US Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday fought off fresh accusations of sexism after he coined a vulgar new term of abuse while attacking Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Whipping up a raucous crowd of supporters in Michigan on Monday night, Trump’s scorn for his rival took a sexually graphic and personal turn.
Recalling the 2008 presidential race, in which Clinton lost out to Barack Obama in the battle for the Democratic nomination, the real-estate mogul appeared to reach for a Yiddish term.
Photo: AP
“She was favored to win, and she got schlonged. She lost, I mean she lost,” he said, apparently turning the noun schlong — a penis — into a verb.
Then, with the partisan crowd cheering him on, he turned to an incident on Saturday when Clinton returned late to a televised debate after a bathroom break.
“I know where she went; it’s disgusting; I don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said. “No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it; it’s disgusting.”
Clinton did not address Trump’s comments directly, but when a young woman at a campaign rally asked her what she would do about bullying, she used the opportunity to launch a not-so-veiled attack on her Republican rival.
“We shouldn’t let anybody bully his way into the presidency, because that is not who we are as Americans,” Clinton told a crowd at a school in Keota, Iowa.
Trump returned to the fray on Tuesday evening with a series of tweets flatly denying any intention to slur Clinton — and insisting that the offending term was commonplace slang.
“Once again, #MSM [mainstream media] is dishonest. ‘Schlonged’ is not vulgar. When I said Hillary got ‘schlonged’ that meant beaten badly,” he tweeted.
The campaign trail outburst was not the first in which the thrice-married Trump appeared to express distaste for women’s bodily functions.
In August, he triggered outrage when he insinuated that Fox News host Megyn Kelly had subjected him to sharp questioning because she may have been menstruating.
Trump’s personal attacks on women also extended to his Republican rival Carly Fiorina, of whom he declared: “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”
His latest remarks drew predictable anger, with liberal site Think Progress dubbing it an “astonishingly sexist attack.”
Clinton’s team urged supporters to denounce Trump and his belittling remarks.
“We are not responding to Trump but everyone who understands the humiliation this degrading language inflicts on all women should,” campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said on Twitter.
Trump, a reality television star turned White House candidate, has ridden out all the fury directed his way after previous outbursts.
Polls show the 69-year-old New Yorker remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination.
His heated rhetoric has infused the campaign, perhaps most notably when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the US. Clinton pounced on those comments during the Democratic debate, saying that Islamic State extremists were using videos of Trump as a recruiting tool.
Trump slammed Clinton as a liar for that remark and demanded an apology.
None was given, but Clinton did appear on Tuesday to shift her story somewhat about jihadist recruitment efforts.
“If you go on Arabic television as we have, and you look at what is being blasted out, with video of Mr Trump being translated into Arabic — ‘No Muslims coming to the United States,’ other kinds of derogatory, defamatory statements — it is playing into the hands of the violent jihadists,” she said.
Trump’s speeches are often unscripted, and supporters applaud him for what they see as his authenticity and disdain for political correctness.
However, a new survey shows that those voters who have not been won over are turned off by his bombast.
Fifty percent of registered US voters said in a Quinnipiac poll on Tuesday that they would be “embarrassed” to have Trump as president, compared with 23 percent who would be proud.
If Clinton were elected, 33 percent would be proud and 35 percent would be embarrassed, according to the poll.
Quinnipiac has Trump leading Republicans with 28 percent support, followed by Senator Ted Cruz at 24 percent and Senator Marco Rubio at 12 percent.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese