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Jessica Valenti
Our Rapist President
Donald Trump is a serial sexual abuser, and no one—not even the media—is talking about it
Last week, beloved advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Donald Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the ’90s, making her the 16th woman to accuse the president of sexual abuse, and the second to accuse him specifically of rape. (Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, said in a divorce deposition that Trump violently raped her. She later walked back the statement, saying she felt “violated.”)
We have heard from more than enough women — and Trump himself — to state the obvious: The president of the United States is a rapist. I realize the usual practice is to use the term “accused,” but this column is not a court of law and I am pretty well exhausted of eschewing common sense for the sake of niceties.
How much more proof do we possibly need?
Carroll’s vivid and disturbing account not only tracks with what Trump himself has been recorded saying about sexually assaulting women but with the accusations of abuse made by multiple other women.
Women like Jill Harth, who accused the president of an attempted rape, or Kristin Anderson, who says Trump put his hand up her skirt and had to be pushed away. Women like Karena Virginia, who claims Trump groped her breast, or Jessica Leeds, who sat next to Trump on a flight when he grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hands up her skirt.
There was the 21-year-old pageant contestant he forcibly kissed on the mouth, and the teenage girls, who Trump deliberately barged in on as they were changing. (In fact, when you count sexual harassment as well as physical abuse, the president has actually been accused of mistreating over two dozen women.)
I could go on, but I don’t think I have to. Because the truth is that we all know by now that the president is a serial sexual abuser. The issue is that no one with power seems very interested in holding him accountable for it.
In the hours after New York magazine published Carroll’s story, for example, there was little to no media coverage. When the New York Times finally wrote about the accusation, the article was published in…
