He’s running a very classy campaign:
Donald Trump on Friday night attacked Fox News host Megyn Kelly for menstruating. “She had blood coming out of her eyes. Or blood coming out of her whereever,” Trump told CNN’s Don Lemon about her questioning of him at Thursday night’s debate.
Scum.
Baud
Until tomorrow.
beltane
Of course Trump is scum. The Republican base is made up of entirely of such scum. It must feel weird for Fox personalities to be attacked like they were Democrats or something.
beltane
Mr. and Mrs. Trump, Sr. did not raise a gentleman, that’s for sure.
Gin & Tonic
Remember when attacking McCain was going to torpedo Trump? Good times.
The red meat crowd won’t even blink at this.
beltane
@Gin & Tonic: If you think about all the vile crap the Republicans have said about Hillary Clinton and her body over the past two decades, this shouldn’t come as any surprise.
Tree With Water
@beltane: You beat me to the punch. They’re “republican scum”. Like the late, great Strother Martin once bragged about having made a nice living playing “prairie scum”. That kind of scum, devoid the charm of that old Strother always brought to the table.
the Conster
Trump is out of control, and this is so over every line, for everyone. It’s horrifying, actually, and this is the end of any credibility he has as presidential. He’ll blow shit up on his way out though. Bill Clinton is laughing and laughing and laughing.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t find Trump entertaining. I have never watched his show on TV. His remarks about Megyn Kelly are disgusting and so was his birther nonsense. What I find even more scary is the Republican base.
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
*cough*
beltane
@efgoldman: If Donald Trump had said the exact same thing about a female member of the Democratic party or a non-wingnut journalist, Megyn Kelly would have found it amusing.
JPL
Hillary needs to have more ads about throw back Thursday. The republicans are not any different than they were in the sixties and seventies. Females were overlooked because of their menstrual cycle.
Krugman is correct though, because they are all the same.
It’s not Trump, it’s all of them.
AxelFoley
I’m not mad at Trump. They created this monster and now it’s turned on them. I hope he takes the whole GOP down in flames.
Morzer
@the Conster:
I think the GOP white male base of angry old small-town fascists will love what Trump said. For them, Megyn Kelley is just a skirt who’s gotten uppity and needs to be slapped down by Daddy.
beltane
This will not cost Trump any support among female wingnuts either. If he is the nominee he is guaranteed to win the white married female vote just like any other hominid with an (R) after its name.
Morzer
@beltane:
Mustelo-hominid, please.
the Conster
I remember McCain scare quoting “health of the mother” during the 08 debate with Obama. I’m glad Trump fucked him up on his crazy train ride. They’re all such awful people who all deserve each other.
Redshift
@the Conster: For everyone? You have a higher opinion of the GOP base than I do.
JPL
This a an open letter to CNN, please let them allow guns. Ratings will be high and it will rid us of the parasites on our society.
Mike G
The Repuke base have been marinating in Rush Limbaugh’s angry assholery for decades so a presidential candidate who talks like Rabies Radio was an inevitable marketing move.
Trump is just Limbaugh with more money coming out from his radio booth sewer onto a public stage. It’s the exact same vile language.
Though I have to say I’m enjoying seeing Trump run a buzzsaw through the pretentious blowdried kabuki of corporate media’s shallow and superficial election coverage, even though the messenger and the method are vile.
the Conster
@Redshift:
Everyone not his base, which is really most people. The NRO type conservatives think he’s a hot toxic mess. He’s just being hammered on twitter.
beltane
@Mike G: Remember Limbaugh’s war against Sandra Fluke? Megyn Kelly got off easy in comparison.
JPL
@beltane: You might be right, it’s like a Friday afternoon news dump.
Google doesn’t seem to agree with you though.
Morzer
@beltane:
I remember Megyn Kelly going after Sandra Fluke repeatedly, so I don’t feel too much sympathy for her in this hoohabrouhaha.
Amir Khalid
From what I’ve seen, Donald Trump finding new and more despicable things to say is actually part of his appeal to the Republican party base. What others see as vulgar showboating, that base sees as “telling it like it is”. It is fundamental to the standout “candidating” (if you will) performance of this presidential cycle.
beltane
@JPL: I’d like to see actual polling. While the women who are literate enough to write opinion pieces may be outraged, they are not reflective of Republican women as a whole.
JPL
@Morzer: You might be missing the point.
