Trump Mocks #MeToo Movement Days After Decrying “a Scary Time for Young Men”
Trump endorses the Republican party in Erie, PA on October 10, 2018.
By Keith Srakocic/AP Photo.
Donald Trump has once again positioned himself against the #MeToo movement, mocking it during his Wednesday night rally in Pennsylvania. While reminiscing on his victory in the state in the 2016 presidential election—like an old high-school quarterback revisiting the field over and over—Trump stopped himself from using a certain expression, blaming “the rules of MeToo.”
“Pennsylvania hasn’t been won for many years by Republicans, but every Republican thinks they’re going to win Pennsylvania,” he said, according to CNN. “I used an expression—you know, there’s an expression, but under the rules of MeToo I’m not allowed to use that expression anymore. I can’t do it.”
He said the expression is akin to “the person that got away. See, in the old days, it was a little different.” When an audience member encouraged him to “do it anyway,” Trump laughed and pointed to the news cameras. “I would do it, except for these people up there. They would say, did you hear what President Trump said?”
He continued, saying, “So there is an expression, but we’ll change the expression: Pennsylvania was always the person who got away. That’s pretty good, right? The person that got away?”
It’s unclear what Trump thinks the “rules” of #MeToo are. The movement, started by activist Tarana Burke, began as a way for survivors of sexual misconduct to voice their pain and show solidarity with fellow survivors. It has sprawled into something greater, tied to the broader societal reckoning over sexual misconduct that began a year ago—but the message at its core has remained the same.
Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct himself multiple times (he has denied the claims), has made his stance clear on the growing movement. He first insulted it in July: while referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whom he has taken to calling “Pocahontas” because of her Native American heritage, Trump said he would like to send an ancestry kit her way. “We’ll take that little kit and say—we have to do it gently because we are in the MeToo generation—and we will very gently take that kit, slowly toss it [to her],” he said.
Last week, Trump also told reporters that “it is a very scary time for young men in America, where you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of”—referring to the scandal surrounding Brett Kavanaugh (who has since been sworn into the Supreme Court, despite sexual assault allegations he denied). “This is a very, very—this is a very difficult time. What’s happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.”
Get Vanity Fair’s HWD Newsletter
Sign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.
Full ScreenPhotos:Melania Trump’s Most Controversial Fashion Choices
October 2016: Pussy-bow blouse
One of Trump’s first headline-making sartorial choices was the pink blouse she wore to one of the presidential debates in October 2016. The debate came just days after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, which caught a 2005-era Donald Trump on a hot mic making disparaging comments about women to Billy Bush, saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy.” The Gucci blouse Trump wore to the debate happened to feature a prominent “pussy-bow” detail, which may or may not have been a total coincidence. Melania, as usual, did not explain further.
Photo: By Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.
May 2017: $51,500 Dolce & Gabbana jacket
Trump wore the floral Dolce & Gabbana jacket during a visit to Sicily in May 2017, a seemingly innocuous choice—Dolce & Gabbana is an Italian fashion house, and fashion diplomacy is a First Lady tradition. She raised eyebrows, however, when people learned that the coat retailed for $51,500.
Photo: By Giovanni Isolino/AFP/Getty Images.
August 2017: Hurricane heels
While Texas was dealing with the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Donald and Melania Trump suited up to see the damage firsthand, which, for Melania, included a pair of sky-high stilettos. While she changed into more sensible footwear before landing, it was an indelible image of the First Lady sauntering into a natural-disaster zone in heels.
Photo: By Alex Wong/Getty Images.
August 2017: “FLOTUS” baseball cap
While visiting a firehouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Trump took a page out of her husband’s own fashion handbook, wearing a baseball cap with “FLOTUS” embroidered across the front. Call it MAGA merch, but make it fashion.
Photo: By Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.
June 2018: “I Really Don’t Care” jacket
The jacket read round the world. During a June 2018 visit to a detention center in Texas housing migrant children separated from their families at the Mexican border, Trump donned a Zara jacket that read “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” As it turned out, people really did. Her particular choice in outerwear was almost universally deemed insensitive given where she was going and her husband’s immigration policies that resulted in families being broken up for weeks at a time. Later, an anonymous source told The New York Times that the message on her jacket was actually aimed at anyone “who wanted to criticize her decision to visit the children in light of the administration’s aggressive immigration policies.” Still, it’s hard to interpret such a layered message through a jacket alone.
Photo: By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
July 2018: “Trash flair” Louboutins
Shortly after her Zara jacket fiasco, Trump headed off to Europe with her husband in a pair of red-and-nude Louboutins. While this normally wouldn’t be anything newsworthy, the particular heels worn by Trump in July 2018 were an $800 pair made from pieces of “hand-torn” Louboutin shopping bags and described by the brand as having an “audacious new trash flair.”
Photo: By Al Drago/Getty Images.
October 2018: Pith helmet in Kenya
Criticized for wearing the headwear associated with colonialism in Africa during her trip to Kenya in October 2018, Trump told the press that she wished “people would focus on what I do, not what I wear.” A few days later, a clip from her ABC interview with Tom Llamas showed Trump seated, with the hat strategically placed on a table beside her, making it all the more difficult for people to pay attention to anything else.
No comments:
Post a Comment