Category: Misogyny

John Kelly Says He Will “Absolutely Not” Apologize To Frederica Wilson

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told Laura Ingraham Monday night he was too busy to “watch very much in the TV” about the day’s indictments and guilty pleas by former Donald Trump campaign figures in Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election meddling.

Ingraham, opened the debut of her Fox News Channel 10 PM program The Ingraham Angle, [you can watch debut below] with zippy thoughts on What Is America?, accompanied by photos of Old Frank Sinatra:

Politics is supposed to be a career devoted to public service…but for too long was dominated by special interest, big business and…media elites.

The politicians were supposed to…run the government, not to run you over with it!

Americans voted for Trump because they tired of being bullied by politicians and so called experts who gave us endless wars, saddles us with $20 trillion in debt, and left us with a border more wide open than Harvey Weinstein‘s bathrobe.

But the debut’s headline was her interview with Kelly, whose been MIA media-wise since his dramatic appearance at a White House press briefing, in which he savaged Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson. Ingraham first asked him about  the day’s indictments of the president’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort, his associate Rick Gates, and “another minor aide” in the Trump administration, aka foreign relations adviser George Papadopoulos.

“All of the activities, as I understand it, that they were indicted for was long before they ever met Donald Trump or, or had an association with the campaign,” Kelly answered, inaccurately.

Monday’s news on former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was that he had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia while working for the Trump campaign, and has been cooperating with the special counsel investigation since his July arrest.

“But I think the reaction of the administration is, let the legal justice system work. Everyone’s presumed innocent and we’ll see where it goes,” he added.

Asked if the staff is “worried that when indictments start being handed down, that this is just the first, second, third shoe to drop, but there will be many more to follow?” Kelly answered, “I think the staff is very comfortable with simply serving the nation. The vast majority of the staff would have nothing to do with any of this kind of thing. So there’s no worry about it. Everyone is just doing the things that they were hired to do to serve the nation.”

Ingraham moved on to his comments about Rep Frederica Wilson after she claimed to have heard President Donald Trump telling La David Johnson’s widow her husband knew what he was signing up for, but that it hurt anyway. At a White House press briefing, Kelly slammed Wilson for listening in on that private moment, and recalled his previous encounter with the Florida congresswoman. Kelly called her an “empty barrel,”  claiming that, at the dedication of an FBI building named after two slain agents, Wilson took the podium to boast that she’d raised the funds for the building.

Ingraham noted clips of that dedication show did not brag about getting funding, though, she hastened to add, Wilson “certainly used the word ‘I’ a lot.”  Video showed Wilson actually boasted about getting quick action on naming the building after the two slain FBI agents.

Kelly wasn’t backing down, explaining Wilson did more talking before and after the formal ceremony.  “It was a package deal,” he said, adding, “I don’t want to get into it.”

“Do you feel like you have something to apologize for?” Ingraham wondered.

“No. Never,” Kelly shot back. “I’ll apologize if I need to. But for something like that, absolutely not. I stand by my comments.”

Last month, after FNC announced it had parted ways with Eric Bolling, the network announced Sean Hannity was moving from 10 PM ET to 9, to take on MSNBC’s ratings powerhouse Rachel Maddow. Ingraham got the 10 PM timeslot.

Media

White House reiterates Trump’s claims that his sexual harassment accusers lied

The White House stood by President Donald Trump’s previous comments when asked Friday whether the more than a dozen women who have accused him of sexual assault were liars.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders offered a very short answer when asked if the White House thought the women were liars.

“We’ve been clear on that in the beginning, and the President’s spoken on that,” she said.

The question came amid revelations in the media and entertainment industries and the realm of politics of stories of women coming forward to share encounters of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.

On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump dismissed the accusations from the more than a dozen women.

“As you have seen, I am a victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country,” he said at a rally last October in Charlotte, North Carolina. “They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country.”

The President flat-out called it a lie, during that rally last year: “It’s one big ugly lie. It’s one big fix. The press can’t write the kind of things they write, which are lies, lies, lies.”

Friday’s press briefing question also comes amid a legal case against Trump brought by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on NBC’s “The Apprentice,” who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in 2007. The accusations were made in October of last year at a news conference.