MobiusKlein
@Morzer: You don’t have to feel sympathy for Megyn to know that it’s a toxic thing to say, for women in general.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah. I think you’ll see a lot of GOP men telling each other that Trump stood up for men’s rights or whatever the latest inane buzzword for white male self-pity might be.
Morzer
@JPL:
No, not at all. I think what Trump said was repellent – but Megyn Kelly has been perfectly willing to cheer on men like Limbaugh who have said things that were just as bad and even join in the mockery of their victims. Sandra Fluke is just one example. I am not going to shed a tear for Megyn Kelly in all of this.
Morzer
@MobiusKlein:
Which is not something I have denied. I simply decline to feel any sympathy for Megyn Kelly in all of this.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: My very first thought, too. There’s no telling what primordial depths Trump will take the rhetoric of this campaign to. Our most bizarre speculations are probably too tame.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Trump accuses protozoa of selling nuclear secrets to Iran in return for slut-pills…..
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Prezactly. He’s their hero, because he refuses to be “politically correct”. That is, treat others with respect.
Amir Khalid
The Wonkette box on the right has a story mentioning this GOP debate highlights video from Hillary’s team. The video even includes a moment when Marco Rubio seems to endorse Hillary’s candidacy.
JPL
@Morzer: She’s repellent and he’s repellent. I get that. The discussion though has to do with his latest statement. Not her latest statement.
beltane
Oh dear, the very civil and not-at-all sexist Erick Erickson was deeply offended by Trump’s remarks:
Seriously, f*ck all these people.
g
Jesus. What a jerk.
Morzer
@JPL:
Trump was talking about Megyn Kelly. I was trying, before you began being tediously and mistakenly self-righteous, to talk about what I thought the GOP base would think of Trump. I added, parenthetically, that I felt no sympathy for Megyn Kelly, which does not imply approval of what Trump said. I hope this is now clear.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane: Fuck son of Fuck was looking for a pretense to get out, and I expect The Donald to fire a volley of “loser!”s at him sometime tomorrow, even though the smart thing to do would be to utterly ignore the peckerwood, because acknowledging the existence of the shit gives him power.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: Just like a car. D to go forward. R to go backwards.
mai naem mobile
Everytime I hear about Trump telling Megyn Kelly that she’s been bad I think of the scene in Lady Gagas Telephone.video when.Beyonce picks her up in the car and tells her ‘You’ve been a bad girl Gaga a very very bad girl!’
Okay also too I found.Kellys blingy dangly earrings really distracting.
Emma
He’s a jerk. She’s a jerk enabler.
GregB
@beltane:
Oh yes, the same shit heel that called Justice Souter a goat fucking child molester is disgusted at a period joke.
Punchy
@beltane: wow, when you’ve lost Erick(1 + son), perhaps you’ve gone a bit too far. Or not. Perhaps his ratings double.
Roger Moore
@the Conster:
Don’t count on it. Trump is doing well precisely because he’s saying on a national stage all the vile, hateful things that the Republican base has been too afraid to say outside their narrow circles of friends. Maybe he hit a new low with this, but there are plenty of people in the Republican party who will expect him to dig deeper next time.
different-church-lady
@beltane:
Not only do I remember it, but I remember it as the moment his empire started to crack.
Heard someone say Trump’s approvals dropped like a stone after last night. Don’t have any cite for it.
g
The Republican party is the American Interhamwe.
SenyorDave
@beltane: The same Erik Erickson who called David Souter a few names that I won’t repeat here, but were about as foul as could be.
Reap what you sow. Trump is your basic pig, but I agree that Kelly would have no problem if he said the same abut a female Democrat.
cmorenc
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, like quite a few folks in Luntz’s post-debate focus group who were turned off by Trump’s performance but were turned on by either Cruz’s or Huckabee’s performances in last night’s
debacle“debate”.Trentrunner
Fiorina just tweeted “I stand with Megyn”
Dems in disarray!
satby
The same Republican base that thought it was hysterically funny to mock Chelsea Clinton as a dog when she was a 12 year old, the same base that thinks calling 14 year old Malia Obama ghetto trash and comparing her mother to a chimp is ok? They won’t be bothered at all by a joke about Kelly being on the rag. They’ll probably think it was accurate. They hate women.
Mayur
@cmorenc: Yeah, sorry to say it but Nehemiah Scudder… Er Mike Huckabee said the actually vilest things uttered onstage or off by the candidates last night.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@JPL: What Trump said about Megyn Kelly is offensive, repellent and inexcusable. But she participated in the media mutilation of Sandra Fluke that Limbaugh started. Given that behavior on her part, Megyn Kelly has forfeited her right to my sympathy for experiencing vulgar Trump misogyny.
