Donald Trump believes that Hillary Clinton is unqualified to be president because she previously defended her husband. But when his wife did the same, he made no such objections.
So let’s just say it: Trump is being a complete hypocrite by using his wife to handle his “Pussygate” damage control.
On Monday, Melania Trump made an appearance on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” where she defended Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” comment as “boys talk,” and dismissed the sexual assault allegations that have been levied against him in the past two weeks as lies.
“I believe my husband. This was all organized from the opposition,” Mrs. Trump told Cooper. “And with the details that they got ― did they ever check the background of these women? They don’t have any facts.”
Later, in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Melania also said that it’s fair for Trump’s campaign to attack Hillary Clinton over Bill Clinton’s past infidelities. “They’re asking for it,” she said.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly brought up Bill Clinton’s sexual scandals to discredit Hillary Clinton. He and his surrogates have publicly questioned her decision to stand by the president during these scandals. He’s said that her defense of her husband is tantamount to abuse of women.
This is hypocrisy at its finest. Trump and his supporters are ostensibly praising Melania Trump for doing the very thing that they believe makes Hillary Clinton unqualified for presidency.
Of course, it’s not Melania’s fault that her husband is a total hypocrite. Her instinct to defend him is normal and human, and neither she nor Hillary Clinton should ultimately be held responsible (or judged) for their partners’ actions, alleged or otherwise.
We have a tendency as a culture to hold women accountable for their husbands’ sins. Rebecca Traister put it best in a January essay for The Cut:
Wives pay prices for goods they never bought; they do time in publicity hell for actions they never took; they receive judgments for crimes they did not commit. They are offered impossible choices: Do they condemn their partners and thereby destroy the legacies and legitimacy they have helped to build, and if they do not, do they become culpable in those partners’ misdeeds?
Jessica Leeds, one of the woman who has publicly accused Trump of assaulting her, told TMZ on Tuesday that she takes issue with Melania being viewed as sympathetic for standing by her spouse, while Trump villainizes Hillary Clinton for essentially doing the same.
“The wives are in a difficult position if they want to save their marriage,” Leeds told TMZ. “They’ll make compromises and accept the good with the bad.”
If even a woman who says she was assaulted by Trump can understand this, why do Trump and his supporters fail to do so when it comes to Hillary Clinton?
“It seems that Mr. Trump believes that women should only be heard when they’re speaking to further his agenda.”
Trump has spent a great deal of his campaign talking about how much he loves women, even though he has a decades-long, well-documented track record of being blatantly sexist. He has used not only his wife, but his daughters Ivanka and Tiffany, to legitimize himself and distract from his ugly history of misogyny, harassment and assault.
Ultimately, it seems that Mr. Trump believes that women should only be heard when they’re speaking to further his agenda.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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