Damaged but defiant, Trump limps toward debate with Clinton
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Donald Trump supporter heckles House Speaker Paul Ryan as he speaks during the 1st Congressional District Republican Party of Wisconsin’s annual Fall Fest in Elkhorn.
WASHINGTON >> Damaged but defiant, Donald Trump is limping toward a critical presidential debate against Hillary Clinton absent the backing of a growing group of Republican leaders. Trump insists he will “never” abandon his White House bid despite calls for him to step aside after his vulgar descriptions of sexual advances on women were revealed.
Trump’s task in Sunday’s faceoff is enormous, and perhaps insurmountable. Even before the recording of his remarks were made public, the businessman was lagging behind Clinton after an undisciplined first debate and struggling to overcome deep skepticism among women about his temperament and qualifications to be commander in chief.
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges said that for Trump, “The debate is now everything.”
Trump has hinted he may turn the debate into a referendum on Clinton’s marriage, namely her husband’s extramarital affairs and her treatment of the women who were involved. In what was billed as a videotaped apology for his actions, Trump said “Bill Clinton has actually abused women” and Hillary Clinton “bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated” her husband’s “victims.”
Outside Trump’s small cadre of advisers, support for the businessman was scarce following Friday’s release of the 2005 videotape in which he can be heard detailing his attempts to have sex with a married woman. In an extraordinary rebuke, Trump’s own running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, declared he could neither condone nor defend the remarks.
“We pray for his family,” Pence said in a statement after canceling a Wisconsin appearance scheduled with House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, both of whom had condemned Trump’s remarks but stopped short of withdrawing support altogether.
Several other Republicans did take the extraordinary step of revoking support for their party’s nominee one month from Election Day and with early voting already underway in some key states.
Among them: Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte — both are running for re-election — and the party’s 2008 nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, who had stood by Trump even after the billionaire questioned whether the former POW should be considered a war hero because he got “captured.”
McCain, who is also facing a challenge in November, said Trump’s behavior made it “impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy.”
Many went further and called on Trump to quit the race altogether.
“I thought supporting the nominee was the best thing for our country and our party,” Alabama Rep. Martha Roby said in a statement. “Now, it is abundantly clear that the best thing for our country and our party is for Trump to step aside and allow a responsible, respectable Republican to lead the ticket.”
Republican leaders have scheduled a Monday morning conference call for House GOP lawmakers, who are out of town for Congress’ election recess. The email obtained by The Associated Press doesn’t specify the topic for the 11 a.m. EDT call, but rank-and-file lawmakers believe it’s about Trump. Such calls are rare and usually held to discuss important matters.
Trump, who spent Saturday hunkered down in his New York skyscraper, tweeted that he would not yield the GOP nomination under any circumstances: “The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly – I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN!”
Indeed, many Trump voters remained loyal to the political outsider. Wisconsin voter Jean Stanley donned a shirt proclaiming “Wisconsin Women Love Trump” and called Ryan a “traitor” for denouncing the presidential contender’s comments.
“He’s a real human,” Stanley said of the New York businessman, surrounded by Trump supporters at the Wisconsin rally where he was set to appear before the videotape emerged.
The political firestorm was sparked by a 2005 video obtained and released Friday by The Washington Post and NBC News. In the video, Trump, who was married to his current wife at the time, is heard describing attempts to have sex with a married woman. He also brags about women letting him kiss them and grab their genitals because he is famous.
“When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump says in the video. He adds seconds later: “Grab them by the p——. You can do anything.” He said of his impulse to kiss beautiful women: “I don’t even wait.”
While still publicly backing Trump, the Republican National Committee is considering how to move forward.
One possibility: re-directing its expansive political operation away from Trump and toward helping vulnerable Senate and House candidates. Such a move would leave Trump with virtually no political infrastructure in swing states to identify his supporters and ensure they vote.
“We are working to evaluate the appropriate messaging going forward,” said RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer.
Election law experts suggest it would be logistically impossible to replace Trump on the ballot altogether, with early voting underway in some states and overseas ballots already distributed to military servicemen and others.
Ryan fundraising chief Spencer Zwick, however, said he’s been fielding calls from donors who “want help putting money together to fund a new person to be the GOP nominee.”
