In a video that some accuse of being crass and tasteless while others say will provoke Hillary Clinton to finally respond to a topic that she has so far eagerly avoided, but is most likely just a foreshadowing of many more such attacks to come, Donald Trump on Monday released a clip that uses audio of two women who have accused President Clinton of rape to attack Hillary Clinton.
As reported originally by The Hill, the new black-and-white video plays audio of two women - Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick - who have made accusations against Bill Clinton.
It plays the audio against a black-and-white backdrop of the White House and an image of Bill Clinton with a cigar in his mouth. It then pivots to audio of Hillary Clinton laughing.
While Trump has previously sought to use allegations of sexual misconduct against Bill Clinton to attack Hillary Clinton, this is the first time it has been encapsulated in internet media, and seeks to provoke an angry response by his presidential challenger.
A Trump senior adviser warned last week Trump's attacks would escalate after Trump accused Bill Clinton of rape.
So far Hillary Clinton has declined to respond to the attacks, instead focusing on Trump's issue-oriented remarks and slamming him as a "loose cannon" on foreign policy, although if the clip generates enough publicity Hillary (and Bill) may have no choice but to open a very unpleasant can of worms.
Willey, who accused Clinton of sexaul assault in 1993, can be heard from a 2007 interview with Sean Hannity saying, "No woman should be subjected to it. It was an assault."
The audio then shifts to Broaddrick, an Arkansas woman who accussed Clinton of raping her in a hotel room when he was Arkansas's attorney general.
The audio of Clinton appears against a backdrop of the couple with the headline "here we go again?"
Is Hillary really protecting women?
A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on May 23, 2016 at 8:27am PDT
Which brings us to another point: as NewsBusters wrote last week, CBS co-host Norah O’Donnell hammered Ivanka Trump on Wednesday’s CBS This Morning when O’Donnell highlighted the New York Times piece investigating Mr. Trump and reminded, "It says many of the women interviewed, quote, ‘reveal unwelcomed romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct.’"
O’Donnell pressed, “Is there unending commentary on the female form?” The journalist wouldn’t leave the subject, demanding, “But you have worked so closely with your dad. There's another woman who is quoted in the article that says that Donald Trump groped her at a... meeting.”
Speaking of Hillary Clinton, O’Donnell demanded, “Do you think bringing up her husband's past infidelities, this discussion, is worthy of a presidential campaign?” Regarding Mr. Trump, the reporter lectured, “He's running against a woman, and he has said that he's already using gender as a way to run against her.”
http://www.mrctv.org/embed/159856
Meanwhile, on April 13, 2015, NBC had ample opportunity to ask Chelsea Clinton similar questions about her own father's documented poor treatment of women, and yet the issue was never once breached.
Perhaps in order to at least preserve the illusion of objectivity, similar questions should be asked the next time Chelsea is being interviewed on prime time, unbiased TV.