Zervos’ lawyers subpoenaed his campaign for all documents relating to her, all communications with or about her and “all documents concerning any woman who asserted that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.”

Asked about the subpoena at a White House news conference last week, Trump said, “All I can say is it’s totally fake news, just fake. It’s fake. It’s made-up stuff, and it’s disgraceful what happens, but that happens in the world of politics.”

[CNN]

Reality

Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault for years, and has admitted multiple times to being a sexual predator, but has called all of his accusers liars. Meanwhile Trump claims others accused of sexual assault (Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstien) are worse than him.

The simple answer is they all are guilty.

Trump Retweets GIF of Him Hitting Clinton With Golf Ball

President Donald Trump retweeted an edited video Sunday morning that showed him swinging a golf club and appearing to hit his former presidential campaign rival Hillary Clinton with a golf ball.

The animated GIF image Trump retweeted spliced together footage of Trump taking a swing on a golf course with footage of Clinton tripping and falling as she boarded a plane in 2011 as secretary of state. The footage is edited to make it appear as though Clinton is hit in the back with a golf ball before her fall.

The tweet revealed a President still reverting to his old social media habits, namely, those likely to earn him quick criticism, less than two months after retired Gen. John Kelly took over as White House chief of staff.

While Kelly has not sought to stop Trump from tweeting, he has encouraged the President to allow him to vet the tweets before posting them — a request Trump has sometimes acquiesced to.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday about the President’s tweet and whether Kelly was aware of it.

The tweet, which came as Trump prepares to head to New York for a critical round of powerhouse diplomacy with world leaders at the United Nations, followed a week during which Clinton reemerged in the spotlight as she promoted her new book, “What Happened,” about the 2016 campaign, reviving her fiercest criticisms of Trump and his supporters and reigniting the debate about her stunning, unanticipated loss.

Trump slammed Clinton over her new book earlier this week too, tweeting that she “blames everybody (and every thing) but herself for her election loss.”

Trump’s Sunday morning Twitter post was one of more than a half-dozen supporters’ tweets the President retweeted Sunday before 8:30 a.m.

Those other tweets included an image predicting Trump would win every state for reelection in 2020, another showing Trump hauling US companies that have outsourced manufacturing abroad and a tweet claiming that “only true Americans can see that president Trump is making America great.”

[CNN]

Trump Rolls Eyes at Sessions Question, Tells Female Reporter to Be Quiet

President Trump rolled his eyes and made a face Monday after a reporter hurled a question to him about Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the president was posing for a photo with dozens of White House interns.

Trump made a face, provoking laughter from the interns, after the question about whether he thought Sessions should resign, which he did not answer.

A reporter than asked another question about whether he had a message about healthcare, to which Trump said “Quiet.”

Trump then turned to the interns standing on a podium behind him, telling them that the reporters are not supposed to ask questions at the photo opportunity.

“They’re not supposed to do that. But they do it, but they’re not supposed to,” he said.

The exchange comes just days after Anthony Scaramucci was named White House Communication Director.

Scaramucci said on Sunday he would like to reset White House relations with the media, creating “positive mojo” between the White House and the Fourth Estate.

“It’s a fresh start for everybody. I certainly want to engage the mainstream media. I expect that they’re going to want to hold me and the White House accountable, but we’re going to want to sort of hold them accountable, too,” Scaramucci told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I’m hoping to create an era of a new good feeling with the media. Give everybody a fresh start. Let’s see if we can reset this and create a more positive mojo among everybody,” he added.

[The Hill]

Media

Trump Tweets Shocking Assault on Brzezinski, Scarborough

On Thursday morning, while MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” was on the air, Trump posted a pair of hateful tweets about co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

MSNBC responded with this statement: “It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.”

The president’s deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended the tweets by saying Trump was responding to the “outrageous attacks that take place” on “Morning Joe” and other shows.

Trump refuses to be “bullied,” Sanders said on Fox News. “This is a president who fights fire with fire.”

Trump’s tweets in the 8 a.m. hour on Thursday said that “Morning Joe” is “poorly rated” (it’s not) and that the hosts “speak badly of me” (that’s true). He called both hosts disparaging names.

