The Daily 202: Trump’s mockery of the #MeToo movement underscores the GOP’s problem with women in 2018

The Daily 202: Trump’s mockery of the #MeToo movement underscores the GOP’s problem with women in 2018

By James Hohmann July 6 Email the author

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Trump mocks Sen. Warren and the #MeToo movement

President Trump joked about potentially debating Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) while he was at a rally in Great Falls, Mont., on July 5. (The Washington Post)

With Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve

THE BIG IDEA: A new Washington Post-Schar School poll, published this morning, shows that only 32 percent of women approve of President Trump’s job performance, compared to 54 percent of men. His approval rating overall is 43 percent. While 67 percent of women disapprove of Trump’s handling of the immigration issue, only 51 percent of men do. The poll gives Democrats a 10-point advantage on the generic ballot, 47 percent to 37 percent.

Three things the president did Thursday might help illuminate why only 1 in 3 registered female voters approve of him, which is creating a major drag on GOP congressional candidates: After hiring former Fox News chief executive Bill Shine and defending Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Trump mocked the #MeToo movement during an evening rally in Montana.

-- Envisioning a 2020 matchup against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Trump imagined bringing a DNA kit to one of their debates and demanding that she use it to prove that she’s got Native American ancestry. “We have to do it gently because we’re in the #MeToo generation, so we have to be very careful,” he said to scattered laughter. “We will very gently take that kit, and we will slowly toss it, hoping it doesn’t hit her and injure her arm — even though it only weighs probably two ounces.”

The president insisted he will never apologize for derisively referring to the former Harvard Law School professor as “Pocahontas.” “I’ll give you a million dollars for your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian,” Trump said, after discussing Warren’s high cheek bones.

The unscripted riff, which touched on both race and gender, was reminiscent of Trump’s multiyear campaign to falsely accuse Barack Obama of being born in Kenya. “If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications, and if he gives his passport applications and records, I will give, to a charity of his choice … a check, immediately, for $5 million,” Trump said in 2012. (He later claimed that he had offered $50 million.)

Responding to the president, Warren observed that the Trump administration is already conducting DNA tests – on children who were separated from their parents at their border:

A feminist author expressed sadness that Trump’s comments won’t get more attention:

-- During his freewheeling speech in Montana, Trump went on to decry Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), one of the longest-serving women in Congress and the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, as a “low IQ individual.”

“I mean, honestly, she’s somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe,” he said.

The stated purpose of Trump’s trip was to settle a score with Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who torpedoed White House physician Ronny Jackson’s nomination to become secretary of veteran’s affairs. Trump took it personally and offered to campaign for Tester’s challenger. “Get your ass out to vote,” the president told the crowd, which included many children.

“Acting presidential is so easy,” Trump added. “It's much easier than what I do.”

Then-Fox News co-president Bill Shine leaves a New York restaurant. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

-- Before leaving Washington, Trump named Shine as the new White House communications director and his deputy chief of staff. Shine “was ousted from his role as co-president [of Fox News] last year after lawsuits suggested he enabled alleged sexual harassment by the network’s late chairman and chief executive, Roger Ailes,” Paul Farhi and Felicia Sonmez report. “Shine has spent the past 14 months off the public grid after his ouster from Fox last May. … Shine himself was never directly accused of harassment at Fox. But his latter years at the network were pockmarked by his association with Ailes, especially accusations that he helped facilitate Ailes’s predatory behavior. Shine has consistently denied wrongdoing. He also was part of Fox’s senior management during the period in which the network was paying millions of dollars in settlements to former employees who had accused Ailes and host Bill O’Reilly of harassment.”

Shine was named in suits filed by former host Gretchen Carlson and former network contributors Julie Roginsky and Andrea Tantaros for his role in allegedly discouraging women at the network from taking their harassment claims to court. “Roginsky, who said Ailes sexually harassed her, accused Shine of retaliating against her for her refusal to join ‘Team Roger,’ a cadre of women who supported Ailes in his battle with Carlson. Shine denied those allegations,” per Paul and Felicia. “He also allegedly played a role in covering up Ailes’s relationship with Laurie Luhn, a former Fox booker who claimed she had a long, abusive affair with Ailes that eventually led to her mental breakdown. Luhn received $3.1 million from Fox in 2011 to settle her allegations of abuse and mistreatment by Ailes.”

Carlson, who received a $20 million settlement from Fox’s parent company in 2016, was disturbed by Shine’s promotion:

So was conservative Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who served as chief of staff to Dan Quayle when he was vice president: 

“It's extraordinary that the president of the United States could hire someone like this,” one senior Fox News executive told BuzzFeed. “This is someone who is highly knowledgeable of women being cycled through for horrible and degrading behavior by someone who was an absolute monster.”

“I don’t want [to] see the ghost of Roger Ailes running the White House communications operation,” Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman told the Daily Beast.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) questions Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last week at the Capitol. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

-- Speaking to reporters during the flight to Montana, joined by Shine in his office on Air Force One, Trump fiercely defended Jordan in the face of mounting allegations that the congressman knew about an Ohio State doctor’s alleged sexual abuse of students while he was an assistant wrestling coach at the school.

“I don’t believe them at all,” Trump said of the four former wrestlers who have now come forward to speak on the record. “I believe him. Jim Jordan is one of the most outstanding people I’ve met since I’ve been in Washington. … No question in my mind. I believe Jim Jordan 100 percent. He’s an outstanding man.”

