Appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Vice President Joe Biden did not mince words about recently leaked audio that shows Donald Trump saying he can “grab [women] by the pussy” because he’s a celebrity.
Joe Biden: what Donald Trump bragged about is “the textbook definition of sexual assault”
Biden said that Trump’s treatment of women amounts to “the ultimate abuse of power.”
“What I found astounding is that he would so publicly … no matter who he was talking to, that he would acknowledge that he engaged in the textbook definition of sexual assault,” Biden said. “He didn’t say, ‘I go up and I ask.’ He said, ‘I go up and I grab and I can do this.’”
Biden went on to describe recent allegations that Trump walked into beauty pageant contestants’ changing rooms. Trump allegedly said to the teen contestants, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.”
“This is absolutely outrageous behavior,” Biden said on Wednesday.
“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,” he added. “My dad used to say that 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. And here’s a guy who says, ‘I’m a star’ — talk about power — ‘I’m a billionaire, I’m a star, I’m a celebrity, so I can go and intimidate women into allowing me to assault them and assume they’re not going to say anything.’ That is the ultimate abuse of power. And I don’t understand how anyone can remotely justify that.”
Since Meyers’s interview with Biden, more women have come forward accusing Trump of forcibly kissing and groping them. And Trump has responded by threatening to sue some of the media outlets publishing the allegations.
