During a campaign appearance for Hillary Clinton in Manchester, New Hampshire, Michelle Obama emotionally discussed the sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump. “It has shaken me to my core,” she said. Watch it above.
Watch: Michelle Obama’s powerful speech on the Trump sexual assault allegations
Andrew Prokop is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He’s worked at Vox since the site’s launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker’s Washington, DC, bureau.
“Last week, we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexually assaulting women,” Obama said. “And I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women. And I have to tell you that I can’t stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted.”
“I’d love nothing more than to pretend that this isn’t happening and to come out and give my normal campaign speech,” she said. “But this was not just a lewd conversation. This wasn’t just locker room banter. This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior and actually bragging about kissing and groping women.”
“And to make matters worse, it now seems very clear that this isn’t an isolated incident,” she continued. “It’s one of countless examples of how he has treated women his whole life.” She elaborated:
I feel it so personally. And I’m sure that many of you do too. Particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. It is cruel. It is frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.
It’s like that sick sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street minding your own business. Some guy yells out vulgar words about your body. Or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares just a little too long, you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. It’s that feeling of terror and violation that too many women have felt when someone has grabbed them or forced himself on them and they’ve said no but he didn’t listen.
She continued: “This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. Doesn’t matter what party you belong to. No woman deserves to be treated this way. No one deserves this kind of abuse. I know it’s a campaign, but this isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong.”