Trump claimed that Scarborough and Brzezinski courted him for an interview at Mar-a-Lago around the New Year’s Eve holiday.

“She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” the president wrote.

He actually said yes, according to accounts of their meeting. Trump, Scarborough and Brzezinski mingled with guests and had a private chat.

For the record, photos from Mar-a-Lago do not show any blood or bandages on Brzezinski’s face.

Stunned commenters on social media noted that Trump targeted both hosts with his barbed tweets, but only opined on the physical appearance of the woman involved.

Democratic commentator Maria Cardona, speaking on CNN, said it was part of a pattern of misogynistic behavior by Trump.

“We should not normalize this,” she said, calling it “unacceptable and unpresidential.”

Lawmakers immediately condemned the president’s tweets, as well.

“Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, tweeted.

But First Lady Melania Trump spoke up in defense of her husband.

“As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” her communications director Stephanie Grisham said in response to reporters’ questions.

Melania Trump has previously said that as First Lady she wants to focus on the problem of cyberbullying.

Critics say Trump uses his Twitter account as a powerful megaphone to bully people.

Observers also expressed a lot of skepticism about Trump’s Thursday morning claim that he doesn’t watch “Morning Joe” anymore.

The president is known to watch all the major morning shows, including the programs on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC’. He sometimes calls up pro-Trump guests to thank them for their remarks on the shows.

Trump had a friendly, jovial relationship with “Morning Joe” during the presidential campaign, but it turned sour over time.

At one point he called Brzezinski “very insecure” and threatened to expose her off-screen relationship with Scarborough.

Brzezinski and Scarborough were dating at the time, and they are now engaged.

Thursday’s anti-media tweets were astonishing — and part of a pattern.

On Tuesday his main target was CNN. Trump reveled in the fact that three CNN journalists resigned on Monday after their Russia-related story was retracted.

On Wednesday Trump went after two of the nation’s biggest newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post.

He mangled the facts several times, but his overall message came through loud and clear: Do not trust the people who are trying to hold my administration accountable.

Brzezinski responded to Trump Thursday morning with a tweet of her own, mocking him with a reference to “little hands,” a reference to a disparaging idea about him that has circulated for years.

Mark Kornblau, the head of PR for NBC News and MSNBC, also weighed in on Twitter, saying, “Never imagined a day when I would think to myself, ‘it is beneath my dignity to respond to the President of the United States.'”

[CNN]

 

Trump Interrupts Call to Compliment Female Reporter’s ‘Nice Smile’

President Trump singled out a female journalist during a phone call with the new Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, on Tuesday, telling Varadkar, “She has a nice smile on her face. So I bet she treats you well.”

The journalist in question was Caitriona Perry, who has been the Washington correspondent for Irish state broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE) since 2014.

Trump’s comment about Perry drew some adverse reaction on social media. But she appeared to take the exchange in good humor and can be heard laughing in a video clip of the exchange.

Trump told Varadkar, “We have a lot of your Irish press watching us,” referring to several Irish reporters who were present in the Oval Office for the call.

In video posted to Twitter by RTE, he turns to Perry and says, “And where are you from? Go ahead, come here, come here. Where are you from? We have all of this beautiful Irish press.”

It is not the first time Trump’s interactions with female reporters have raised eyebrows.

He famously tangled with Megyn Kelly, then of Fox News Channel, during his campaign for the White House. He also singled out NBC News’s Katy Tur, whom he would sometimes refer to as “Little Katy” during campaign rallies.

Trump told Varadkar that he was calling to congratulate him on his “great victory.”

Varadkar became prime minister, or Taoiseach, earlier this month after winning a party leadership election following the resignation of Enda Kenny.

During the call with Varadkar, Trump also acknowledged the influence of the Irish-American community in the U.S.

[The Hill]

Reality

Right-wing news tried to play this act of sexism off by asking “why can’t anyone take a compliment anymore?” This would probably help to explain why Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and others were fired from Fox News for sexual harassment.

Media

 

Trump Defends Bill O’Reilly: ‘I Don’t Think Bill Did Anything Wrong’

In an interview with The New York Times, Trump defended O’Reilly against new revelations that he, Fox News and parent company 21st Century Fox had paid a total of $13 million in settlements to five women who accused him of sexual harassment or verbal abuse.

