Trump has become such an easy target that even a First Lady can join the fray without any fear of significant fallout. But Michelle Obama’s heartfelt shredding of the GOP nominee in a New Hampshire campaign speech on Thursday rose above politics, while well serving her party’s political aims.
Still, I wonder if the obsessive focus on loser Trump by Democratic leaders and supporters is distracting their attention and energy from the next job: regaining control of the House and Senate.
Michelle Obama
- “I can’t stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted.”
- “This was not just 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.”
- “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’s frightening, and the truth is — it hurts.”
- “So many have worked for so many years to end this kind of violence and abuse and disrespect but here we are in 2016 and we’re hearing these exact same things every day on the campaign trail. We are drowning in it.”
- “Too many are treating this as just another day’s headline. As if our outrage is overblown or unwarranted. As if this is normal. Just politics as usual … This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable.”
- “This isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong … Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say ‘enough is enough.’ This has got to stop right now.”
- “To dismiss this as everyday locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.”
- “Strong men, men who are truly role models, don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful.”
- “We’re telling our sons that it’s OK to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We’re telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country.”
- “If we have a president who routinely degrades women, who brags about sexually assaulting women, then how can we maintain our moral authority in the world?”
Secretary of State John Kerry is promising retaliation against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cyber meddling in the American presidential election. Kerry said the U.S. means to “put the people doing it on a notice that they’re not, quote, ‘getting away with it’ for free, as well as to put states on notice that we’re serious when we say they need to take every measure possible to guarantee the integrity of our elections. And we will and can respond in ways that we choose to at the time of our choice.”