Jessica Valenti

Our Rapist President

Donald Trump is a serial sexual abuser, and no one—not even the media—is talking about it

Jessica Valenti
GEN
Published in
4 min readJun 24, 2019

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Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

LLast 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…

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Jessica Valenti
GEN
Writer for

Feminist author & columnist. Native NYer, pasta enthusiast. I write about abortion every day at abortioneveryday.com