Shawn Dailey, a former wrestler, told NBC News yesterday that he was groped half a dozen times by Dr. Richard Strauss in the mid-1990s: “Dailey said he was too embarrassed to report the abuse directly to Jordan at the time, but he said Jordan took part in conversations where Strauss' abuse of many other team members came up. ‘I participated with Jimmy and the other wrestlers in locker-room talk about Strauss. We all did,’ Dailey [said], referring to Jordan. ‘It was very common knowledge in the locker room that if you went to Dr. Strauss for anything, you would have to pull your pants down.’

“Dailey corroborated the account of [wrestler] Dunyasha Yetts, who (said) that Yetts had protested to Jordan and head coach Russ Hellickson after Strauss tried to pull down his wrestling shorts when Yetts went to see him for a thumb injury. 'Dunyasha comes back and tells Jimmy, ‘Seriously, why do I have to pull down my pants for a thumb injury?’’ Dailey recalled. ‘Jimmy said something to the extent of, ‘If he tried that with me, I would kill him.’’

“Calling Jordan ‘a close friend,’ Dailey said he is a Republican and that he contributed to the powerful Ohio congressman’s first political campaign for state representative in 1994. ‘What happened drove me out of the sport,’ said Dailey. ‘So I was surprised to hear Jim say that he knew nothing about it. … [To] say that he had no knowledge of it, I would say that’s kind of hurtful.’”

Jordan, a potential contender to replace Paul Ryan as the House GOP leader next year, said yesterday he has been in contact with the lawyers investigating Strauss, but no interview has been scheduled. Taking a page from the Trump playbook, Jordan then attacked the law firm that is assisting the investigation. The congressman noted, on Fox News naturally, that Perkins Coie also represented Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election. (Elise Viebeck has more.)

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President Trump and accusations of sexual misconduct: the complete list

The president says he's "very happy" sexual misconduct by powerful men is being "exposed." He denies all of the allegations against him. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

-- Trump has defended other Republican politicians when they are accused of wrongdoing. The president campaigned for Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore last fall even after multiple women came forward to accuse him of unwanted sexual advances when they were minors and he was a prosecutor. The national Republican Party apparatus initially abandoned Moore but reopened the spigot when Trump said he believed Moore’s denials of wrongdoing.

-- The president also essentially defended, and stayed in touch with, former White House staff secretary Rob Porter after he resigned in the wake of reports that he had physically and emotionally abused both of his ex-wives.

-- More than a dozen women have separately accused Trump, 72, of sexual assault or improper conduct. The president has categorically denied every allegation against him, though he’s also paid hush money to multiple women to get them to sign non-disclosure agreements related to their interactions with him. He also was caught on video boasting in 2005 about being able to get away with groping women and propositioning married women.

-- An appeals court in New York last month rejected an attempt by the president to halt a lawsuit against him filed by a former “Apprentice” contestant who has accused him of sexual harassment. Summer Zervos is suing Trump for defamation after he called her “a liar.” There is a very high possibility that the president could be deposed in this case, and a judge recently set a deadline of January for him to sit down for a deposition.

Curtis Hill, Indiana's attorney general, speaks at an event in Indianapolis. (Robert Scheer/Indianapolis Star/AP)

-- In addition to Trump, down-ballot Republicans also must deal with #MeToo fallout in three states with key 2018 races: 

-- Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) and the GOP leaders of the state House and Senate last night called on Republican Attorney General Curtis Hill to resign amid what they say are credible claims that Hill drunkenly groped four women, including a lawmaker and three legislative aides, at an Indianapolis bar. “Earlier Thursday, many Republicans either declined, or were reluctant, to comment on Hill,” the AP’s Brian Slodysko reports from Indy. “The call from high-level Republicans for Hill to resign comes after Democrats ratcheted up political pressure in an election year where female voters could make a big difference … Over the past week, Democrats have harshly criticized what they characterize as a lackluster Republican response to the allegations against Hill. A Statehouse rally calling for Hill’s resignation was being planned for Saturday.”

A memo outlining the allegations against Hill, based on interviews with six women, describes especially boorish behavior in the early morning hours of March 15 after the legislative session ended: “The lawmaker said Hill was ‘very intoxicated’ when he slid his hands down her back, put them under her clothes and grabbed her buttocks … She told him to ‘back off’ and walked away, but Hill again approached her, reached under her clothing and grabbed her again, according to the memo. Hill also gave a staffer a two-minute back rub, which made her uncomfortable, the memo states. Another staffer said Hill put his arm around her and slid his hand down her back. When she tried to remove his hand, she said he groped her buttocks, the memo states. He put his arm around a third staffer’s waist and ‘hugged’ her close, according to the document.”

Hill has denied the groping allegations and insisted this week that he will not resign: He’s “a staunch social conservative who is married and has been viewed as a rising star in the Republican Party,” according to the local AP reporter. “The former Elkhart County prosecutor, who is also an Elvis imitator, has visited the White House several times since [Trump] took office. In May, he warmed up the crowd at a rally Trump held in Hill’s native Elkhart.”

-- There continues to be fallout in Missouri from the resignation of Republican Gov. Eric Greitens in a sex scandal. Democrats are trying to use the scandal to attack state Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is challenging Sen. Claire McCaskill (D).

-- And the Arizona Supreme Court ruled last week that the first state lawmaker in the country who was expelled from office as a result of sexual misconduct claims in the #MeToo era is eligible to run this year for state Senate. Don Shooter, a Republican, was expelled from the Arizona state House in February after investigators concluded that he sexually harassed at least seven women, including fellow lawmakers. “He has apologized for what he called insensitive comments involving women but said he never sought to touch anyone or have a sexual relationship,” the AP reports.