The Trump Tapes From the Perspective of a Sexual Assault Survivor

The 2005 video, the section of the presidential debate in which they discuss it, and Trump’s “apology” video can be found at the bottom of the post.
Trigger warning: brief descriptions of sexual assault.
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When most people yell at the TV, they’re yelling at their sports team. When I yell at the TV, I’m yelling at presidential candidates. I had plenty to yell about, but let’s focus on the part that’s most relevant to this blog. You know which part I’m referring to.

Frankly, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I saw the 2005 video of Trump admitting to sexually assaulting women. I mean, this is a guy who’s already been accused of rape more than once (including his ex-wife, a business associate and a 13 year old girl).

In response to the video, he releases an “apology” video in which he apologizes only for what he said, not what he did. He also says “This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we are facing today.” Then, he spends more time talking about issues other than the 2005 video itself, trying to change the focus. What I hear is that he thinks that sexual assault is not an important issue and that the consequences of his actions do not matter. I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it would be for his victims to hear. Imagine how it would feel for them to hear him not acknowledge what he’s done and the pain he’s caused. Imagine how it would feel to see that he’s not truly sorry, does not think he did anything wrong (I’ll discuss this more later) and to hear him bragging about what he did to them.