NEW HAMPSHIRE, Oct 13 2016 – First lady Michelle Obama delivered a powerful and emotional rebuke to Donald Trump on Thursday, saying his vulgar comments on sexual assault “have shaken me to my core,” while calling on women to rise up against the Republican nominee.
“The fact is in this election we have a candidate for president of the United States who over the course of his lifetime and the course of this campaign has said things about women that are so shocking, so demeaning, I simply will not repeat anything here today,” she said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire. “And last week we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexual assaulting women. I can’t believe I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women.”
Her voice breaking at times, Obama warned the crowd that “I’m going to get a little serious here, because I think we can all agree that this has been a rough week in an already rough election.” She said remarks from Trump recorded in 2005, in which he crudely described how his celebrity status allowed him to sexually assault women without consequence, constituted “hurtful, hateful language.”
“Language that has been painful for so many of us,” she continued. “Not just as women, but as parents trying to protect our children and raise them to be caring, respectful adults. And as citizens who think our nation’s leaders should meet basic standards of human decency.”
Trump has apologized for the language captured on the tape, on which he can be heard bragging that he would “grab [women] by the pussy,” but he also chalked up the remarks to little more than “locker room talk” that did not reflect anything he had actually done. But the first lady said it was much more, describing Trump’s remarks as “a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior.”
She said the GOP nominee’s comments reminded women of being catcalled on the street or leered at by a coworker and of stories from mothers and grandmothers about what it used to be like for women in the workplace.
“I listen to all of this and I feel it so personally, and I’m sure that many of you do, too, particularly the women,” Obama said. “The shameful comments about our bodies, the disrespect of our intelligence. The belief you can do anything to a woman? It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.”
“So many have worked for so many years against this kind of violence and abuse and disrespect. But here we are in 2016, we’re hearing these exact same things every single day on the campaign trail,” she continued. “We are drowning in it. And all of us are doing what women have always done, we’re trying to keep our heads above water. Just trying to get through it. Trying to pretend like this doesn’t really bother us.”
The first lady drew a clear line between normal campaign rhetoric and the type that has come from Trump. She wondered aloud what effect the Manhattan billionaire’s language about women might have on young girls, given how painful she said it had been to women. Likewise, she said men are similarly “worried about the impact this election is having on our boys who are looking for role models of what it means to be a man.”
“Because, let’s be very clear, strong men, strong men, men who are truly role models, don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful,” she said.
Trump’s history of degrading and derogatory remarks should be offensive to Americans of all parties, the first lady said. They dip below the level of normal political discourse, she said, and ought to be repudiated by all Americans.
“I know it’s a campaign, but this isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong,” she said. “And we cannot endure this or expose our children to this any longer, not for another minute, let alone for four years. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say, enough is enough. This has got to stop right now.”