“I think he’s a person I know well — he is a good person,” Trump told the Times. “I think he shouldn’t have settled; personally I think he shouldn’t have settled. Because you should have taken it all the way. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”

O’Reilly has denied the merits of all the claims against him, 21st Century Fox said in a statement.

Trump had his own run-in with sexual harassment accusations last October, after an Access Hollywood tape surfaced in which he said he grabbed women by their genitals. “I don’t even wait,” Trump can be heard saying in the tape. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything.”

Last week, Trump declared April 2017 National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, pledging that his administration “will do everything in its power to protect women, children, and men from sexual violence.”

Trump’s defense of O’Reilly was similar to his defense of former Fox News chief Roger Ailes last year, when Ailes was facing a litany of sexual harassment allegations.

“I think they are unfounded just based on what I’ve read,” Trump said of the accusations against Ailes. “Totally unfounded, based on what I read.”

Ailes, who has denied all of the allegations against him, was forced to resign from Fox News just one week after that interview.

Nine months after Ailes’ departure, Fox News is facing mounting public pressure from accusers, advertisers and women’s rights groups to go further in addressing the allegations against O’Reilly.

More than 20 companies had pulled their advertising from “The O’Reilly Factor” as of Wednesday. Lisa Bloom, the lawyer for one of O’Reilly’s accusers, has called for an independent investigation of Fox News. The National Organization for Women has called for him to be fired.

Meanwhile, many female employees inside Fox News are too scared to speak out about problems in the workplace, fearing that they have no leverage against powerful on-air talents like O’Reilly, current and former network sources have told CNNMoney.

21st Century Fox and Fox News are standing behind O’Reilly. But neither the company nor O’Reilly have addressed the matter since Saturday, when the New York Times first revealed the extent of settlements paid to O’Reilly’s accusers.

Henry Holt, the publisher of O’Reilly’s new book “Old School,” has said it has “no comment at this time” on the allegations against its author.

21st Century Fox is also under federal investigation over its handling of payments made to women who accused Ailes of sexual harassment.

(h/t CNN)

Longtime Trump Adviser Calls Critic a “Stupid Ignorant Ugly Bitch”

Roger Stone, the political consultant and longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, went on a Twitter meltdown on Saturday night, sending out vulgar and misogynistic tweets to critics. Some of those tweets have since been deleted, but others are still in his account, suggesting he doesn’t regret his entire tirade. Stone was Trump’s top political adviser until the then-candidate fired him. (He denied that was the case and says he quit.) Regardless, he remained a “confidant to Trump,” as the Washington Post described him and has since published a book on Trump’s campaign for the presidency.

The political consultant’s night of horrific Twitter messages began when a Twitter user who identifies as Caroline O under the handle @RVAwonk, asked Stone if he knew “what libel is” in response to him pushing Trump’s assertion that he was the victim of a wiretap operation by Obama. “Bring it! Would enjoy crush u in court and forcing you to eat shit-you stupid ignorant ugly bitch !” he wrote in the since-deleted tweet.

Stone then directed his misogynist anger toward anti-Trump Republican strategist Ana Navarro: “Really? @ananavarro is fat, stupid and fucking Al Cardenas.” He seemingly doesn’t regret that tweet, because it’s still up.

The personal attacks then continued against journalist Yashar Ali: “go fuck yourself, u talentless asswipe.”

Not satisfied with the public aggression, Stone went private. “Fuck you, you politically correct asswipe,” he wrote in a direct message to Ali.

Yelling at critics on Twitter is apparently a Saturday night well-spent, according to Stone: “Just nothing better than calling out liberal jerk offs on Twitter. We won, you lost. You’re done!”

In the middle of his personal attacks, Stone also admitted that he enjoyed a “back channel” to WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange during the campaign. Stone did delete that tweet, but he has made the same assertion before, saying in a TV interview that he had “back-channel communications” with Assange regarding the release of hacked messages from Democrats. On Saturday night he repeated that claim on Twitter: “Never denied perfectly legal back channel to Assange who indeed had the goods on #CrookedHillary.”