@satby: yes, but they hate Republican white women least of all, especially the pretty ones.
GregB
A few side notes.
It looks like Schumer is getting some much needed hammering from the Democratic base. I predict this will end his career as a Senator.
Good riddance.
Also, trying to figure out who will win the VP lottery. It seems like there is a move afoot to plump up Carly Fiorna for a second go around of the “we don’t hate women, we make them VP” effort by the Republicans.
Does she win out over Rubio?
cckids
I’ve said it before, but Trump reminds me of nothing so much as a toddler who discovers a bad word, or a socially unacceptable behavior.
Anyone who’s raised kids knows when the child drops an f-bomb in company, the worst thing to do is make a huge deal about it. The kid will revel in the attention & escalate whenever he has an audience.
That is Trump’s campaign to the life. He’ll keep getting more coarse, rude and generally assclownish until people quit giving him positive reinforcement for it.
Joel
“Lie with dogs…”
Kropadope
Well, you know where the word “hysterical” comes from…
satby
@Kropadope: score!
Kay
He’s repulsive but I’m torn. FOX went along with Trump’s birther crap for a year so it seems like this stuff is okay unless one of their own is caught up in it.
Speaking of:
Turns out everyone needs some job security and an occasional raise :)
RaflW
It’s a party of women-haters and slut-shamers, so this should not surprise. Offend, yes. But to be expected.
kindness
I think we will find out the defined ‘over the top’ limit for the right wing base and I will bet there won’t be one for the foaming at the mouth types.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady: Frank Luntz, whistling past the graveyard of “movement conservatism”.
Jordan Rules
Ugggh. Disgusting, as is a bunch of other stuff he’s said.
She did build part of that decrepit house and one of the falling bricks just hit her ass upside the head. She won’t change though, she’ll just try to chuck that brick somewhere else…fuck building a better house.
Random Dude
@GregB: I predict this will end his career as a Senator.
I want what you’re smoking. Chuck Schumer is Senator for as long as he wants to be, and there’s not one damn thing the Democratic Party can do about it.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
I think most Republicans park their heads in their asses, so this should come as no surprise.
? Martin
There’s two campaigns being waged here. There’s the traditional campaign by Bush and most of the others who are being competing against each other bound by the agreed-upon-by-polite-society-rules that the political media enforce and reinforce, and there’s the campaign by Trump against those rules, saying that they’re too PC, too lets-pretend-to-be-combative, too avoidant of certain subjects. And guess what, turns out a LOT of voters hate those rules.
And let’s not be too surprised by this because Bernie is playing precisely the same game, attacking the same rules that say that ‘socialism’ is a taboo word and concept, and that are too avoidant of certain subjects.
So the question we really need to ask is ‘do voters want the rules torn down more badly than they hate Trump’s behavior?’ I wouldn’t bet against it.
RaflW
Martin: Is Bernie testing the left edge and Trump the right? More or less, yes. But one man is still civil and has somewhere constructive to go, the other is a slimeball. So I think you’re precisely wrong.
Peale
@efgoldman: I agree. He may attack her for being too close to Wall Street or ask if that foundation really is what it says it is, but I really doubt Bernie would imply that she’s too bitchy to be president.
jonas
Well, Megyn Kelly is an intelligent woman who has chosen to make her career at a network, and within a political movement, where feminism is routinely debased and mocked. So if her party’s leading presidential candidate now feels free to crack wise about her PMS-ing because he didn’t like the questions she posed at a debate, and she doesn’t take it all in good humor, I can’t really understand how it’s only now that she’s noticed the number of fleas she’s covered with, given the kind of folks she’s been lying down with for the past how many years now.
If she has any dignity, she’ll tell her network and the GOP base to go fuck themselves and start her own show on Sirius FM or something.
John Revolta
So, what was Kelly’s reaction when Trump called Rosie O’Donnell a fat pig and a disgusting animal?
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin: The rest of the field is at least playing some lip service to the “11th Commandment” of the shitty grade Z movie star…that is, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”. Trump has made it clear that, in the words of Tribblehead, he is “a different kind of Republican”. In that he’s not above attacking his competition for the GOP nomination in terms that satisfy the feral cravings of the Birchite base of the GOP.
Redshift
@different-church-lady:
Anyone saying that is a BS artist or taking the word of one without question. Polling isn’t instantaneous.
