Trump

In Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, author Harry Hurt III recounts the testimony Ivana Trump gave during her and Donald Trump's divorce in the early 90s. According to Hurt's retelling of it, Ivana relayed a horribly violent incident that, during the testimony, she called "rape."

Shortly after the Daily Beast article was published, Gawker posted photos of the pages in the book, now out of print, describing the incident. Hurt's text portrays the alleged assault as a reaction to a scalp reduction surgery gone wrong. "Your doctor fucking ruined me!" Donald allegedly yelled, before tearing out Ivana's hair "by the handful, as if he is trying to make her feel the same kind of pain he is feeling."

The passage continues:

He rips off her clothes and unzips his pants. Then he jams his penis inside of her for the first time in more than sixteen months.

Ivana is terrified. This is not lovemaking. This is not romantic sex. It is a violent assault. She later describes what The Donald is doing to her in no uncertain terms. According to the versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, 'He raped me.'

A subsequent statement from Ivana Trump, published on the first page of Lost Tycoon and as a footnote to this passage, expressed that she did not mean the word rape in a "literal or criminal sense." However, she did not contradict the other facts of the story. "During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me," the statement begins. It continues:

[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a 'rape,' but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.

According to the Daily Beast article, Donald Trump denied the allegations, as well as having scalp reduction surgery. Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, responded to the Daily Beast's request for comment by viciously attacking the reporter, Tim Mak, threatening to "ruin [Mak's] life." More disturbingly, Cohen also claimed (falsely) that it is impossible to rape your spouse. After the piece was published—Cohen's incendiary comments and all—Ivana Trump released another statement, affirming that she and Donald were "the best of friends" and saying that her own story was "totally without merit."

At the time, much of the political establishment didn't believe Trump would be a serious candidate, but the story did get picked up by other media outlets. But when Tim Mak was brought on the MSNBC show Morning Joe to discuss the article, host Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski provided a long list of reasons to disregard the story—none of which related to the fact that Trump was not taken seriously.

"People get really angry in divorces, they say a lot of things in divorces, high-profile divorces, especially," Scarborough reasoned. Brzezinski was even less willing to consider the story. "It's not interesting, and it's not even part of the conversation, and it's stupid," she said.

Mak was onscreen for only a few moments, which was still long enough for him to point out the troubling fact that Trump's lawyer had denied the existence of spousal rape. He was quickly shooed away. "It's better for us to thank you for coming and slowly step away from this segment," Scarborough said.

PJ_Soul said:

Trump vs Trump Seriously, what a liar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSE-XoVKaXg

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

not sure why this would be such a big surprise. Bernie didn't either, but he was upfront about it. I'm sure Hillary has a staffer who writes some. it really doesn't matter to me either way. But interesting how they can find this shit out:

data scientist concludes Trump doesn't write half his tweets:

http://secondnexus.com/technology-and-innovation/trump-doesnt-write-half-his-tweets/?utm_content=inf_4_1164_2&tse_id=INF_4ab90ef060c311e68f671fd17f1d08ad

Yeah, I saw that the other day. I actually assumed that was how it usually works, although normally the actual person would write way fewer tweets than Trump actually does, if any at all. Some even have a specific signature for the tweets they write personally so that readers know the difference (I know Michelle Obama does that). It never even occurred to me that people like this write their own tweets exclusively. And it doesn't surprise me one bit that the insane tweets are Trump's and the non-insane ones are written by a staffer. That is completely obvious if you read them. We all know that Trump isn't capable of being even-keeled.