Kaine: Trump tape 'makes me sick to my stomach'

LAS VEGAS—Tim Kaine expressed disgust over Donald Trump's vulgar, sexually aggressive comments, reported Friday by the Washington Post from a 2005 tape.

“It makes me sick to my stomach,” Kaine said, calling Trump’s behavior “outrageous.”


“Gosh,” Kaine said, “I’m sad to say that I’m not surprised.”

The Democratic vice presidential nominee said there must be “a consequence” for Vladimir Putin, including possible new sanctions, now that Department of Homeland Security and director of national intelligence have concluded that Russia is responsible for the hacks into multiple Democratic campaign organizations.

Kaine called Putin “a dictator of another country [who] is trying to put his thumbprint on the outcome of an American presidential election.” And as the Russian interests have become clearer, Kaine charged, “Donald Trump has treated that with at minimum a cavalier attitude, and at maximum, actually encouraging folks to do it.”

Kaine said Putin would be “happy” to see Trump elected, and argued Friday’s report from the government adds a new reason for people to turn out to vote, and vote against the Republican nominee.

“I don’t know of an instance in the history of this country where there has been such clear evidence that a foreign nation is trying to destabilize an election in the United States,” Kaine said. “You have to participate to show that no dictator of any other nation can come in and think they can push voters around and effect the outcome of an election.”

As for Putin, Kaine said that the American government response would be delayed with the Senate out of session, but that what happened will not be forgotten.

“Respect international law and there will be no sanctions,” Kaine said. The hacking “is a very, very, very serious offense, and it can’t go unanswered.”

More aggressive than usual as he spoke to reporters during a break from shaking hands and chatting in Spanish with workers in the employee cafeteria in the basement of the MGM Grand here, Kaine also expressed frustration about Trump’s comments Friday morning in New York alleging that illegal immigrants are being pushed across the border to influence the vote.

“It’s just like bolted together with the birther lie: it’s perpetrating a myth. Why would you perpetrate a myth? Why would you perpetrate a myth that’s been completely discredited? And why do the myths that you perpetrate all kind of have a really similar sentiment connecting them, which is whipping up racial division, or whipping up animosity against immigrants?”

Kaine called Trump’s latest comments an “outrageous and unsupported allegation.”

Comments like these have resonated deep in immigrant communities, Kaine said, and contributed to tearing people apart with “words of disrespect.”

“They’re not saying this is just campaign rhetoric,” Kaine said. “They are afraid.”