Zwick told the AP that a write-in or “sticker campaign” relying on social media could “actually work.” While there has never been a winning write-in campaign in a U.S. presidential contest, such an effort could make it harder for Trump to win.
The release of the recording and ensuing backlash almost completely overshadowed the release of hacked emails from inside the Clinton campaign that revealed the contents of some of her previously secret paid speeches to Wall Street.
The Democratic nominee told bankers behind closed doors that she favored “open trade and open borders” and said Wall Street executives were best-positioned to help overhaul the U.S. financial sector. Such comments were distinctively at odds with her tough talk about trade and Wall Street during the primary campaign.
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Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire and Jill Colvin in New York, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Julie Bykowicz and Alan Fram in Washington, and Scott Bauer in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.
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Follow Julie Pace and Steve Peoples on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and http://twitter.com/sppeoples
35 responses to “Damaged but defiant, Trump limps toward debate with Clinton”
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Mr Trump is doing fine and will walk right in to the debates while HiLIARy may need a little help and some meds. Stay vertical Mrs Willy.
You think he’s doing fine?
Did you just wake up from a coma?
Yes, that sickness thing has been working really well for you. Keep it up!
O Dumbo says, “Gotta have them ribs and p*^^y too!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKYmiWiNqOw&feature=youtu.be
TRUMP/PENCE 2016 !!!
There are news outlets which question whether trumpy will show up for the debate tonight.
Standby for the deplorable pig news.
I heard worse being said in locker rooms and on the playing fields. Stop acting like sissies. lol, and you call yourselves men? It’s all locker room talk there and not like Bill Clinton the sexual predator that he is.
Decent men.
Their is a stark difference in talking like TheDonald vs. talking and doing the walk in the likes of Bill Clinton. Need we mention the Lolita Express that he’s taken many times in the pass? The problem with Trump is being so Green in politics he doesn’t know how to lay the wood and just defends himself and actions. It’s always about him, defending himself and not knowing how to deflect the criticisms and putting the onus on Hillary.
O Dumbo says, “Gotta have them ribs and p*^^y too!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKYmiWiNqOw&feature=youtu.be
good link. all guys and girls talk smack all the time no mean nothing. the stuff he said in video happens all the time and it doesn’t make you one raciest. we live hawaii and we talk BS and tease everybody but we still like you.
Which only shows how uninformed you are. Wake up.
We don’t accept and racists remarks in Hawaii. Brian Schotz banned Waters from Hawaii’s Chinatown if you haven’t heard
Thankfully for the United States, more and more people can see Mr. Trump’s spectacular personality disorders. Mrs. Clinton is now ahead by double digits.
Trump has successfully destroyed his pathetic campaign, while at the same time dragging down the rest of the Republican Party. The most amusing thing at this point is reading his clueless supporters defend him. Good luck with that!
Until you self righteous liberals hold the Clinton’s to their lewd and abusive behavior against women for the past 26 years your opinion and hypocrisy doesn’t matter.
Until you self righteous liberals hold the Clinton’s to their lewd and abusive behavior against women for the past 26 years your opinion and hypocrisy doesn’t matter.
Every time you repeat this I get a visual of a man standing on the side of a freeway shaking his fist at the cars whizzing by while shouting something unintelligible.
ditto, big time.
Well, the more I read comments seemingly outraged by Trump’s lewdness, I can’t help but remember all the ridicule from the left directed towards anyone objecting to society’s new levels of sexual entertainment. Now if the Donald’s campaign centered around a return to the religious right’s perception of appropriate bedroom activity, then they’d have a point..
Well, I don’t claim to represent the left.
I don’t believe I ever ridiculed anyone for their views on sexual entertainment which in any case I would separate from sexual assault – and which I also believe puts Trump’s comments outside your comparison.
I don’t object to DT’s lewdness so much as the nuttiness displayed by his remaining supporters who appear to be scrambling around for anything that will go bang if lit, thrown or dropped at their own feet no matter how irrelevant or self-destructive.
Slow down tiger, sharing a thought that comes to mind, like you did, doesn’t pin you personally with a lefty badge. And I know you’d never deny the ridicule’s popularity during debates of recent history, clearly at odds with the moral outrage currently expressed at some comments made by a candidate. Innuendos, like your own usage of “sexual assault”, tend to lose steam when their application is obviously politically driven.