Stone is one of several Trump allies who are allegedly under investigation for possible ties to Russian officials. He has repeatedly said investigators won’t find anything. “Sure they’ll get my grocery lists; they may get the emails between my wife and I, but here’s what they won’t get: any contact with the Russians,” Stone told CBS News.

A new documentary about Stone, titled, Get Me Roger Stone is set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival next month before moving on to Netflix.

(h/t Slate)

Trump Touts Texas Official Who Called Clinton a ‘C—’

Donald Trump on Saturday complimented a state official who called Hillary Clinton a “cunt” and cited him as evidence that he’s winning Texas.

“A guy gets on two days ago. Man named Sid Miller,” Trump recalled Saturday morning during a rally here at the Florida State Fairgrounds. “Don’t really know him. Wears a big, beautiful, white cowboy hat. In fact, I wanna find out where he got it. It’s pretty nice.”

“And he said, you know, you folks are getting it all wrong,” Trump continued, referring to polling and other media reports that suggest Clinton could steal Texas, a state long considered safely red.

Miller, the state’s agriculture commissioner and member of a Trump campaign advisory board, posted but quickly deleted a tweet that apparently highlighted polling results in Pennsylvania that showed Trump leading by a percentage point. However, he referred to Clinton as a “c—.”

“PENNSYLVANIA: NEW AUTO ALLIANCE POLL,” he wrote Tuesday. “TRUMP 44 C*** 43.”

After tweeting and then deleting a claim that his account was hacked, Miller said his team had “inadvertently retweeted a tweet” — though the campaign had actually copied and modified a tweet put out a by a popular alt-right account — and apologized for the mishap.

Although Trump claimed not to “really know” Miller, he serves on the campaign’s agriculture advisory committee.

Trump, who leads Clinton by 9 in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist survey of the state, said his crowds in Texas have numbered 20,000; 22,000 and 15,000.

“Every time I went, we had these massive crowds. They had a line that went so long — the local media’s much more honest than these dishonest guys here,” Trump said. “The local media. And they were showing the line went all the way — it went — literally, it went miles. So then I get back and three weeks ago: ‘Texas is in play. It’s even.’ And I said that’s bad news. Man, I don’t wanna lose Texas. That’s bad news.”

Except for one problem, he added: “We’re killing them in Texas.”

“These lines are four, five, six blocks long,” he boasted. “We’ve never had anything like this in Texas. And let me tell you, all those folks, they’re all voting for Trump. They’re not voting for Hillary. So Texas, we’re just absolutely — we’re doing great in Texas.”

(h/t Politico)

Trump Vows to Sue All Female Accusers

Donald Trump vowed Saturday to sue the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct in recent weeks.

“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.”

He added that a “simple phone call” to major news outlets “gets them wall-to-wall coverage with virtually no fact-checking ever.”

In the last two weeks, at least 10 women have come forward accusing Trump of inappropriately touching them. Their allegations came after a 2005 videotape surfaced of

Trump bragging about being able to grope women and get away with it.

Trump often threatens to file lawsuits without actually doing so. Earlier this month, he threatened to sue The New York Times when it published assault allegations against him, but nearly two weeks later, he has declined to follow through.

Trump went on to suggest Saturday that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was behind the women’s allegations.

“It was probably the (Democratic National Committee) and Hillary’s campaign who put forward these liars with their fabricated stories,” he said. “But we’ll probably find out later through litigation, which we’re so looking forward to.”

Asked about Trump’s claim, Clinton, speaking to reporters aboard her campaign plane Saturday night, simply said, “That’s just not accurate.”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Donald Trump regularly threatens to sue individuals who criticize him, but rarely follows through. But when he does and on the occasions that he wins he ruins that person’s life, like former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin, who was forced to pay Trump $5 million dollars after a judgement went against her.

Lisa Bloom, who represents Jill Harth, who has accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances on her on two separate occasions in the early 1990s, replied to Trump on Twitter Saturday afternoon.

“If Trump sues accusers we then have subpoena power to require not only Trump but all his enablers to appear for depositions. A field day,” Bloom said as part of a series of tweets.

Media

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