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Perhaps this Man Should Not Be President of the United States
Okay, folks, all kidding aside, this Trump thing has gone too far.
Tim Mak is a good reporter. I was once on a press junket with him, and I saw someone who took a great deal of care to get the facts right. This piece — ostensibly about rumors that Donald Trump raped his ex-wife, Ivana — contains what I trust to be an accurate quote from Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization:
Cohen acknowledged Monday that he has not read the entire deposition but said he had read the two relevant pages of it, including the rape accusation.
“It’s not the word that you’re trying to make it into,” Cohen told The Daily Beast, saying Ivana Trump was talking about how “she felt raped emotionally … She was not referring to it [as] a criminal matter, and not in its literal sense, though there’s many literal senses to the word.”
Cohen added that there is no such thing, legally, as a man raping his wife. “You cannot rape your spouse,” he said. “There’s very clear case law.” …
Trump’s lawyer then changed tactics, lobbing insults and threatening a lawsuit if a story was published.
“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very [redacted by Ricochet’s editors] lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be [redacted by Ricochet’s editors] disgusting. You understand me?”
“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up … for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet … you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added. …
[Trump’s attorney] said that “there is nothing reasonable about you wanting to write a story about somebody’s usage of the word ‘rape,’ when she’s talking [about how] she didn’t feel emotionally satisfied.”
“Though there’s many literal senses to the word, if you distort it, and you put Mr. Trump’s name there onto it, rest assured, you will suffer the consequences. So you do whatever you want. You want to ruin your life at the age of 20? You do that, and I’ll be happy to serve it right up to you,” he added.
The joke has gone too far. We’ve heard enough from Donald Trump.
Published in Elections, Politics
Casey, don’t forget Pat Paulson from Laugh-In ran for president and then there was Lyndon LaRouche ? :-) Donald Trump is associated with casinos and gambling – that in itself is associated with thug mentality and attorneys that represent some hard core people. Las Vegas used to be run by the mob – I would imagine it’s not too different today. So much will come out on all the candidates – it will be a circus – something that takes the lens off of Hillary, who is a lot scarier than Trump. The cream will rise to the top – I would love to see a Cruz/Walker ticket – a force against the evil tide we see approaching our shores.
And to Real Jane Alt – you may be right – I think he is a Democrat when it suits his situation, hence, the donations to Democrats or Democratic causes to gain favors – he even admitted that – everyone can relate to one or the other party in some way, but your core beliefs remain, and like it or not, his history will surface. It takes more than talk to be a good president – more importantly, temperament, experience, humility, and moral courage – I think those are lacking here.
The quotes are from the book, right? The book was published in 1993 so why now.
Donald Trump is one of the few with the guts to speak out against the ongoing foreign invasion of the United States (illegal immigration) being aided and abetted by the Democrats and Republicans. That makes him all right in my book.
Name a junior senator from Chicago who seemed to strangely benefit from unsealed divorce records. Name doesn’t come to me right away.
Because they want the words “Trump” and “rape” in the headlines everywhere. Why else?
1. No argument there.
2. Both Bushes were conservative in part but not in whole.
3. Clinton made decent parents keep their kids away from the newscasts when Monica Lewinsky was involved.
4. Whatever the GOP is, Trump is an ideal real estate broker and owner but not much else.
Claire, the answer to your question is: “No, Donald Trump should not be president.” However it is not due to this story. It is old news, in the context of a divorce with a high income participant, and probably not true. Can we debate the issues regarding Mr. Trump without resorting to the “a dog kept on the roof of car during a vacation trip” story?
The Establicans prefer him to their own base.
I am under the impression that community organizers are out to turn various groups against one another. Given Barry’s successes that certainly has worked out well for his agenda, and against any type of sane collaboration by various groups who might have something to gain by working with each other.
[redacted for ad hominem attack.] Used to be you could kill slanderers. In a duel. The legalistic world [this idea] promote[s] is totally diseased. [redacted for ad hominem attack. Please address the arguments, not the person making them. –eds.] This is the feminization of the West in full swing. “I can say whatever I want about you, and you can’t do anything, nani, nani, nana…”. Totally sick.
To Mike LaRoche, You are right about that – and he got the ball rolling to get the illegal immigration conversation out front and center. But Ted Cruz and others conservatives, including past presidential candidates, have been sounding the alarm as well. If you need a bull horn, maybe its the job of Americans to clean out their ears – we send elected officials to do a job – when they don’t do it – we let it go – keep re-electing them, and problems never get resolved. Time to stop blaming bad politicians and rally the citizens to change things. It is how the Democrats operate – they flood the airwaves with their causes, protest, talk over people, crash conservative gatherings, tap any resource to get their bidding done. Republicans in office have lost the faith of the people – but it still always rests with “We the People”.