Trump’s supporters hang in there despite him, quite often for reasons having nothing to do with Trump himself. Far more is at stake here than either candidate, with repercussions likely felt for a generation. But I will concede that at this point some defenders can’t help but appear nutty…
WASHINGTON ― Republican lawmakers are pulling their endorsements for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump after the Washington Post released a bombshell video Friday in which Trump makes lewd comments about women.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah) was the first GOP member of Congress to peel off Friday night, declaring on a local TV station, “I’m out.” He said he didn’t know who he was going to vote for now, but it wouldn’t be Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. That was right after his home state governor, Gary Herbert (R), said he, too, was dropping his support for Trump after seeing the tape of him claiming he tried to have sex with a married woman and boasting of groping women because of his celebrity.
The floodgates were open by Saturday morning. Here’s a running list of the GOP members of Congress, senators and governors rescinding their endorsements for Trump or calling on him to step down, one month before the election, after seeing the video.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah)
Rep. Martha Roby (Ala.)
Rep. Chris Stewart (Utah)
Rep. Bradley Byrne (Ala.)
Rep. Joe Heck (Nev.)
Rep. Cresent Hardy (Nev.)
Rep. Scott Garrett (N.J.)
Rep. Ann Wagner (Mo.)
Rep. Rodney Davis (Ill.)
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (Neb.)
Rep. Tom Rooney (Fla.)
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.)
Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho)
Sen. John Thune (S.D.)
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.)
Sen. Deb Fischer (Neb.)
Sen. Dan Sullivan (Alaska)
Sen. Cory Gardner (Colo.)
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)
Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio)
Gov. Gary Herbert (Utah)
Gov. Dennis Dauggard (S.D.)
Gov. Robert Bentley (Ala.)
There’s also some GOP lawmakers who didn’t support Trump before but are now taking it a step further and saying he needs to drop out. They include Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Mike Lee (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Reps. Mike Coffman (Colo.), Barbara Comstock (Va.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Charlie Dent (Pa.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), Will Hurd (Texas), John Katko (N.Y.), Erik Paulsen (Minn.) and Pat Tiberi (
Further, the RNC ihas decided it will NO longer fund activities related to the Presidental race, which is entirely unprecedented and shocking with 30 days to go.
Buahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.
Salvageable or not, Republicans who also running for office this coming November has to denounce him to save their own elections. Trump will have stand alone for his callow remarks denigrating women. Tough row to hoe or the other alternative is outside realm of his thoughts. Bullies and sexists are all that, no more no less. Hate ’em or love them?
I would too if I were running for an elected Gov./State position. I’m man enough to admit it and am not blinded by Politics. Bill lied not having “zzz” relations with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office which so happens to be on Gov. property.
2005 video tape? Expected from the MSM(Democratic puppets) mouthpiece to dig deep for trash on Donald, at this point seems obvious. Protect the lying witch at all costs. Clinton Foundation, Benghazi(4 dead Americans that included a US Ambassador), Emails. Yet the MSM(Democratic puppets) brings up the Donald’s “vulgar description of sexual advances on women”. Wait, didn’t Bill SCREW his WH Aide?, then deny it to Congress? Then get Impeached?
Another okole Republican blind mouse who doesn’t know anything about history. Bush/Cheney/Powell cost 1,000s of lives based on their lying to Congress and to the UN, and Dishonest Donald backed them. In 2007 Bush announced the decision to remove all American troops from Irag by 2011 which Obama honored and was cheered for doing, Dishonest Donald backed this, too. Dishonest Donald donated $1,000s to Clintons to have inside access, he has bragged about buying inside access since the 1960s with his Dad / New York City. Dishonest Donald’s mentor was Roy Cohn, a blatantly gay attorney which fits right in with the conservative Christian coalition, who taught him to sue everyone and everything. DEAR REPUBLICAN MICE, CONGRESS HAS BEEN RUN BY REPUBLICANS FOR HOW MANY YEARS AND WHAT HAVE THEY ACCOMPLISHED? 12 OF THE LAST 22 YEARS IN THE SENATE AND 18 OF THE LAST YEARS 22 IN THE HOUSE. DIDDLY!