Remember when Trump made his McCain crack and the networks suggested that the final day of a three day poll showed him taking a hit for it (even though that was speculation at best)? This is like that, only with less basis. And we saw how that turned out.
Sly
@beltane: All the gold bars in the New York Federal Reserve says that Erick bin Erick will be castigated by knuckle-draggers far and wide for caving to the “PC Police.”
Anne Laurie
@Punchy:
Erick’s just hustling for a more upscale market. See my post up top…
Anne Laurie
@g:
I’m just praying our “fellow” Americans in that cadre are too old, out of shape, and/or generally disorganized to go beyond random local abuse and the occasional “lone gunman with mental problems”.
Tree With Water
@jonas: Well said. Kelley what used to be called a “media whore”. Her path crossed Trump’s (once again) last night because he’s a media whore, too. What on earth is there to be outraged about? Does Trump’s crude and crass remark affront her integrity? She has none to affront. Was it an attack on her professionalism? Again, that’s literally impossible. She is merely playing a role in sinister kabuki ballet, performed for idiots. She is who she is, and is where she wants to be. If there is a hell, of course, she is fated to spend eternity interviewing Donald Trump in it. Why waste any umbrage at all for the sake of her sorry ass?
Anne Laurie
@RaflW:
Thing is, the “left” boundary is cotton-candy-clouds Goo-Goo-ism, and the “right” boundary is fascism. Martin would only be “wrong” if he’d pushed the Both-Sides construction, where the two extremes are equally to be avoided.
“Low information” voters/non-voters want… change. They’re not always sure what they mean by change, or how we can go about getting there, but they’re pretty sure the current status quo cannot abide. Our job is to convince them that swinging “left” is a lot less risky for them than swinging further “right”.
Part of our problem, as leftists/Democrats/progressives/liberals, is that we tend to get caught up in tone-policing and purity-enforcement within our own ranks rather than going after the actual RW enemy.
? Martin
@efgoldman:
Of course it’s the same. I don’t mean to suggest that Bernie is a bomb-thrower like Trump, just that Bernie’s popularity is coming from the portion of the left base that’s unhappy with the political rules and Bernie is out there challenging those rules in a way that Clinton does not. Clinton would never mount a defense of appropriately socialist policies. Raising taxes on the wealthy is very nearly a 3rd rail that Clinton isn’t willing to touch, but Sanders is – and loudly. It was thought that coming into this election that nobody could really run on a defense of Obamacare, but Sanders is calling for much more. These are against the political rules.
Clinton is trying to win the game according to the rules as established and Bernie is trying to rewrite the rules. That’s precisely the same dynamic with Bush and Walker vs Trump. The rules are different on the right than on the left, but they’re set by the same class of people. Both candidates appeal to the same part of the disaffected electorate within each party.
And that’s not a bad thing in either case. I think the political rules are shit. That’s why I like Trump in this race. I think he’s loathsome, but I really, really want him to fucking break the place. I want Bernie to as well. I don’t dislike Clinton, but I dislike the conditions that created Clinton (both of them). I want that ended.
? Martin
@Peale:
He would never do that. ‘Political correctness’ isn’t a rule that the left opposes, and it’s not a rule that Bernie should or would break.
Anne Laurie
@Sly: Safe bet, because the Stormfront-adjacent “true conservatives” have been yelling at him about “ditching” Trump for the past couple weeks already.
? Martin
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, that’s part of it. But I don’t think most of Trump or Sanders supporters are low-information. Just the opposite. I think it’s the voters that are pissed off that Howard Dean can get knocked out of the race by Politico or whoever for harmless over-exuberance at a rally.
Part of Trumps appeal is that he does speak the truth on occasion. He came straight out and said that JEB! was too weak of a leader, citing the fact that it took him 5 days to figure out his position on the Iraq war. He’s dead right about that and he’s the only guy on the right saying it so clearly. Bush was playing by the rules of having to parse his words in just the right way or else have Fox News kill his campaign on the spot for being insufficiently hawkish or whatever. Trump is saying ‘fuck the rules and make a decision’. He’s right. Most of Trump’s support isn’t for his positions, but for his willingness to lead – and it is leadership. I don’t think it’ll last because the willingness to be measured, while noble, also means that you will be measured and I suspect that even Republicans will reject him, but supporting Trump now is a signal to the rest of the field to get the fuck out there and take some chances.
