White House candidate Donald Trump
desperately needs a strong debate performance against Hillary Clinton on
Sunday, with stakes sky-high amid intense scrutiny of his treatment of
women, and a damaging video of him boasting that he beds married ones.
His unprecedented,
outside-the-establishment presidential bid, and the embattled Republican
Party with it, was thrown into disarray by the misogynistic comments,
with growing calls from top Republicans for him to step aside.
Even before the latest fallout, Trump
was already in need of a moment of political magic to reverse his slide
in the polls barely four weeks from Election Day on November 8.
Now his campaign has been rocked by its
worst crisis, with the video echoing in voters’ ears, day in and day
out. National media have dug up some of his gems of bad and bizarre
behavior, including agreeing with an interviewer that his daughter
Ivanka was a “piece of ass”. In a 2002 interview with Howard Stern,
Trump also said he preferred leaving ladies as they age.
“What is it at 35? It’s called check-out time,” Trump quips.
At 9:00 pm (0200 GMT Monday), the real
estate magnate and the former secretary of state will face off in the
second presidential debate at Washington University in St Louis.
The format poses its own difficulties for Trump: half of the questions will be asked by undecided voters.
He will want to build a personal
connection with these everyday Americans and show his capacity for
empathy, a quality that often has been drowned out in his large, raucous
campaign rallies.
Despite an angry backlash threatening to
destroy his campaign, over Trump’s remarks boasting about his ability
to grope women as he pleases without impunity, he insisted there is
“zero chance I’ll quit”.
Late Saturday, the defiant Republican
presidential nominee stepped outside of his Trump Tower skyscraper in
New York, brandishing his fist to cheers from dozens of supporters.
Asked if he was staying in the race, he responded: “100 percent”.
Trump’s own wife Melania said she was
offended by her husband’s “unacceptable and offensive” comments, caught
on a hot mic just months after the two married in the real estate
magnate’s third marriage.
But she urged American voters to support him.
“I hope people will accept his apology,
as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the
world,” Melania Trump said in a statement.
The videotape, released Friday by The
Washington Post, forced a rare apology from a campaign already peppered
by controversies over Trump’s treatment of women, roiling his Republican
Party.
The Republican National Committee
appeared to have halted part of its “Victory” program to elect Trump,
with the RNC asking a vendor to “put a hold” on mail production, the
Politico news website reported.
CNN said the RNC was considering ending a joint fundraising agreement with the Trump campaign.
Trump called the disclosure a
“distraction”, defiantly attacking the Clintons for husband Bill
Clinton’s past infidelities, and hinting strongly he would say more on
the topic during Sunday’s debate in St Louis, Missouri.
‘Enough!’
Republican reaction to the videotape
came fast and furious, with some calling on the bombastic billionaire to
step aside, or allow running mate Mike Pence to take the top of the
ticket, others simply withdrawing their endorsement.
Pence, the governor of Indiana, said that as a husband and father he was “offended” by Trump’s remarks.
Yet the Trump campaign released a schedule showing Trump would be back on the trail for rallies starting Monday.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, the top
Republican officeholder, said he was “sickened” by Trump’s comments, and
disinvited him from a political event in Wisconsin. Pence was to go in
Trump’s place, but he canceled without explanation.
By Saturday, about a dozen senators, a
dozen members of the House of Representatives and three governors all
Republicans had withdrawn their support.
Among senior party figures, Condoleezza
Rice a former secretary of state and national security advisor under
president George W. Bush said “Enough! Donald Trump should not be
President. He should withdraw”.
Senator John McCain, the 2008
presidential nominee with whom Trump has sparred repeatedly, said
“Donald Trump’s behavior… make(s) it impossible to continue to offer
even conditional support for his candidacy”.
Governor John Kasich of Ohio, a
contender in the Republican primaries, said Trump’s comments were
“disgusting” and that “our country deserves better”.
Illinois Senator Mark Kirk called for an “emergency replacement”.
Actor-director Robert de Niro weighed in, saying “I’d like to punch him in the face”.
But top Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, a
former New York mayor, insisted that “there is nothing that would cause
his dropping out.”
“That is wishful thinking of the Clinton
campaign and those people who have opposed him for a long time. He is
in the race to win,” Giuliani added.
Campaign in crisis
With the November 8 elections one month
away and Clinton leading in the polls by nearly five percentage points
nationally, the latest uproar has plunged Trump in the deepest crisis of
his turbulent campaign.
He had already been seriously hurt by a
sloppy performance in his first debate with Clinton on September 26, a
damaging Twitter war against a former Miss Universe and reports he may
have paid no income taxes for 18 years.
Clinton, who is seeking to become the
nation’s first female commander-in-chief, is almost certain to call out
Trump about the videotape during the debate.
“This is horrific,” she said on Twitter. “We cannot allow this man to become president”.
In the video, Trump uses vulgar and predatory language as he describes hitting on a married woman and grabbing women’s crotches.
AFP
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