the behavior of powerful men in other industries and brought increased scrutiny on the tawdry past of our nation’s commander-in-chief.
Yes, despite his repeated claims that “no one” respects women as much as he does (“beliiiieve me, folks”), President Donald Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct more times than he can count on both of his tiny, tiny hands.
Of course, Trump admitted to sexual assault on a recording and even that wasn’t enough to stop him from ascending to the highest office in the land, so it may seem that he’s risen to the level of power that Weinstein only thought he’d reached.
Unless Robert Mueller has something different to say, Trump really does seem to be above the law.
But like a persistent wind that continually ruffles the corn silk atop his head and distracts him from pointing out the black guy in the crowd, the sexual assault allegations against Trump simply won’t go away.
It was around this time last year that Trump was accused of sexually harassing contestants on The Apprentice, the reality show where he only pretended to be a mentally unstable tyrant.
(The mentally unstable part was legit, but Trump wasn’t actually a tyrant yet. Dare to dream, kids.)
One of those contestants, a woman named Summer Zervos, has refused to be intimidated by Trump’s tough talk and is pressing forward with her case against him.
Zervos claims that Trump bombarded her with sexual advances in 2007 and would not take “no” for an answer.
“As I was about to leave, he again kissed me on the lips,” she alleged.
“This made me feel nervous and embarrassed, as this is not what I wanted or expected.”
Lawyers for Zervos have subpoeaned the Trump campaign for all documents relating to her, all communications to or about her, and “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.”
It’s the most serious of situations and it demands a serious and thoughtful response from the man who stands accused.
Unfortunately, this is Donald Trump we’re talking about, so we got a bunch of semi-sensical hashtag speak instead:
On Monday, Trump gave one of his most disastrous press conferences to date, taking to the White House Rose Garden to lie about former presidents and hold hands with Mitch McConnell.
When reporters asked Trump about the allegations that would be headline scandal material for any other administration in modern history, he basically shrugged the whole thing off:
“All I can say is it’s totally fake news,” he responded.
“It’s fake and made-up stuff and it’s disgraceful what happens, but that happens in the world of politics.”
“It’s disgraceful what happens … in the world of politics.”
Sometimes, despite his tenuous grip on the English language, his utter lack of self-awareness, and his complete ignorance of how our government is supposed to function, Donald Trump accidentally makes a perfectly astute observation.
Of course, it only happens when he’s accidentally talking trash about himself.
We’ll have further details on this developing story as more information becomes available.