Bush Lied? Iraqi Liberation Act. Look it up you Liberal GOON. Oh wait Liberal goons takes their orders from the MSM(Democratic puppets). I.L.A., crafted by, voted by, passed by Democrats. Oh yea and SIGNED by Bubba. You bring wanna up Congress too. You are OBVIOUSLY smoking something. Odummy and the Dummycraps had control of Congress and what did we get from those clowns during those 2 years? A Stimulus Package that crashed and burned at TAXPAYER cost. A Health Plan, that was voted on and passed by Democrats ONLY, that crashed and burned at TAXPAYER cost. And that was supposed to be their CROWNING achievement to the American people. Unemployment rose above 10%. And the Stock Market dropped to 7000. All in just 2 years. You asked what have the Republicans done? Stopped this out of control spending by these Donkeys 2 years in a row. but the MSM(Democratic puppets) won’t tell Liberal goons such as you that.
I think what you and lilo have done is essentially outline the extreme perspectives that pervade most of today’s political banter. Electing either frontrunner will only insure another four years of the same. Johnson, however, could provide a suspicion free sounding board for both camps to bounce around. Aside from his unchallenged integrity, his neutrality, offering us the best option for moving forward together, is a critical reason to support him.
LOL, shows how ignorant you are, there is no spending on any program without the House initiating the bill and passing it, and then the Senate approving it. DEAR REPUBLICAN MICE, CONGRESS HAS BEEN RUN BY REPUBLICANS FOR HOW MANY YEARS AND WHAT HAVE THEY ACCOMPLISHED? 12 OF THE LAST 22 YEARS IN THE SENATE AND 18 OF THE LAST YEARS 22 IN THE HOUSE. DIDDLY!
Right, you proved my point and you don’t even know it. Shows how you GOONS have your strings yanked by the Puppet Master EVERYDAY. Total brainwash. Mice, that all you got?
“Of mice and goons”, were he yet alive, Steinway might have reworked his original plot to document the demise of America.
Whomever the source of the trump tapes; the tapes were first delivered to NBC whose lawyers and huncho’s twiddled their thumbs where to go with it???
Well, as we all know, ABC jumped on it immediately and released it which went viral and today there’s not a single person(voter) who is not aware of the revelations, except maybe zombie-trumpsters who wish it to go away. With fingers crossed, they will find out how America feels about this animal who does not belong in the WH.
Bill Clinton’s actions with Monica Lewinski’s “yyy” relations in the White House Oval Office supplanted it’s name from “Oval Office” to “Oral Office”. I wouldn’t want to have been Laura Bush having to go into that Office with that history of Bill and Monica’s legacy. Yikes! Bad thoughts be going thru my mind. “smh”
I don’t care how religious one would be less the Bush’s, even the Pope. They’d be thinking how/where the act was done in that room. You can take that to the bank. They’d never admit having thoughts of that act when 1st stepping into that room after the fact. Bet everyone Wood!
The Republican National Committee (RNC) will redirect funds intended to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to prioritize down-ballot candidates, The Wall Street Journal reported late Saturday.
The RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill. But Sean Spicer, the RNC’s chief strategist, took to Twitter to say the story is “not true” and called Reid Epstein’s reporting “false.”
Citing an unidentified official, the Journal said that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus made the call to focus on House and Senate races on Saturday after the GOP was thrust into chaos over newly revealed sexually explicit remarks that Trump made in 2005.
The GOP nominee has not made the large-scale ground-game investments that are typical of a major-party nominee. So the RNC has picked up the lion’s share of that slack. Before this move, the RNC’s field staff prioritized Trump, meaning that they would focus first on turning out voters for Trump, even if that meant those voters may not support GOP candidates down the ballot.
The shift in priorities reported by the Journal would mean that the RNC would instead target voters who would vote for Republicans down the ballot, even if they planned to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The report comes as top Republicans stage a historic mass exodus from their nominee one day after the release of a lewd video involving Trump’s comments. Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the Senate’s third-highest-ranking Republican, took to Twitter to call on Trump to step down.
If you’re not so bright, a little slow cognitively, or just plain dense–this is the equivalent of Trump being on life support at hospice care, and the RNC taking a down pillow to his big bulbous orange nose and pushing down hard.
Buahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.
What happen to the agendas of both presidential candidates concerning our country? Too much focusing on sexual behaviors aren’t the issues to eradicate enemies and attacks to our country. Let bedroom’s conducts stays there and move forward toward our country’s best defenses against our enemies and the status of our enconomical picture!