Trump’s campaign teeters on the brink
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President of the United States, is running a campaign that is at risk of imploding as scandal dogs him relentlessly.
It was revealed last week that Trump was recorded in 2005 making extremely lewd comments about women. In the video, which was revealed by The Washington post, Trump can be heard bragging about sexually assaulting women because of his fame and influence. “When you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says in the recording, adding “You can do anything.”
Amid a storm of condemnation and disavowals by other Republicans, Trump released a video statement in which he made an almost unprecedented apology, but added further fuel to the fire by being unable to simply apologise without calling his language ‘locker room banter’ before making further accusations about former President Bill Clinton.
As outrage across the country mounted the highest ranking Republican, house speaker Paul Ryan, publicly abandoned the nominee as Trump vowed that he would never step down. A further raft of high ranking Republicans went on to either pull their endorsement of the candidate or publicly state they would vote for his rival Clinton.
As the dust was barely settling from his first incredibly damaging revelation, though, further accusations of sexual misconduct emerged as The New York Times published interviews with more women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by Trump. In an almost endless stream of career-destroying revelations this was then followed by the release of a video in which Trump claims he would like to date a ten year old girl, saying “I’ll be dating her in ten years”.
The New York Times has refused to retract the article in which two women accused Trump of sexual assault, after the Republican presidential nominee threatened to sue the newspaper. In a letter made public on Thursday, a lawyer for the Times all but dared the property developer to make good on his threat.
On Monday, on a trip through Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump began the day urging the almost entirely white crowd outside Pittsburgh to show up to vote, warning about “other communities” that could hijack his victory. Trump is also slipping in the polls with Clinton opening up a nine point lead at the time of publication.
Trump has also been pushing the idea of a ‘stolen election’ and media bias as well as non-white, female votes stealing the election from him. In an almost entirely public breakdown amid endless scandal Trump’s campaign is unravelling quicker than a runaway train and it would take a brave person to place their money anywhere but a Clinton landslide in November based on the past 14 days.