I think there are a lot of experienced voters on both sides that just really fucking hate this game and want to see the game end, even if that means dealing with someone like Trump. That was Perot’s appeal as well. And Ventura. That’s why I like Jerry Brown. They will all speak to topics that are supposed to be taboo, or in a way that is described as ‘political suicide’ yet are clearly supported by voters.
I don’t that that Sanders would be any better President than Clinton overall. Better in some areas, and worse in others. But I want Bernie to draw Clinton (and the rest of the Democratic party) out. Stop fucking hedging on OCare and taxes and entitlements.
Lisa Lampanelli
Almost yanked out a pearl necklace and fainted on my cooch.
Suzanne
I have long predicted that the 2016 campaign will be as repulsively sexist as the 2008 and 2012 were racist. Sounds like we’re off to a great start.
Disgusting comments about menopause in 3, 2, 1…
cokane
haha i love this stuff from trump. obv offensive, but that’s his whole shtick. it’s great b/c a comment like that gets the ornery-tired-of-being-politically-correct-but-we’re-not-racist-we-swear republicans to vote for him even more. good stuff. let him burn the whole clown car down
John Revolta
yanked out a pearl necklace and fainted on my cooch.
Jeez, what was it doing in there in the first place?
mikefromArlington
Joe Sixpack just popped another one open
White Trash Liberal
@? Martin:
Really disagree with your summation. Bernie isrunning the same kind of campaign run by an upstart since the 1972 schism between union workers and the rainbow coalition. I love his approach as an unapolegetic leftist. However, holy grail philosophy is uniting a coalition behind economic leftism because identity politics is icky and turns off voters.
And I disagree with him strongly and think he is stuck in the old war and proffers a kind of nostalgia that is the let’s version of the good old days.
He is no way like Trump. No comparison.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
How is any of this a surprise to anyone? When Trump went after Rosie O’Donnell, and even when it was brought up during the debate, people laughed because they didn’t care that someone who was a liberal (and gay) was insulted.
However, people who want to claim that Trump is a typical Republican in this regard are just dead wrong. The Boorish Donald has a notoriously thin skin, and hates being criticized in any way. And he has been stupid enough to lash out against people like O’Donnell and Kelly, who can fight back, and who also have microphones and even more media access than does Trump.
On the other hand, if the GOP has a seriously evil bone in their collective body, they want Trump to continue to poll well. They want him in the next debate. He has brought more publicity to what is otherwise a snooze fest, and makes the rest of the GOP Klown Kar look like wise moderates. The Republicans want to make sure that they have one, maybe two, female moderators, and make sure that they blast Trump with the toughest questions imaginable. If the other candidates have brains, they will also verbally attack Trump instead of trying to dance around him.
And when Trump walks out onto the stage, make sure to play Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.”
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: The libertarians and My First Hypocrisy. “They only good union is my union.” Sniff. I’m so proud!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Villago Delenda Est:
Let us remember this for every damn troll on this site.
Zinsky
Donald who?
Joel
@jonas: C.R.E.A.M
gogol's wife
@Morzer:
Sympathy for Megyn Kelly is — an oxymoron? You have to have feeling first in order to have co-feeling.
Benw
A rump named Trump refers to Megyn’s junk.
germy shoemangler
@Benw:
But will his polling get a bump? Or will his numbers slump?
NonyNony
I take issue with the idea that this is a “low” for Trump.
This gaping pustule has been a sore on the ass of US culture for most of my life. He’s said and done some pretty awful shit. This seems about typical for Trump when it comes to women. The only major difference here is that folks on both the left and the right agree that it’s disgusting, which means that this hasn’t turned into a discussion about how women are “too sensitive” and the culture is too “politically correct” these days.
Benw
@germy shoemangler: I bet they jump. (Excellent work, sir/madam.)
polyorchnid octopunch
@Kay: Part of what’s going on there is that Vice is a Canadian company, so it’s much much easier for the workers to unionize and much harder for management to derail it than it would be in the US. Also, too… the people at the top are not only Canadian, but Quebeckers (not Quebecois, because they’re Anglos), where unions are a far more accepted and widespread tool used in labour relations than even in English Canada, where they’re still far more widespread than they are in the US.
Mike G
@NonyNony:
If Trump were going after a Democratic/liberal woman, it wouldn’t even register a blip on the outrage meter among Republicans.
Like Trump’s attack on McCain’s war record versus the vile slurs thrown at Kerry, it only matters when it’s one of their own being smeared. Everyone else is considered untermensch, and attacks on them are cheered on. They don’t have universal standards, it’s all tribal ingroup/outgroup primitive garbage.