Joe Biden says that Donald Trump admitted to 'the textbook definition of sexual assault'
Vice President Joe Biden was one of the first people to point out that Donald Trump's crude boasting about forcing himself on women wasn't "locker room talk" but "the language of sexual assault," Seth Meyers said on Wednesday's Late Night. He asked Biden, as "someone who wrote the Violence Against Women Act, what did you find more stunning: the use of the language or the fact that there are still people who are defending it?"
"First of all, what I found astounding is that he would so publicly — even though he was in a [Access Hollywood bus], no matter who he was talking to — that he would acknowledge that he engaged in the textbook definition of sexual assault," Biden said. "I mean, this is absolutely outrageous behavior," he added, noting also accusations that Trump stood and watched Miss Teen USA contestants change clothes. "I've spent most of my career trying to figure out how to begin to change the culture in this country so that we treat women with respect and with dignity."
"I know I get fairly passionate about this issue," Biden said, "but my dad — everybody asks, why do I feel so strongly about this, why did I write the act, was my mother or my sister...? Thank god they weren't victimized — but my dad used to say, 'The greatest sin of all is the abuse of power, and the cardinal sin of all is a man raising his hand or taking advantage of a woman.'" He paraphrased Trump's comments on the bus: "I'm a billionaire, I'm a star, I'm a celebrity, so I can go in and intimidate women into allowing me to assault them and assume they're not going to say anything." That, Biden said, "is the ultimate abuse of power, and I don't understand how anyone can remotely justify that. Now, I can understand... no, I can't understand actually." Watch Biden find himself at a loss for words and empathy below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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