‘He did not say the word “sexual assault”’, ‘I think that’s a stretch’ and ‘I’m not a lawyer’ among excuses trotted out by aides and surrogates about lewd comments

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The 2005 tape of Donald Trump bragging that his celebrity status allowed him to grope women with abandon has sent the Republican party reeling. But on Sunday night, the top spokespeople for the GOP and the Trump campaign had recovered their wits long enough to dispute whether Trump was actually describing a “sexual assault” in the 11-year-old recording.

“That’s a very unfortunate phrase, and people really should stop using it,” Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, told CNN’s Dana Bash. “He did not say the word ‘sexual assault’.”

Separately, longtime Trump supporter Senator Jeff Sessions told the conservative magazine Weekly Standard that he wouldn’t characterize unwanted touching and kissing as sexual assault. “I think that’s a stretch,” he said.

“I don’t know,” said Sean Spicer, the GOP’s top spokesperson, in reply to the same question. “I’m not a lawyer.”

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Sessions followed up with the Guardian to say that the Weekly Standard “did not properly characterize” Sessions’ position.

“My hesitation was based solely on confusion of the contents of the 2005 tape and the hypothetical posed by the reporter,” the senator said in a statement.

“Of course it is crystal clear that assault is unacceptable. I would never intentionally suggest otherwise.‎”

The spokesperson has not responded to a follow-up asking Sessions to clarify whether he thinks Trump’s comments in the recording describe sexual assault.

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Their remarks came just three days after the tape of Trump sent shockwaves through the Republican party and a few hours before the House speaker, Paul Ryan, without withdrawing his earlier endorsement, announced he would no longer come to Trump’s defense.

The tape, recorded while Trump and NBC host Billy Bush rode a bus to the set of Access Hollywood, captured Trump making lewd comments about actor Arianne Zucker – and women in general – while Bush egged him on.

“I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump is heard to say on the tape, which the Washington Post released on Friday. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – 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.”

Trump has variously said he was sorry if the conversation caused offense and downplayed and dismissed his words as run-of-the-mill “locker room talk”. Facing a Sunday talk show gauntlet, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said: “The fact is men, at times, talk like that.”

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But until Sunday night, no one representing Trump’s campaign or party – including Giuliani – disputed the fact that what Trump was describing was the very definition of sexual assault. (Whether Trump on the tape was describing a specific instance in which he touched women without their consent is unclear.)

Several prominent Republicans who denounced Trump’s remarks over the weekend unequivocally stated that the tape captured Trump describing an act of sexual assault. “It is never appropriate to condone unwanted sexual advances or violence against women,” congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House, said on Friday.

John McCain, in a statement withdrawing his endorsement of Trump, was even more blunt. “Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to offer even conditional support for his candidacy,” McCain said. He added: “No woman should ever be victimized by this kind of inappropriate behavior.”

It was only after an acrimonious Trump confronted Hillary Clinton at Washington University in St Louis for the second presidential debate that his surrogates flipped the script.

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In the spin room where reporters gathered for post-debate reactions, Conway condemned the use of the words “sexual assault” to describe Trump’s remarks, telling CNN’s Bash: “That’s a very unfortunate phrase.” When Bash pointed out that Trump had in fact described a sexual assault, Conway replied that he had not said the word “sexual assault”.

The Weekly Standard put a similar question to Spicer and Sessions, with Sessions replying: “I don’t characterize that as sexual assault. I think that’s a stretch.” The reporter persisted: “So if you grab a woman by the genitals, that’s not sexual assault?”

“I don’t know,” Sessions responded. “It’s not clear that he – how that would occur.”

Their remarks recalled instances when Republicans downplayed the seriousness of sexual assault. In 2012, Todd Akin, a candidate for the Senate from Missouri, lost badly to Senator Claire McCaskill after saying women couldn’t become pregnant from rape if the attack was “a legitimate rape”. Just one year prior, Republicans were accused of attempting to redefine rape through a congressional proposal to limit abortion rights for anyone who wasn’t the target of a “forcible” rape.

Perhaps they were taking cues from Trump himself, who on Sunday night denied that his words amounted to a description of sexual violence.

“You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals,” said CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. “That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”

“No,” Trump replied. “I didn’t say that at all.”

