President Donald Trump mocked the #MeToo movement again at his rally in Pennsylvania on Wednesday night, citing the “rules of MeToo” as the reason he wasn’t “allowed” to use an expression.
When talking about winning the state in the 2016 presidential election Trump said, “Pennsylvania hasn’t been won for many years by Republicans, but every Republican thinks they’re going to win Pennsylvania. … I used an expression — you know, there’s an expression but under the rules of MeToo I’m not allowed to use that expression anymore. I can’t do it.”
“It’s the person that got away,” Trump continued. “See, in the old days, it was a little different,” the President added, laughing as a rally attendee told him from the crowd to “do it anyway.”
“I would do it, except for these people up there,” Trump said, pointing at the cameras and press at the rally. “They would say, did you hear what President Trump said?”
He continued, “So there is an expression, but we’ll change the expression: Pennsylvania was always the person who got away, that’s pretty good, right, the person that got away?”
It’s another shot at the movement that began following the publication of sexual harassment and assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in October 2017. The revelation of the allegations against the powerful Weinstein inspired many women to reveal their own stories of sexual assault, but Trump has recently taken shots at the #MeToo movement by expressing concern for men who are accused of sexual assault or harassment and saying, “Women are doing great.”
“It is a very scary time for young men in America, where you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of,” Trump said to reporters last week. “This is a very, very — this is a very difficult time. What’s happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.”
Trump had earlier mocked the #MeToo movement at a rally in July. He did so while simultaneously mocking Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and saying that should she win the Democratic nomination in 2020 and they were to debate, he would toss an ancestry test to her and dare her to take it.
“We’ll take that little kit and say — we have to do it gently because we are in the MeToo generation — and we will very gently take that kit, slowly toss it” to her, Trump said, adding that he would offer $1 million to charity if she took the test and it “shows you are an Indian.”
More recently, his attacks on California professor Christine Blasey Ford were seen as a direct pushback against the #MeToo movement. Ford accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when the two were in high school. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.
“Guilty until proven innocent,” Trump lamented at a Mississippi rally October 2, to booing from the crowd. “That’s very dangerous for our country. That’s very dangerous for our country. And I have it myself all the time. But for me, it’s like a part of the job description.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, at least 13 women accused Trump of misbehavior ranging from sexual harassment to sexual assault. They came forward in the wake of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape that was released in October 2016 in which he is caught saying on a hot mic: “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything.”
The President denies all the allegations against him.
The White House — through press secretary Sarah Sanders and others — has dismissed the allegations against him as old news that was litigated during the campaign.
