Feminista Fridays: Predators at the Gate

On Wednesday night, I joined Abby Phillip’s CNN NewsNight panel show. The hit received a bit of media attention when there was a dustup over a Donald Trump surrogate calling me “dear,” but that’s not what should have caught reporters’ interest.

Rather, it’s the question I asked this Trump surrogate and one that I would ask any MAGA supporter: is there anything on earth that Donald Trump can do to make you criticize him?

Nominating Matt Gaetz as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, a man who has been credibly accused of having sex with an underage girl and paying at least two other women for sex? (According to The New York Times, the transactions were completed via Venmo, which not only makes Gaetz a potential criminal but a really dumb potential criminal too.)

Nominating Pete Hegseth to lead our nation’s military, an alleged alcoholic who is credibly accused of drugging and raping a woman?

Nominating Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, a former drug addict who has been credibly accused of sexually assaulting his own children’s babysitter?

Nominating Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education, who has been sued for turning a blind eye to the molestation of young boys who worked for her company?

Notice the theme here. Just as the Bible alleges that man was made in the image of God, MAGA dictates that Trump’s nominees are made in the image of Trump.

Trump is, himself, an adjudicated sexual assailant, who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, who would allegedly burst into dressing rooms where young beauty pageant contestants were in various states of undress, who has been sued by more than two dozen women for sexual misconduct.

Did any of this, I asked the Trump surrogate sitting next to me, bother him? (Apparently, referring to a grown woman as “dear” was something that did not bother him. And neither did any of these allegations, which he dismissed as either invented or unproven or part of the Deep State or some other convoluted reason that makes sense only to people living deep in the Magaverse.)

There is, in fact, nothing Trump can do to earn MAGA’s criticism. Every Trump pronouncement, every Tweet, every action, is an ex cathedra pronouncement. He is infallible, always.

Meanwhile, there are suggestions that Republican senators, content with having gotten Gaetz’s scalp as their homage to the #metoo movement (but really because they all personally loathe Gaetz) are now looking more kindly upon Hegseth’s nomination.

To recap, a police report from the Fall of 2017 details a sexual assault complaint of a woman who attended the same Republican conference in Monterey, California as Hegseth. After a night of drinking, Hegseth became belligerent towards several women who refused to join him in his hotel room. The alleged sexual assault survivor reported that Hegseth joined her and others at an afterparty at the hotel lobby bar, where she believed her drink may have been spiked and then outside, where they argued about his treatment of women. She said that the hours after drinking with Hegseth in the bar were hazy but recalled that he took her to a room, took away her phone, barred the door and prevented her from leaving. He allegedly assaulted her even as she repeatedly said “no.” Hegseth eventually ejaculated on her stomach and then asked her if she was ok before she stumbled back to her own room, where her husband had been frantically looking for her. She reported the incident to the police several days later and processed a rape kit. Hegseth has conceded that he paid the woman an unknown some of money in exchange for her signing an NDA. Police referred her complaints to the district attorney, who ultimately declined to prosecute.

“I don’t think there’s any way in the world you can say that this is a sexual assault,” Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma pronounced after hearing these details. Later, he added that Hegseth "was accused of doing something that I don’t believe he did."

“I’m sure members will be advised, also, by the fact that no charges were brought, and that the allegations are in dispute,” added Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

“Nobody asked me about the allegation of rape by President Biden. Y’all need to knock it off,” bristled Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina.

All this begs the question again: is there anything — anything — Trump can do to make these senators think twice? A nominee for one of the most sensitive national security roles in government admitted that he was too drunk to remember a sexual encounter and yet not so drunk that can assure all of us that it was really the woman who was “the aggressor,” even though he was “visibly intoxicated” and therefore obviously not in any position to recall much.

Got that?

All this comes on the heels of revelations about Hegseth’s views on sexual assault in general. While in college, he ran a conservative student newspaper that published a column saying that sex with an unconscious woman does not constitute rape, since unconscious women do not experience duress, a necessary factor for intercourse to be classified as rape. According to Hegseth’s paper, then, a drugged or drunk woman who is passed out can be violated twenty different ways and if she does not know about it, it is not sexual assault.

Rape is infamously difficult to prove. There are almost never any witnesses. That is why so few people are prosecuted for sexual assault and why even fewer are convicted.

The fact that no charges were brought, and that the allegations are in dispute, Senator Wicker, is because charges are almost never brought. A woman says she was raped. The man says the sex was consensual, which is why there is DNA evidence of intercourse. And in most instances, prosecutors are loathe to bring cases that are not slam dunks. That’s what rapists count on.

To sexual assault survivors, hearing these senators discount these allegations so blithely must be a dagger to the heart. Under the Wicker standard, their claims should be dismissed because none of them were smart enough to record their assaults while screaming into the camera, “I do not consent!”

The Mullin standard is equally awful. What makes Mullin believe that Hegseth "was accused of doing something that” Mullin doesn’t “believe he did?" Is it simply because the police failed to bring charges? Is it because he thinks that women who allege sexual misconduct are automatically less believable than the men whom they accuse? Is it because the woman was drinking and therefore had it coming? Either the media has failed in its duty to ask him or he has failed to elaborate.

If I were a Capitol Hill reporter or a local Oklahoma media outlet, I would not rest until Mullin explained himself on this one. This is about more than just Hegseth and his particular circumstances. It goes to the heart of what a United States Senator thinks about sexual assault, about the credibility of survivors he has never met, about whether those survivors — if he believes any of them — deserve as much consideration as Trump’s picks for high-ranking positions.

Is this really the best we can hope from our elected officials? Is fealty to Trump so intrinsic to their DNA that they would dismiss credible allegations of sexual misconduct, over and over and over again, to curry favor with him? From Hegseth’s survivor, from Kennedy’s survivor, from the many young boys who claimed to be survivors of predatory behavior at the WWE? Are all these people, none of whom know each other, lying? Are all of them part of a Deep State conspiracy? Are any of them credible? And if they are, is sexual assault still important enough to tank a nomination in the Trump era?

These are all explicit questions these senators must answer. I doubt they will, of course. Most of them will run and hide, cast their “aye” votes and move on. It should be up to what is left of our media to press them on this, because this is about more than just Trump or his nominees. This is about the women whom these senators represent.

Some random guy condescending to a woman by calling her “dear” on television does not merit the column inches it got this week. What does merit scrutiny — and what has yet to receive its fair share — are questions to senators about why so many of them are so quick to dismiss survivors of sexual misconduct.

Odds and End:

Video Ask Me Anything

Earlier this week, I said that I was launching a video AMA for paid subscribers. Many of you wrote in and I promise to get to each and every one of your questions in subsequent videos. Below is the launch video, with many more to come. I am so excited to get this series going and invite you to become a paid subscriber to watch and continue the conversation. Keep the questions and comments coming!