Here’s why I like Cruz – he doesn’t “trump”et, but gets his point heard by both sides, none the less. Watch the exchange:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/24/ted-cruz-debated-code-pink-protesters-for-24-minutes/
For all the anger & hatred I see on the right when it comes to Mr. Obama, I see more hatred among the factions & institutions on the right. Sometimes I wonder whether we’re not the suckers our political adversaries take us for-
This thread has become boring, repetitive, and tense. The editors will shut it down soon. ;-)
Because Trump is ahead in the polls, and this is standard vetting for candidates who are ahead in the polls.
It would have been a normal article — except that Trump’s lawyer confused himself with Don Corleone.
Every time Jeri Ryan turns up in a TV episode — and she gets plenty of work — I get angry.
From the headline, I thought this piece was going to be about Barack Obama. Obama, the apparent fine family man and disasterous President. As opposed to Bill Clinton, the hound dog accused rapist and much better President.
I really don’t feel any need to respond to this, save to say that I think my comment speaks for itself and manifests none of those things.
No, the response of the attorney isn’t old news.
I have to believe he appeals to at least as many Democrats as Republicans. Has anybody looked into that in polling? If he went third party isn’t it possible he’d reduce the Democrat vote as much or more than the Republican? Because as has been stated repeatedly, he is no conservative.
I’m sorry to say, I do not believe it speaks for itself & I undertook to speak for it without asking you–my comment is right before this answer here. If you disapprove, let me know & I will remove it.
Last I saw all the Republican candidates were talking about the border. It’s that they know that it’s about the border, enforcing immigration laws and actually addressing the issue, not who lives close enough to walk across and who we’ve managed to work up a good hate for. Often with good reason. What does Trump propose? I’m not sure he has a clue about any of the issues facing the country. “I’m rich and I can get things done” just doesn’t do much for me. This who oppose Trump are not the liberals or the old guard Republicans, it’s the conservatives who were so happy with our long list of outstanding real conservatives. Then along comes a progressive fraud like Trump and we suspect he’s working for Hillary.
Jeri Ryan is proof that everything that glitters is not gold. What a miserable, spiteful shrew.
That’s true, but the legs on the story is that Trump raped Ivana. Trump’s attorney is simply the justification to get the story out there.
Only conservatives could say this! I haven’t seen polling. I wish polling was done on the matter–that seems to be what persuades people how people feel…
My suspicion is, no, nowhere near as many Dems would vote for Mr. Trump. The fact that he’s no conservative makes no difference. Who bats an eye at him calling himself Republican & declaring he’s running for the nomination? Do not conservatives egg him on rather than throw eggs at him? What Dem hacks or pundits or politicians are showing support? They hope he will humiliate & maybe cripple the GOP, but that’s about it.
No need to ask. Say what you want. I would disagree, in that I don’t think the intent was to suggest murder.
But I don’t think dueling did much to help either Hamilton or Burr — and Burr probably was guilty of murder.
We let women vote, and we get now the payoff, a society where men cannot defend their honor – “oh, because they are such brutes about these things!”
“Oh, the lawyer – a man, I should note – was so brutish! Oh, I think I am going to faint…No, I will be strong. ‘Women, be strong’. Don’t let these men frighten you with their aggressiveness. We will expunge it from society, yes we will. They need to dial down their hormones (maybe we can neuter them and they will be better behaved…oh, not all of them, of course, but most of them.) We will teach them to be civilized, to settle these things in a court of law. We will domesticate men, that coarse species, just stand together with me, women arm-to-arm…”
Belch
Oh, certainly. I do not know how the man feels about that duel particularly. Burr-Hamilton shows clearly he does not understand that he’s basically saying, if you’re a good shot, slander all you want–you might even get to murder people you hate under an insane idea of honor! If you happen to suspect the other guy is not in it for killing, you’re sitting pretty! So in order to get rid of the slander now available, a new slander for psychos should become law!
Hamilton was a terrible person and deserved his bullet, regardless of his administrative talent.
This is so idiotic. A duel is voluntary, right? Right? Murder, huh? I see. And you now are deciding how Hamilton and Burr should have conducted their lives, are you? Wow, yes we should just let women run things because they see things so clearly. Let the wussification of America proceed…
Thanks for letting me vote. We now have a society in which men who murder each other over an insult face the death penalty, in many states. I think the idea that murder in response to an insult is uncivilized is, in fact, an advance.
Looks to me as if Tim didn’t allow himself to be intimidated by this aggressiveness. And good for him.
The rule of law is usually considered an achievement.
Are you quite serious in suggesting that being a man means using your lawyer to threaten reporters and “everyone they know?”